Migrating to BOFS 2.0

For the most part, BOFS 2.0 is backwards compatible with older versions of BOFS. Your old questionnaires and blueprints will work, however, the configuration file and the method used for starting BOFS has changed and your project will likely not run if you try to run it as you were before.

Breaking changes

You must consider these to get your project working.

• BOFS no longer supports 2.*x -- you must use Python 3.7.x or newer.
• run.py files are no longer used. You must specify your port in your configuration file and start your project via the BOFS command (that command is installed when you install BOFS via pip). (You might have some success using this approach, but it is not supported.)
• Consent HTML code should no longer be included in your configuration file. It should be in a consent.html file that is located in the same directory as your configuration file.
• Instead of specifying a number of conditions, conditions must now be named. These names are used when exporting data from BOFS. See the advanced example's .toml file for an example.

Strongly recommend changes

It is highly recommended that you adjust these parts of your project.

• The recommended format for the config file is now .toml instead of .cfg. The .cfg file was really a Python file in disguise. All examples and documentation moving forward will be in this format. The .toml file syntax is very similar to what should be in your .cfg file. Most lines should be the same with the exception of your PAGE_LIST. See the advanced example's .toml file for an example.

Changes

• The start_mturk page is now called external_id (but start_mturk will still work).
• The prompt on the external_id page can now be configured.
• Configuration options for completion codes. Can now be auto generated, a static pre-defined code, or no code at all.
• Can now specify an outgoing URL, to redirect participants after they have completed the study.
• If PROLIFIC_PID is passed in as a URL parameter (i.e., via /?PROLIFIC_PID=...), a session variable will be set and that value will show up on the /external_id page.
• Conditions are now defined differently. They now are given labels and can be enabled/disabled.
• Changes to work with latest SQLAlchemy
• Consent text is now read in from a separate .html file instead of from the configuration.
• Configuration can now be defined inside of a .toml or .json file.
• The parent folder of projects now no longer needs to be app.

See also the changes for past versions here.