Important Enketo Express Updates - 03/2020
This post is meant for people that are running their own Enketo Express installation and particularly those that use Enketo’s offline-capable webforms.
A BIG change
Chrome version 83 85 (expected in May August 2020) will no longer support a caching technology Enketo has been using since 2012 to launch offline.
Thankfully, there is a better technology available that is widely supported across all modern browsers and Enketo Express has switched to this technology in version 2.0.0 in March 2020. Users will have to refresh one of the offline-capable webforms they are using to switch to this new type of cache once this version has been deployed by you. The new webform URLs will also be slightly different but old URLs will be redirected automatically.
It is recommended to take 2 steps to best deal with this change.
1. Upgrade to Enketo Express 1.86.x very soon
It is best to first upgrade to one of the 1.86.x versions as soon as possible. This version includes a change that will provide a helpful dialog to users letting them know when to refresh the webform. This will reduce the need for user support by you. Note that the (presumably) largest Enketo Express users, KoBoToolbox and Ona have already upgraded to 1.86.x and have not reported any issues.
2. Upgrade to Enketo Express 2.x.x at least one week later but before Chrome 83 is released
The rationale for waiting at least a week, is to give most of your users some time to update their cached Enketo application (and get the helpful modal dialog). They may not open their webforms every day or may be out in the field without Internet. You will of course know better what amount of time is appropriate for your users.
Farewell Internet Explorer
The switch to the new offline caching technology also means that we have to finally completely drop support for Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer users will be redirected to a modern-browsers page.
A Node.js change in version 2.1.0.
Enketo Express version 2.1.0 and onwards will require Node.js version 12. Any Enketo Express version before 2.1.0 requires Node.js version 8. This is a good way to make this upgrade:
- Remove the
node_modules
folder from your Enketo Express installation - Upgrade Node.js to version 12
- Upgrade Enketo Express to version 2.1.x or later
You may decide to skip 2.0.x and go straight to 2.1.x or later of course. There should be no problem doing that.
Feedback
As always, we’d love to get your feedback! Comment on this blog, tweet @enketo, or post a message in the Enketo forum. If you discover a bug, please let us know what browser you are using.
Past Posts
- 30 Mar 2020 » Important Enketo Express Updates - 03/2020
- 05 Oct 2018 » Encryption
- 30 Jul 2018 » July 2018 Update
- 14 Feb 2018 » February 2018 Update
- 03 Aug 2017 » Signature and Draw widgets
- 13 Jul 2017 » Image Map Widget
- 12 Jul 2017 » Enketo Customization
- 17 Apr 2017 » Repeats Revisited
- 03 Apr 2017 » Autocomplete
- 22 Sep 2016 » Single Submission Surveys
- 18 Apr 2016 » Better Exports
- 07 Jan 2016 » Pulldata support
- 22 Dec 2015 » More Markdown
- 21 Dec 2015 » Page Validation
- 20 Aug 2015 » NDI Election Monitoring
- 17 Aug 2015 » Full Right-to-left Language Support
- 29 Jun 2015 » Auto-save
- 15 Jun 2015 » Performance Boost
- 10 Jun 2015 » Saving Israel's Coastal Iris
- 19 May 2015 » How To Install Enketo On Ubuntu 18.04
- 13 Apr 2015 » Plan Changes
- 10 Apr 2015 » Enketo Roadmap
- 08 Apr 2015 » Exploring the Road of the Queen
- 23 Feb 2015 » Multi-Language User Interface
- 21 Feb 2015 » Introducing Enketo Express
- 20 Feb 2015 » Paste KML Polygons
- 27 Jan 2015 » Combatting Tuberculosis
- 06 Jan 2015 » Enketo Now Fully Open Source
- 01 Dec 2014 » Enketo Presentation at SFI Conference
- 13 Nov 2014 » Collecting User Stories
- 12 Sep 2014 » Hide Inputs in Geo Widgets
- 02 Jul 2014 » Multiple Map Layers in Geo Widgets
- 11 Jun 2014 » Distress Widget
- 23 May 2014 » Enketo in KoBoToolbox
- 22 May 2014 » New Geoshape and Geotrace widgets
- 08 Apr 2014 » Grid Theme
- 27 Mar 2014 » Divide a Form into Multiple Pages
- 10 Mar 2014 » Progress Bar
- 08 Feb 2014 » Enketo Integration into ODK Aggregate
- 07 Feb 2014 » Notes getting fancy
- 06 Feb 2014 » Enketo.org now has a FREE plan
- 09 Jan 2014 » Likert Widget
- 07 Jan 2014 » Horizontal Choice Lists
- 03 Jan 2014 » Draft Records
- 23 Dec 2013 » New Sponsorhips
- 09 Oct 2013 » Enketo Open-Source Developer Community taking off
- 03 Oct 2013 » User Interface Changes
- 04 Sep 2013 » Enketo.org launches!
- 25 Jul 2013 » Galvanizing Enketo
- 13 Jun 2013 » Approaching the stability phase
- 17 May 2013 » Presentation on Enketo for Humanitarian Nomad 2013
- 16 May 2013 » Smart Paper
- 05 Mar 2013 » Enketo starts to fly
- 13 Dec 2012 » Enketo: Why so awesome?
- 12 Sep 2012 » Enketo is now open source and will be used in formhub!
- 21 Aug 2012 » JavaScript XPath Evaluator for OpenRosa
- 06 Aug 2012 » A new name: Enketo
- 27 Jun 2012 » Quick look at Enketo’s launch area
- 04 May 2012 » Enketo’s New Architecture
- 01 Mar 2012 » Internet Explorer 10 & Offline Web Apps
- 07 Feb 2012 » Survey Tools
- 03 Jan 2012 » An Introduction to Enketo
- 21 Dec 2011 » Building a manifest with PHP
- 15 Dec 2011 » Aid Web Solutions is back
- 25 Apr 2011 » Offline-Capable Web Applications
- 24 Dec 2010 » Google Apps in Emergencies
- 15 Oct 2010 » Humanitarian Aid Browsing