Dear Jamie Thanks for your response to my alignment problem. Unfortunately, neither solution offered is acceptable. Using one field per line is unmanageable when you have hundreds of fields. Using the '@' method, if you can figure out the pixel business, results in entry fields that are aligned, but the associated text is scattered all over the place and may be on different lines. The data entry screens and printed forms are the public face of ED. If ED is indeed legacy EI then the face presented to the world should work properly. Otherwise, either the QES file must be intentionally misaligned or the REC file will not be acceptable. But then the QES file is a mess. It seems to me that the code can be changed to correct this problem as indicated in my original message(see below). If it cannot be corrected, I would appreciate it if someone on the development team would let me know so I can switch to something else and be done with this problem. If it can be corrected, will it be? I understand and appreciate the enormous effort that has been expended by the team. But if there are resources for doing things like import/export, pack, codebook, validate, consistency, compress, archive ......., then how can the entry screens and printed forms remain unusable in a routine, typical manner?
Steve
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DEAR Jens and Michael ,
I have delayed composing this letter for quite some time because I so much appreciate the efforts and accomplishments of the Epidata(ED) team over the years. I was one of the early users and continue to use ED extensively in our very many projects here at the hospital. My problem is that what I see in the QES file is not translated, as it appears, to the data entry screens in the REC file. In other words, the form is not WYSIWIG; in fact, what you see is NOT what you get. What you sometimes get in data entry screens are fields that are scattered all over and the allignment between the lines is comletely lost. This does not happen in EpiInfo(EI). This problem is not apparent in the sample files because they only have one item on a line. To see the misalignment, the QES file must have multiple lines and fields that use the brackets, such as date and boolean fields. I examined the header portion of the REC file generated by both EI and ED and they are essentially identical. The brackets and their conversion are the problem!
Consider the following very simple QES file:
A<mm/dd/yyyy>B<Y>C___ D___________ E___ F___ Note: the font may be changed by you email client. To see the point being made, letter D should be right under letter A, E should be right under B and F under C using a fixed-width font, such as 'courier new' with no spaces between the fields.
I have six fields(A-F) and have intentionally placed B right after A and C right after B. If this file is converted to a REC file in EI, everything is aligned exactly as it appears above. If it is converted in ED, it is not. What EI does is remove the left bracket in field A and shift the REST OF THE LINE one space to the left. It then removes the right bracket from A and again shifts the REST OF THE LINE one space to the left. It then does exactly the same thing for field B. Everything would now be out of alignment with the next line, except that EI then adds two spaces IMMEDIATELY to the right of EACH field from which the brackets have been removed. In fact, if you look at the data entry screen in EI, you will notice that after shifting to the left as described above, two spaces now appear right after field A and two space appear right after field B, and this maintains the alignment with the lines below. ED does exactly the same shifting as EI, but fails to add two spaces to the right of each of these bracketed fields. Changing the font in ED data entry screens to fixed-width does not help.
I develop QES files with hundreds of fields of all types, and bracketed fields hopelessly mess up the alignment in both the screen version and in printed forms. While I can now(since I figured it out) make these adjustments in the QES file to maintain alignment, I cannot recommmend ED to any of my less experienced colleagues because the entry screens and printed reports will look disorganized, resulting in a less aesthetic experience and more data entry errors. I must therefore either personally design every form (which I do not have time for), or have them use something horrible like Excel. EpiData is a splendid product and is indeed legacy EpiInfo because it maintains the elegant features of the latter, while adding many new and really useful ones. The loss of alignment between lines, however, sort of ruins things for me although it probably does not affect most users. If my analysis is correct, I hope the program can be modified relatively easily. If I am wrong, maybe you can’t do anything. Either way, thanks again for all you have done for the rest of us EpiInfo lovers.
Sincerely Steve Blum, PhD Associate Professor Albert Einstein College of Medicine Dept of Epidemiology and Population Health Steve Blum
Steve,
If you want to line up the entry fields and are less concerned about the text around them, put @ before the entry field. It is quite easy, with minimal trial and error, to get the entry fields to line up. In my experience, most questionnaires align the spaces to capture text and with judicious use of spaces to separate field names/text, you can get a questionnaire on screen that is quite easy to use.
We teach our field epidemiologists to enter data one field per line, for simplicity and because this produces a nice companion to the codebook (we suggest using "first word" for field names). However, I also liked the fixed font approach of EI when creating questionnaires. Over the years, we realized that data entry fields scattered across the page were not ideal and shifted to the single column (with exceptions where it makes a lot of sense).
The help file with ED doesn't say much about @, but does point it out in the explanation of differences from EI.
In your example, I tried this: A @<mm/dd/yyyy> B @<Y> C @___ D @___________ E @___ F @___
and, while E is not under B, the entry fields line up very nicely. When you add the field descriptions, it looks better. Some fields may need more than one @, or add spaces before the field name. I prefer to use 'First word' because the questionnaire then documents the field names. Your colleagues should be able to master this easily.
A date goes here @<mm/dd/yyyy> B key y/n answer @<Y> C this is a name @___ D the address @___________ E diagnostic code @___ F outcome code @___
Jamie Hockin Public Health Agency of Canada