Bulk task importer needs at least minimal documentation

[tfmorris]

I'd really like to reopen #121, but I don't appear to have the privileges.

When I click on Import Tasks, I get a screen with a box for a URL and two buttons, Import & Cancel. No help, no description of the format the data required at the URL, no description of how to use a local CSV file. If I give it a Google Spreadsheet CSV download URL, it says "that doesn't look like a CSV file" when it is a CSV file, but probably in the wrong format (because I don't know what the format is).

What's needed:

• a brief description of the required format
• a link to a help page with a more extensive description
• an example spreadsheet that is in the correct format
• a description of the steps necessary to get a local CSV file on my hard drive someplace usable

[teleyinex]

@nigelbabu can you help on this issue?

[nigelbabu]

Yes, I can. I'm going to spend some time this weekend on this and I'll grab this issue then.

[gka]

Again, I'd recommend to add an option to import from a Google spreadsheet. CSV is a buggy format, and there are tons of ways to get it wrong.

[tfmorris]

@gka - I'm not sure what your comment is in reference to (this bug is about lack of documentation), but despite being "buggy" CSV is probably the most common format around for spreadsheets.

[goodb]

Just want to +1 this issue. I discovered the pybossa/crowdcrafting site today and was intrigued enough to try to deploy a new application but was stopped at the task upload stage. I did manage a successful input of a single column file from a google spreadsheet but I had no idea what was going on and now that its up there, I have no idea how to write the description of the tasks or to configure the task (e.g. what buttons do they get?).

Great project start, please keep going with it!

[teleyinex]

@goodb Hi and welcome to the project!

@nigelbabu wrote the amazing CSV feature, so @nigelbabu can you give him a bit of advise on this feature and how to use it? In any case, meanwhile it will be worthy if you expend sometime reading the docs as we have a step by step tutorial that will give you more or less an idea about how you can create an app, the user interface, etc.

For the moment if you want to create a complete app you will need to read the tutorial as you cannot create it using the web interface (yet!). If you need help with anything, let me know it. Send an e-mail to info@pybossa.com and I'll help you.

Cheers,

Daniel

[goodb]

OK, thanks. When I have time to work with the API directly I will do so.. I'd suggest though - if its not possible to create an App with the csv import feature, why not let your potential users (like me) know that its a work in progress rather than leaving them confused ?

thanks -Ben

On Thu, Dec 20, 2012 at 11:24 PM, Daniel Lombraña González < notifications@github.com> wrote:

@goodb https://github.com/goodb Hi and welcome to the project!

@nigelbabu https://github.com/nigelbabu wrote the amazing CSV feature, so @nigelbabu https://github.com/nigelbabu can you give him a bit of advise on this feature and how to use it? In any case, meanwhile it will be worthy if you expend sometime reading the docs http://docs.pybossa.comas we have a step by step tutorial that will give you more or less an idea about how you can create an app, the user interface, etc.

For the moment if you want to create a complete app you will need to read the tutorial as you cannot create it using the web interface (yet!). If you need help with anything, let me know it. Send an e-mail to info@pybossa.com and I'll help you.

Cheers,

Daniel

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com/PyBossa/pybossa/issues/268#issuecomment-11604689.

[rufuspollock]

Definitely should be able to just paste a gdoc file link and have csv for that gdoc computed from it in the background.

[gka]

@goodb I think you made a valid point here. We should stress out at some point that at least you need to be able to write some minimal html and javascript in order to get an app up and running. This is what is called the "presenter template" in the docs. It's basically a single string containing HTML and JavaScript, that by now you need to push through the API.

But we're working on making this last step easier in the future.

For one, you will need significantly less javascript code. Take a look at the code for the flickrperson2 app, that uses the new JavaScript-API (work in progress). There'll be really just a few lines of code needed to run the entire app:

https://gist.github.com/4280721

Then, we want to allow users to edit their presenters via web form, so they don't need to push anything through the API themselves (we understood that this is not intuitive for many users).

[nigelbabu]

Just a note, I'm working on this today and I've pushed some code, I hope to land this within the end of the week.

[teleyinex]

@nigelbabu Thanks Nigel!