I am quite sure everyone can understand the amount of work involved in the current rewriting and the need to focus and set the scope for development at a realistic level.
One of the aspects that I currently consider not needed is the development of an editor. Power users will each have their own preference for an editor and for the EpiData Manager we can optimise usage of the clipboard instead of developing a new editor.
Another issue is the need for documentation tools. My current understanding is that we do need: - double entry verification (comparing two files and showing differences) - count by id function (show a list of how many times a given id is contained in a number of files) - data verification according to controls built into a given data file. e.g. whether all mustenter, range and value label definitions are met - verification of keys (unique) and listing of observations not meeting the defined key
And I also think these should be part of the Manager, whereas other functions such as: codebook, listing and viewing data should be part of analysis.
Comments on these aspects and the announced development phase sequence are welcomed on this list.
The next development phases are: a. Prevent double naming of fields on a dataform b. Develop first test release of a dedicated Entry Client. c. Add timed backup and date named zip file copy to Entry Client function. d. Add control of entry (mustenter, range, value labels) to Entry Client. e. Add multilanguage capability to dataform definition and entry client.
regards Jens Lauritsen EpiData Association