Filtering very long lookuplist using string

[mathieubossaert]

Welcome to the ODK community @BartRoelandt2, don't forget to take some time to Introduce yourself here! - #1186 by Ollylarry

For "auto-complete" functionality over a csv file, the "search()" function works well.
In that showcase ODK to collect species and habitats localities, as pressure and threats to ecosystems we use it to query the national species taxonomy :

@mathieubossaert

Auto-completion and list styling

Our taxonomy uses synonyms to name taxa. One of these synonyms is the valid name for the taxa at a moment. Knowledge of the taxonomy evolves over time so taxa can be split or merged. Here we use html styling to show both the valid name and synonym (if applicable) in the selection list. The user may type 3 letters to choose a species or genus in the list.

And here how it is done in the excel file

@mathieubossaert

1. Choices lists from big external csv file

Our reference taxonomic list from the National Natural History Museum
This files contains more than 400 000 taxa for animals, plants, mushrooms, etc.
So we have to find a way to easily find the species we want in this big lists.
We use the search() function in combination with startswith.

type	name	label	hint	constraint	calculation	required	appearance	default
text	recherche_espece_animale	Nom de l'espèce animale :	au moins 3 lettres	string-length(${recherche_espece_animale})>2		yes
select_one list_espece	lb_nom_animalia	Sélectionnez l'espèce :				yes	quick search('espece_animale', 'startswith', 'lb_nom_key', ${recherche_espece_animale})
calculate	cd_nom_animalia				pulldata('espece_animale','cd_nom_key','lb_cd_nom_key',${lb_nom_animalia})

As you can see we can have in the same screen the letter input and the proposed list

You will fin the excel file in the post.