Introduction

wq is a software framework designed to facilitate the development of robust, offline-capable mobile / web apps. wq is particularly well-suited for mobile geospatial data collection, e.g. by professional environmental monitoring staff or by volunteers in e.g. citizen science and mobile crowdsourcing projects. More broadly, wq is a general platform for a variety of mobile-first websites and CRUD applications. In particular, wq streamlines and standardizes integration between Django and React.

wq makes it easy to rapidly assemble a complete data collection and management platform, while ensuring enough flexibility to adapt to project-specific data models and workflows. Given nothing more than an XLSForm definition, wq can automatically generate a backend API powered by Django REST Framework, and an opinionated, ready-to-use React application powered by Material UI, Redux ORM, localForage, and Mapbox GL JS. The application can then be fully customized via wq’s extensive, easy to use plugin system.

If you are new to wq, we recommend installing a local copy with Python and adding an XLSForm definition, or playing around with the online demo. Then, take a look at the growing collection of how-to guides for tips on specific customization scenarios.

You may also be interested in learning how wq compares:

• to other XLSForm-based tools, such as Survey123 and KoBoToolbox.
• to other Django tools, such as the Admin application.
• to other React tools, such as the default create-react-app template.

Finally, if you are upgrading from an older version of wq, you will want to view the extensive release notes to learn what has changed since the jQuery Mobile days (hint: a lot).