Polls are what this program is all about. Creating and editing polls is very simple and uses web-based forms.
Creating a new poll is as simple as following the "New Poll" link at the top of the page within gpolladmin.
You will see a sample poll, and a large form beneath it. Information on the settings in this form can be found at the edit poll help section below. The sample poll that you will see is composed of random answers, and is there to give you an idea of what your new poll will look like, after it has been created and people have started to vote in it. Once the poll has become active and has votes, you will see the actual values for the poll and not the random answers when editing the poll.
You must preview your new poll at least one time before finalizing it. You can preview it as many times as you need to before creating the poll. (You probably want to jump down to the edit poll section.)
When you select the "Edit poll" link at the top of the page within gpolladmin, you will see a form showing all of your polls. Click on the number of the poll to edit it. The form has the following sections:
# [poll number]
Each poll appears in reverse numeric order: the newest polls appear
at the top of the list. The number is also a submit button that
allows you to edit that poll: see the
edit poll page section.
Images/Borders
A miniature representation of your poll is shown here. It goes
not show the actual data or number of answers, but does show
the orientation (horizontal or vertical), borders, and the
images used for the poll.
Type
Polls are one of
three types: radio, checkbox, and numeric.
Images
Does the poll use images to make the colored bars?
Question
The question asked by this poll.
View?/Vote?
Is the poll currently viewable? Are people currently allowed
to vote in this poll? This is not related to the closedate:
a poll that is "closed" due to the date may still be listed
as viewable and voteable.
Closing date
When does this poll close, if ever?
Erase votes
This will erase all the votes from a poll. You will get a
confirmation message before the votes are erased. Use this
with caution: all votes erased cannot be recovered.
Delete poll
The entire poll will be deleted, including all votes and
logging entries. A confirmation message will appear before
the poll is actually erased.
When you create or edit a poll, you will see a page with a representation of the poll, and a large form beneath it. The poll will have the current votes for the poll, or some random votes if you are just creating it.
The edit poll page uses javascript to allow you to see the image changes to the bars and shadows right away, without having to select the preview button each time. It is highly recommended that you turn javascript on for this page: the instant previewing can save you a lot of time.
The form beneath the poll has the following sections. Note that once a poll has been created and people have voted in it, the type of poll, the question, and the answers may not be changed.
This is the image to use for the first bar in the poll. This must be set:
all other bars and shadows are optional. Use the
images section to
view, edit, or add to these images. The defaults for all four images
(first bar, second bar, first shadow, second shadow) are also set in
the Images section.
If you want to use two different images in
the poll, alternating between the two, use this to set the second
image. If you wish to use the same image for all bars in the poll,
you can either set this to the same value as the first bar image,
or simply set the image to "none." Setting it to "none" is better,
because it actually forces it to have the same image as the
first bar, even if the first bar image changes.
(optional) First shadow image:
Each bar can also have a shadow, giving it
a three-dimensional look. Set this to "NONE" to turn this shading
off. Using "Black" is a good choice for the shadow on most bar
images.
(optional) Second shadow image:
This is the shadow for the second bar. If this is set to "none", it
will do whatever the first shadow bar does.
Currently, there are three types of polls available, radio, checkbox, and number:
This is the question that the poll is asking. Keep it
short and to the point, and try not to add any bias. Formulating
a proper question can be very tricky. Questions must be 200 characters
or less.
Note: The question cannot be changed once people have
started voting!
The answers to the polls should go here, one per line.
Keep these as short as possible, and try to make them all about
the same size. Numeric polls must have exactly two answers: a minimum
and a maximum number that the poll will accept.
Note: The answers cannot be changed once people have
started voting!
Polls can be viewed using graphical images (the traditional way) or without graphics, by using HTML and color codes. Both have their advantages, but you should always use graphics unless you have a very good reason not to. A quick comparison of the two:
Your poll may be the traditional horizontal, or you can turn it
sideways and make it vertical. Which one looks better depends on
the number of answers in the poll and many other factors: experiment
and see which looks best for each poll. Horizontal polls
have a set width, and may cause the user to have to scroll the
page from top to bottom to see all the answers. Vertical polls
have a fixed width, and the user may have to scroll the
page from left to right to see all the answers. One small note:
due to the limitations of HTML, vertical polls do not have
the bottom shade bar, but this is not very noticeable.
Should the inner table have a
border? An inner border causes lines to appear between
each answer, dividing them into separate areas. The default is
"Yes", and polls generally look better with an inner border.
Should the entire poll have a border around the outside of it?
The default is "Yes", but you may prefer it without one: it
is a close call, so test it out both ways.
If "Yes", then we will show a list at the
bottom of the page with links to all other open polls
in the same database. The default is to not show other polls.
This is the "length" of the image bars, setting how wide (horizontal polls)
or how high (vertical polls) they appear. This is basically the maximum size
in pixels of the largest bar, upon which the size of all the other bars is
determined. A setting of around 650 (the default) is good for most browsers,
but you can safely go a little higher. The smaller this number is, the
smaller and more compact the poll will appear. This value must be between
2 and 2000.
This is the "thickness" of the image bars, setting how high (horizontal polls)
or how wide (vertical polls) they appear. Unlike the bar stretch, this
number is the same for all the bars in the poll. A value of 30 (the default)
is about average. but you may want to make the number higher if you have only
2 or 3 answers, or lower if you have many (more than 8). This value must
be between 2 and 200.
This is the background color of the page
for the poll. This can be set to the color of any
one-pixel gif in the database. If the exact color you
want is not available, you can
create it in the images
section. This is the only setting that is completely ignored
when using
Server Side Includes (SSI).
This is the background color of the table
that holds the poll answers and results. As above, it can be
set to any one-pixel gif.
This will allow a link to appear at the bottom of the poll, which
will allow people to see the results of the poll without having
to vote first. The default is "on." This option has no effect if the
"always view results" or "never view results" option is on. The actual
message displayed is set by the
$GP{VIEWRESULTS} variable
in the gpoll script.
If this is set, then anyone who votes will automatically see the
results after they have voted. The default is "on." This option has no
effect if the "always view results" or "never view results" option is on.
When this option is on, the results of the poll are always
visible right away, regardless of any other settings. The default is "off."
Both this and the "never view" option cannot be set at the same time.
This option never lets users see the results of the poll, regardless
of any other settings. The default is "off." Both this and the "always view"
option cannot be set at the same time.
If this is off, then nobody is allowed to vote in the poll. They can still
view the results, if the "always view" option is on. If not, then the poll
is effectively closed.
This allows the setting of a cookie to track
which people have already voted in the poll. The name of
the cookie and how long it lasts are set in the gpoll program.
(see the $GP{COOKIENAME}
and other nearby variables). The default cookie name is "gpollvoted"
and contains a comma-separated numeric list of polls in which the user
has already voted.
This will check the IP of the
person who is voting and see if they have recently voted.
This does cause some overhead for the lookup to be done,
but the process is fairly optimized and will probably not
impact things noticeably. It is highly recommended that
you keep this on, to avoid ballot stuffing.
This is how far back we check
if a particular IP has already voted. Another way to look
at this is how many hours must pass before a person is
allowed to vote again. Since some people (such as AOL users)
share IP addresses, you may want to keep this at a reasonable
level. Higher values will make the polls more reliable and
more resistant to fraud, but at the cost of potentially
not allowing some people to vote. It's a tricky thing.
I would not recommend going lower than 8 hours. 24 is a
fairly good number to use, and 72 (the default) is even
better. The whole process of tracking IPs has a host of
problems (and is oversimplified here), so basically just set
this to something reasonable and hope for the best.
The maximum value is 131400, which is five years.
If you wish the poll to close at a
certain date, enter the date here as the year, then the month,
then the day, in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Enter a 0 if you do not wish
the poll to have a closing time. The time and date are pulled from the
database, so the date applies to whatever time zone the database is
using.
This indicates whether or not to show the closing date at the
bottom of the poll. The date will appear similar to this:
this poll closes: Wednesday, September 22, 2013
If this is set and no closing date has been set, the message
No closing date has been set
will appear. (The above are the defaults of the variables
$GP{SHOWCLOSEDATE} and
$GP{NOCLOSEDATE},
which you are free to change)
This will make an entry in the database
anytime that someone attempts something illegal, such as
invalid votes, trying to vote twice, voting for two things
in a radio poll, etc. It is highly recommended that you keep
this enabled. You can view the log activity by using the
Security section.
Display total number for each answer?
If set, this will
display the exact number of votes that each answer received.
Display percentage for each answer?
If set, this will show what percentage each answer is of the total.
Show grand total at the bottom?
If set, this will show the total number of votes at the bottom of the poll.
Show people voting for "checkbox" polls?
If set, this
will show the total number of voters (not votes) for checkbox
polls. Since these types of polls allow people to vote for
more than one thing, there may be more votes than voters.
Show average answer on numeric polls?
This will generate an average on numeric polls and display it
at the bottom. This also works for radio polls which only have
numbers as answers.
Show standard deviation on numeric polls?
This will compute the standard deviation and display it below the
average. This cannot be displayed unless the average is being
shown as well.
This is the HTML code that appears at the bottom of the poll that
will allow people to return to the page they came from. You can also
put your standard navigational menu here. The maximum length is
500 characters.
This button only appears on already existing polls, and allows you to
create a new poll using an older poll as a template. This is handy if you
do not want to change all your preferences again, but simply want
something that looks and acts like an existing poll. You could even create
a poll that is never open to the public that is used as a "template poll"
used to create your new polls. The new retains everything the old
one had except for the question and the answers.