Saved forms with entities ignore dynamic instance names defined by the instance_name column in the settings sheet

[grzesiek2010]

Problem description

When a form contains entities, saved forms display the form title instead of the instance name defined using the instance_name column in the settings sheet.

Steps to reproduce the problem

Test the forms attached in https://forum.getodk.org/t/entity-submission-draft-shown-with-form-title-rather-than-instance-name-in-collect/57858/1

Expected behavior

Saved forms should display the dynamic instance name defined in the instance_name column in the settings sheet.

Other information

The issue was originally reported on the forum: https://forum.getodk.org/t/entity-submission-draft-shown-with-form-title-rather-than-instance-name-in-collect/57858/1

[grzesiek2010]

The issue is caused by the algorithm used in Collect to retrieve instance metadata for determining the instance name. The algorithm works by starting at the root form element and navigating through its children to find the first <meta> block. If a child element has its own children, the algorithm recursively navigates through them as well.

For example, a group of questions might contain its own <meta> block for defining entities. In such cases, the algorithm stops at this nested <meta> block. However, the <meta> block we actually need is the top-level block. As a result, the algorithm returns a different <meta> block that does not contain the instanceName.

This wasn’t an issue when entities were first introduced, because at that time only a single entity per form was supported, and it used the same top-level <meta> block as instanceName. However, with recent changes in Central, we are moving toward supporting multiple entities per form, which allows the creation of multiple <meta> blocks.

Creating multiple entities per form has not been officially announced as a feature yet, but the form converter still creates a separate <meta> block for single entities if they are wrapped in a group.