App updates wishlist

[Matt Twyman]

1. Drag and drop order of photos once loaded into observation.
2. DBH measurement input.
3. Height measurement input.
4. Crown spread measurement input.
5. Health assessment input.
6. Ability to take multiple measurements and updates to a single tree over time.

I understand most users wouldnt carry tape measures, be able to accurately measure height, or determine tree health consistently, but that is data that can be validated by the community.

LOVE THIS APP
It has brought a lot of joy to my life.

[Chris Cheatle]

2 through 5 are likely best handled by the already existing Observation Fields tool for Observations.
See explanation here : https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/help#observations6
And a list of all already created here : https://www.inaturalist.org/observation_fields/

If the one you need is not there, you are able to create a new one, but please search the existing ones first as proliferation of duplicated Observation Fields is a problem on the site.

#6 would be very difficult to implement simply because there are an infinite number of date ranges that could be applied (1 month post initial observation, 2 months, 3 months, 10 years etc). It is not the most robust, but maybe simply doing it as comments would work ?

[Whitney Mattila]

It would be great to have the option to add and fill in fields on the app, though. While I know it's meant to be a more simplified version of the website, it being on a phone makes it great to fill in things right while we're observing something.

[Chris Cheatle]

Personally, I almost never use the mobile app on my phone, it is just not something I'm in to, but one addition that could be added that may help in cases like this is simply adding a link on the observation page that opens the web site to that observation (once synched of course), to quickly add data not available. It may not be an absolute ideal fix, but represents a good compromise while waiting for mobile functionality to be added or things not in the app to retain its lightweight footprint.

[Charlie Hohn]

if you create a project that has recommended fields, and then add your observation that project using the app once you have cell service, it will let you fill out the fields on the app. At least on the iphone, last i tried. I don't use that particular feature much.

[Whitney Mattila]

It has that function already, thankfully! Very useful.

[Tony Iwane]

Chris, you can open the observation in your phone's mobile browser by tapping on the Share button on the observation's photo (the share button for Android looks different but it's there too).

[Jane Trembath]

I can't find a Share button anywhere on my observations in the Android app (looking for it to share the link to the obs on Whatsapp for example). Can you direct me please?

[Chris Cheatle]

It should be in the top right corner of the photo. A white circle with 2 lines branching off to the right ending in circles.

[Whitney Mattila]

Just in case, here's a cropped screenshot to help you out.

[Jane Trembath]

Many thanks all - I've got it now - the obs I was trying to share had a light top right corner so I didn't see the share icon. 

[James Bailey]

My biggest problem with the app is how much issue it has with notifications. Turn the phone accidentally, and all notifications are permanently cleared. If you view an observation with a notification, it is blank, but it clears that notification anyway even if you can't see it. Don't let me view notifications, and then clear them, if I can't actually see what the notification is.

[Charlie Hohn]

i don't use the notifications on the app at all. Not only does it clear stuff, but it only has notifications for my own observations, which is confusing.  Conversely though, the 'power user' dashboard ends up impossible to peruse notifications too with all the other stuff that gets in there. So even on the website i have to use the little bubble and open a lot of tabs. Kinda a pain but i just figured i had more notifications than everyone else

[Star Donovan]

I don't know if this is a a feature added after your post, but you can see updates to other's observations under Activity > Following* on the Android app (I don't see Following on the iPhone version).
It's not a push notification, but I don't see an option for those in the app's settings (android or iphone)so I assume this is what you meant by notification.

[Tony Iwane]

James, by " If you view an observation with a notification, it is blank, but it clears that notification anyway even if you can't see it. Don't let me view notifications, and then clear them, if I can't actually see what the notification is." do you mean you tap on the observation from the Activity tab and the observation never loads but the notification is cleared?

Tony

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[James Bailey]

Yes, they display no image on the activity tab, and when you click them it is given as an "unknown observation" with no details. This is obviously due to how the site "downloads" this data. Recent observations load very quickly, while those from a year or earlier may take up to half an hour (!) to load.

I also note that even if they are "loaded", they will not show unless you go to your sightings, and then switch back to the activity tab (at this point any notification that has fully loaded will then refresh and show the details).

But yes my issue is that if I view an observation (through the notification link), it will clear that notification even if I can't see it...an for older ones, I don't have the patience to wait 5 minutes or more for it to load, so it becomes lost in effect.

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[James Bailey]

One of my biggest feature requests though is to have the option to view your messages on the app, or at least tell you if you have a new message waiting. Message = the "inbox" feature, not related to observations. Having to log into the web interface on the phone over and over to check if I have a message is a little dull :)

[Whitney Mattila]

I agree! I rarely get messages, so it's easy for me to forget to check on the website. Even just having an indication that there's messages would be great.

[James Bailey]

Example for Tiwane:

https://i.imgur.com/uFDAMBM.png

The notifications are no longer green which means they are marked as "read". However, they haven't even loaded yet and I can't view them until the "?" image goes away.

[Tony Iwane]

Ah, thanks James. I imagine you get a lot of notifications due to all the IDs and observations you make, I'm wondering if that is slowing the loading (not that we want that, just trying to determine if this happens in certain situations). I just checked my activity tab (I had two notifications) and they both loaded immediately. I'm on fast wifi here at home, though.

I do notice that if I get a notification from an older observation (that's not cached on my phone) it can take a long time to load that observation when I tap on it in the Activity tab. The bones of the iOS app are based on some older code, which might be the culprit. We're working on replacing it, but it's a long process, unfortunately.

Tony

[Chris Vynbos]

Currently I'm having a problem with two different users, both are new-ish users. One is making badly incorrect IDs, i suspect because she accepting iNat's suggestions, so she is ending up with IDs of spp that do not occur on our continent. I've messages her on her obs, and directly, but I'm getting no response. I suspect the reason is because she is using the app and the app does not draw a user's attention to their mentions. Perhaps she's never even found the activity page. If a user could at least get a symbol on their main app page showing that they have been mentioned on one of their obs, this could lead them to the activity page. The app I understand from the above discussion doesn't support direct messaging, but perhaps it could also show a symbol for a message in their inbox which gives them a pop-up message saying, 'currently the app does not support the message centre, please log onto the website to retrieve your messages."