Hi,

Like Tiffany, I like forms because you can build data validation into them.

But I also agree with Bennet that there is an irreducible human
factor; so culture and processes have to come into play.

<anecdote scope="not reproducible research">
I once used online form builder Wufoo and was disappointed they didn't
have a type for IP addresses; so I started building an app in Django,
even though it was totally overkill.  Then I lost that job so it
wasn't an issue any more.
</anecdote>

Cheers,
Marianne

On Mon, Aug 29, 2016 at 4:18 AM, Raniere Silva <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi,
>
>> Emily Jane asked a good question about what are the other options, aside from
>> Excel, Libre Office, or text editors as a means for data entry.
>>
>> Forms, whose output can later be accessed as tabular data (e.g., CSV), are a
>> solution I have used and liked. Proprietary database software, such as
>> Filemaker Pro exists, and from my experience, is fairly user friendly. For 
>> open
>> source options, I would use Google forms, or if you want an option that 
>> doesn’t
>> have to be hosted on the web, you could try out Dean Attali’s shinyforms R
>> package (works, but is still under development) [1].
>>
>> I especially like forms for data entry, as you can more easily constrain how
>> the data gets entered (predefined columns, drop-down menus with limited
>> options, etc), compared to the free-for-all that exists with a spreadsheet.
>>
>> I’d love to hear other’s favourite tools and opinions on this topic.
>
> I also like to use forms. Something that I'm using now is validity of
> cell contents on LibreOffice,
> https://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Validity_of_Cell_Contents,
> but I need to keep my data on LibreOffice format rather than CSV.
>
> Raniere
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