Hiding the location tracking message

Hi!
Some forms we use save the position of the user when entering data. This causes that every time a new form is opened, the message "This form tracks your location. You can disable tracking in the : menu above." Or when disabling tracking, a similar message appears that the form would actually want to do this.
The unfortunate thing is that this message is displayed directly above the Next button and is displayed for a relatively long time. This costs a few seconds at the beginning of each new form, which quickly adds up to a lot of wasted time with thousands of forms.
Is there a way to hide this message? Without removing the position tracking, of course.
Or alternatively, to shorten the time period of the message to be displayed? Or to move the position of the message so that the next button remains accessible?

Best regards
Lars

Hi @LarsR

There is no way to customize that message. It's an android snackbar and we display it for 5.5s. @LN do you think we should change anything here?
BTW. You can swipe left/right too so if the button is not accessible for a few seconds that should be a good solution.

@LarsR, thanks for the detailed description of what's going on! As @Grzesiek2010 describes, a short-term improvement might be to tell your data collectors that they can swipe horizontally to navigate between screens. They may find this a more efficient way to navigate forms in general.

@Grzesiek2010 I do think this interaction is unintentionally annoying. I've filed an issue for us to explore options at https://github.com/getodk/collect/issues/5454.

1 Like

Thanks!

Now as I think about it I agree that this is something we should improve. I've already investigated the issue and prepared a fix.

Thank you for your feedback. Wiping sideways is really a simple interim solution that is so obvious that we completely overlooked it.

1 Like

We have a beta out that should address this issue: ODK Collect v2023.1 Beta: select traces and shapes from map, Google Drive deprecation banner. If you get a chance to try it out and make sure it works on your device we'd appreciate it!

Works wonderfully. The next button is no longer covered. Thank you!

2 Likes