Feature Request-Collapse Headings

[DaveFF]

Hi and thanks for the time you take developing this app.

I am wondering if it would be possible to put on your to do list an option to collapse the section headings within a particular form. In my situation I have section headings for each type of emergency incident I attend, ie Alarm, Property, hazmat, rescue, wildfire, ect. While my incident header, crew and summary sections always need to be viewed and filled in, I only need to fill in information pertaining to the particular type of incident I am attending and it would be more efficient if I can have the ability to only expand that section leaving the other incident types collapsed. As it stands I am doing a lot of scrolling up and down the form. With the ability to collapse sections when not needed I could view practically all data for any given incident with minimal scrolling.

Would anyone else find this usefull?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Hi DaveFF,

I agree with you to have this option. In my favourite database (all my 300+ opera DVD) I could collapse for example the artists (sometimes 10 or more). This would help to have the essential information at a glance.

Klaus

[Brendan]

Hi,

I think you guys may be talking about different areas of the app. I think that Dave was asking about collapsing the fields within the new Section Header field type. Whereas Klaus, I believe you’re referring to collapsing a grouped section header in the record list view.

Am I correct in both situations?

Thanks,

Brendan

[Anonymous]

Hi Brendan,

no I’m with Dave. I have a section Header called “Solisten” withion my opera-dvd records under which you can find all the singers performing the opera. This means a lot of space in the record view and I need to scroll down a lot to see other information.

Thanks

Klaus

[DrJJWMac]

@DaveFF: Would you have any benefit by splitting your one database in some way in to linked databases instead? Perhaps have one just for the incident with a link field/fields, incident header, crew, and summary sections. The link field(s) would go to an appropriate record in a separate database(s).

Ultimately, having collapsible headers is useful all around for this and other reasons. Just thought a reasonable alternative might be possible to develop in the mean time.

—

JJW

[DaveFF]

Hi all

I have played with linking to other databases and making a database for each type of incident as a work around but it is much neater to have one form for each incident. Thanks for your input though. One of the main reasons for this is if I need to print off or email the report either to give to other officers or as court evidence, I can print the one form and then hand sign and date it satisfying our best evidence rules within my state and country. The section headers are a fantastic inclusion in the way I have my report structured its just that if I am at a wildfire I do not need to see the fields within my other section headings such as rescue, property, alarm call ect. My property/structure fire section has over 20 fields of information for instance and I need to scroll though down to get to wildfire. While this is not a big deal it would just be nice to be able to collapse those that are not relevant to the current incident. This becomes even more usefull when I am using my iPhone instead of the iPad due to the smaller screen size.

Good job Brendan, this is probably one of my most often used apps.

[Brendan]

Hi Dave,

It almost seems like you really just want different forms for storing different kinds of data rather than just using the new Section Header field type. Then you could have only those fields in your form which are relevant to the data collection you’re doing.

Have you thought about splitting up your forms? To make that process easier, you can use the Duplicate Form command and then just remove the fields from the duplicate that’s not relevant to the type of data you’re collection for that form.

Thanks!

Brendan

[DaveFF]

Hi Brendan

Your responses are always so quick, I tried your suggestion but does not work that well for me. By having just one form type all my incidents are sorted for me by incident number and then I group them by those that have been entered into our Fire Incident Reporting system on the station with a check mark. This works well for me. I only need to look in one place to see how many incident reports I have. If I duplicate the form then delete sections for incident types I would have just under 10 different forms to choose from. I open a form and put my fire truck and crew names at the commencement of shift and then when we turn out I start entering information from turnout from station.. On occasions we will turn out to a bush fire but it ends up being a car fire or structure fire in bushland. Therefore in certain cases this would mean that I enter my crew members and initial incident information on the form for the incident we turned to, but on arrival and when determined that the incident needs to be reclassifiedt I would need to start up another form and start all over again. Just don’t have the time to do that at an incident.

Sorry about providing such a long winded response if you want I can email you my form so you can see more clearly how I have the incident report structured. As a number of other officers have started using tapforms for incident recording on iPhones and iPads it also makes it easy to email the form with included pick lists and they are able to start recording information. This is far better than emailing 10 different forms for them to use.

Anyway, just a wish list request that I would be appreciatative if you can put in on your very long list. I can’t really appreciate how difficult it either would or wouldn’t be to add such a feature but thought I would throw the idea out there and see.

Take care

[Brendan]

Hello Dave,

Yes, please email me your form template so I can see how you have it structured. You can do that by going to the Edit Form screen for your form, then tapping the action menu then tapping “Email Form”.

It still sounds to me like you want the new Section Header field type to be collapsible rather than the section header on the records list page.

Thanks,

Brendan

[DaveFF]

H Bendan

Sent through to your support email address.

Cheers

[Author]

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