ODK Collect v2026.3 Beta: reference geometry, Android 8.0+, keyboard improvements

Releases Pre-releases
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We have an exciting release coming for you! We currently believe it will be out mid-July. Check back for updated betas as we get closer to release.

Why we do betas

ODK Collect betas are an opportunity to get community feedback on upcoming releases. If you have an ongoing data collection campaign, we recommend quickly verifying your form on a test device. We will keep sharing new betas as we respond to your feedback and will let you know when the beta is a release candidate.

Joining the beta program

To join the beta program, find ODK Collect in the Play Store on your device (not in the web browser) and scroll all the way down. Please don't join the beta with a device or account actively used for data collection! In particular, note that joining the beta is account-based. If you use the same Google account across multiple devices, do not join the beta with that account.

Leaving the beta program

You can leave the beta program from the bottom of the Play Store listing at any time. Once you leave, you will get the next production update when it is released. If you need to go back to the previous production release, uninstall and reinstall the app. Please make sure to back up or submit any important data.

What to check in this release

  • :world_map: Reference geometry for geotrace or geoshape. Try it with ref_geo_demo.xml (3.3 KB) which demonstrates using an Entity List or a repeat as sources for reference geometry. XLSForm support is coming soon. Learn more.
  • :framed_picture: Image and video previews in table of contents. When you navigate to the table of contents during form entry or by tapping on a draft or sent form, you will see small previews of images or videos inline. Tap to open them in the system viewer.
  • :globe_showing_asia_australia: osmdroid library removed. If you use OpenStreetMap, Carto or USGS basemaps, we recommend trying this beta. Learn more.
  • :keyboard: Less keyboard movement. While filling out a form, the keyboard now stays on screen when navigating between questions that need the keyboard.
  • :robot: Android 8+ now required. This will allow us to take advantage of more modern operating system features. Older devices will continue to have access to Collect v2026.2 in the Play Store. Learn more.
  • :blue_circle: Blue dot indicator for current location. More bold than the prior crosshair and in line with modern map interfaces.

Additional testing
You can find a full list of changes in the release notes:

Thanks to all testers for your help!

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Collect v2026.3: changes to how OpenStreetMap, USGS and Carto basemaps are displayed
Display existing geometry when capturing new point/trace/shape on map
More compact image widget display in Collect
Collect: Display media in the summary view
Display existing geometry when capturing new point/trace/shape on map
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First reactions

  • Great if there are geometries near you / where you are capturing, otherwise can't jump to extents of all existing / can't see them if they are small and not close to you. But this seems logical as they shouldn't be relevant to current capture if distant.
  • Can't yet interact with them, eg tap existing to get a label etc for basic info about it (eg is this existing geometry related to what I was about to capture or something different)
  • Seeing 'as you go' values from the repeat I think will be very helpful to provide context to continuing collection, easier to spot gaps / prevent dupes - will this combine with preexisting values in an entity list and be differentiated to tell them apart?

Will let it percolate in my brain some more. Interested to hear @seewhy's thoughts related to his paths & trails

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We have now released a second beta! One big change to note in this release is that the OpenStreetMap, Carto and USGS basemaps are now being displayed by the Mapbox mapping engine. You can read more about this change here. If you use those basemaps, please be sure to test and give us any feedback you may have.

I haven't tried this yet but I think it's possible if you add repeat instances for existing values. Those would only have calculates in them so would not be user-visible. I think you'd have to use a dynamically defined repeat count to make it work. I don't think it will be usable with much more than a couple hundred existing Entities! You can add calculates with property names for styling in those repeat instances.

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Just tried...
This is a really nice improvement :star_struck:

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We're rolling out beta 5 which should address the issue that @ahblake reported at Collect annotation intermittently lowering image resolution

It looks like we'll be releasing late this week or early next week so please let us know if you have any last feedback!

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In beta4 I ran through ~20 photo-> annotates and didn't see it reoccur, but I also couldn't reproduce earlier in beta3.

Most of this doesn't matter because annotated images preserve resolution now!!

For a 1:1.3 aspect photo, landscape capture is more strongly pillarboxed (wide grey bars left & right plus device toolbar at bottom) in annotate than a portrait capture is letterboxed (uses full extent of short side of screen, small grey bars top & bottom plus device toolbar at bottom)

For a portrait image, in portrait mode, entering annotation initially displays the image strongly pillarboxed before it rotates 90 to best fit. There is noticable lag here. In landscape mode, entering annotation swiftly rotates the entire display. For a landscape image, entering annotation swiftly displays the landscape annotation in both device orientations.

So the only downside is there is a slightly smaller area to annotate in for landscape images, but no different to before. And minor lag for annotating portrait images waiting for the rotation (any quick annotating before the rotation gets wiped)

There is a repeatable UI glitch, tapping 'Markup Image' pulses to acknowledge the tap but it has no effect, a second tap is required to enter annotate mode. (Similar to how :up_arrow: doesn't always navigate up in TOC). Doesn't seem to happen directly after capture/choose, but happens consistently when re-entering annotate. Tapping the thumbnail always goes into annotate mode.

Updating to beta5 didn't behave any differently to beta4 for the above.

I did notice the captured image under take/choose/markup is a thumb now, which takes up less screen area. And it's visible in the TOC!

One quirk of this image view in 'edit' mode vs 'view sent' mode, tapping the thumbnail image from the TOC uses the device assigned viewer to open it, instead of returning to the form, to get back to the form, a non image question/note must be tapped. Whereas in 'view sent' this is exactly what you would expect - open the image in viewer but tapping a select question/note etc does nothing

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We have custom click handling to protect against rapid multiple taps, which have previously caused crashes or opened the same screen or dialog multiple times. Since Android doesn't provide built-in protection against this, we implemented our own solution. As a result, after you tap one button, other buttons may ignore taps for about a second. Since you're very familiar with the UI, you may be navigating and tapping different buttons quite quickly, which could explain what you're experiencing. Is that what you're seeing?

Correct, we're working toward displaying media directly in the summary view. For many years, we only displayed file names (typically just timestamp-based names), which wasn't very helpful. We've already implemented support for displaying images and videos there. Actually, this should be explicitly mentioned right @LN?

That was intentional. This is the first version that includes images in the summary view, and we implemented it this way on purpose. We wanted to gather feedback to see whether users notice the behavior and whether they like it or not. It sounds like you'd prefer this to be changed, right?

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This matches what I'm seeing. If I wait ~1s after returning from annotation, the first tap opens annotation mode, if I tap faster it pulses with no action.

I think the TOC view is great, and ideally I'd want tapping while in 'edit' view to return to the form and in 'sent' view to open the image/video. But I expect that I and others would learn to tap a nearby question to return to the form pretty quickly.

That said, I can see how some users might want to do a quick review of a form in the TOC view while in edit mode and directly jump between the summary and large image/video without returning to edit to do so. So if it remains this way I'm ok with it.