Advanced polling

[Nick(NR)]

I'm all for option 2 as it would open the window a little wider and allow more air through it
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[admin (no pm's please)]

I think the second option, using a bbcode system is appealing. With bbcodes it would work like the attach file option, allowing many polls to be included.

This would also open the door to allowing some portals to be shown in posts.

I think it would also have to be web2.0 based for better interaction.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Trying to get back on with this, and the first notable thing is that web2.0 enabling is liable to add a one of javascript load of 16kb, this is reasonably trivial

The main issue would be the problem that portals are defined after the header of the page, and therefore too late for them to define their web2.0 functions.

I think the way round this is to define some generic portal web2.0 functions where the name of the portal will be passed as part of the function. This will need a bit of a framework around it, this is the sort of area that done badly would be fatal for security  
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[admin (no pm's please)]

The next question is database changes.

If we are to keep our touch light, then it does mean we have to stick with polls being a secret ballot. A bit of a shame but livable.

We could avoid database changes at all and override the topic_vote flag, it has plenty of spare capacity. But this would be a little cheapskate, one extra field in the vote_desc table is not exactly wasteful, and it keeps clean database compatibility.

That flag can contain details like:

1) multiple choice allowed.
2) poll posted as bbcode.

I would have rather liked new forums to see the new polling feature, but if it is to appear in a new topic it means using a default poll portal template in place of posting_poll_body.tpl and that could have cosmetic issues. So this may have to be something people have to enable
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[admin (no pm's please)]

hmm, a topic and a single poll are rather linked at the hip, our polls if we are to allow multiple polls in a topic will have to detach that link and use the portals database record to give details on who owns the poll.

It is certainly doable, but the more the code removes itself from the original polling code, the more risk there is of bugs effecting old polls and the less point there is in choosing to use the old structures with there limitations  
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[admin (no pm's please)]

I am going to call this a case of cup half full, rather than half empty.

I have come up with a way of allowing multiple choice votes without template edits.

So this bit of development will have seen the ability to post portals, and multiple choice voting without pain.

It will also have seen but not used another step in the web2.0 direction.

What it won't do is multiple polls per post, or web2.0 polls.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

Some testing still needs doing, but multiple choice polls should now work on any template.

On some templates the option to set a multichoice poll may not be quite right, but a template edit can fix that.

Probably a Saturday install.
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[admin (no pm's please)]

database upgrades are now in place on all forums.
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