How does Advanced Poll work?

First, go to the Admin Area to create and manage your polls.

Then, display polls on your website as follows:

• All pages with a poll on them must be PHP .. that is, have a .php extension.

• If you want to stop people from voting a zillion times for a poll, you MUST include this code at the very top of your PHP page (note that we didn't on this page, so you can vote below as much as you want):

  <?php
include_once "/home/jkanakaraj/joe-kanakaraj.com/polls/poll_cookie.php";
?>

• Then, wherever you want your poll to appear in your page, put:

  <?php
include_once "/home/jkanakaraj/joe-kanakaraj.com/polls/booth.php";
echo $php_poll->poll_process(ID#);
?>

  That will display the poll specified by ID# with the "default" template set, and handle everything for you.. it looks like this:

  joe-kanakaraj.com

  Which OS is your Website running on? Linux 34.8% FreeBSD 20.6% WindowsNT 12.1% BSD 10.6% Solaris 8.5% Unix 7.1% other 6.4% Total votes: 141 Send comment    Version 2.03

That's it, you're done! The rest is completely optional!

• Optionally, you can put these commands before your poll_process line:

  # use a different template (e.g. "simple" "plain" "popup")... you can make your own in the admin area!
$php_poll->set_template_set("graphic");

  # set the max width for the bar graphs in the results page.
$php_poll->set_max_bar_length(80);

  # set the max height for the bar graphs in the results page.
$php_poll->set_max_bar_height(10);

  You could also use these commands instead of (or in addition to) the poll_process one if you want:

  # just print the results.
echo $php_poll->view_poll_result(ID#);

  # just show the poll question text.
echo $php_poll->get_poll_question(ID#);

• You can also display a list of all your old polls like this:

  <?php
include_once "/home/jkanakaraj/joe-kanakaraj.com/polls/booth.php"; # don't use this again if you already have it on the page somewhere.
$php_poll->set_template("poll_list"); # required to switch to poll list mode!
$php_poll->set_polls_per_page(5); # maximum polls to show per page.
$php_poll->set_date_format("m/d/Y"); # how to display the time stamp on polls.
echo $php_poll->view_poll_list(); # displays the poll list.
echo $php_poll->get_list_pages(); # displays the "next page","last page" thing when you have lots of polls.
?>

  Here's what all that will actualy look like (with polls_per_page set to 2):

  • 06/08/2007

  Who has gain the most weight since college

  • 06/08/2007

  What is your favourite scripting language?

  1 | 2 |  >

  Note, these links just link to the current page with poll_id set to something!
  If you want it to actually show the poll, you're going to have to put this code like this in the same page:

  <?php
if ($poll_id) { # only show the poll after we've clicked a link!
   include_once "/home/jkanakaraj/joe-kanakaraj.com/polls/booth.php"; # don't use this again if you already have it on the page somewhere.
   echo $php_poll->poll_process($poll_id); # Actually do use "$poll_id" there..
}
?>

  You can also edit the "poll_list" template in the admin area to point to a different page with that code.

  Here's an example of what that code will show (please click a poll in the list above):

Advanced Poll also support comments:

• For comments to work, you must have checked off the "allow comments" box when creating your poll. If you did that, then there will automatically be a link to add a comment to a poll just using the process_poll command. However, the comments will not be displayed anywhere (besides in the admin area), unless you add some more PHP code:

  <?php
include_once "/home/jkanakaraj/joe-kanakaraj.com/polls/booth.php"; # don't use this again if you already have it on the page somewhere.
$php_poll->set_template("poll_comment"); # required to switch to comment mode!
$php_poll->set_comments_per_page(5); # maximum comments to show per page.
$php_poll->set_date_format("d/m/Y H:i"); # how to display the time stamp on comments.
$php_poll->data_order_by("time","desc"); # how to sort the comments. (show oldest first with ("time","asc"))
echo $php_poll->view_poll_comments(ID#); # displays the comments for poll ID#.
echo $php_poll->get_comment_pages(ID#); # displays "next page","last page" thing when you have lots of comments.
?>

  Here's what all that will actualy look like (with comments_per_page set to 2):

  nobody nobody@server.com - 08/06/2007 08:47 localhost - Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.5; Windows NT 4.0)

  This is the first comment!

• If you want, you can include the comment form yourself on a page. This isn't really necessary, since your poll will have a link to submit a comment via a small pop-up window, but here's the code:

  <?php
include_once "/home/jkanakaraj/joe-kanakaraj.com/polls/booth.php"; # don't use this again if you already have it on the page somewhere.
$php_poll->set_template("poll_form"); # required to switch to comment form mode!
$php_poll->set_form_error(array( # set which fields are required and what errors to give if blank.
   "name" => "Please enter your name.",
// "email" => "You must specify your e-mail address.", # uncomment this to require an email address.
   "message" => "You must specify a message."
));
echo $php_poll->comment_process(ID#); #displays the form.
?>

  Here's what all that will actually look like:

  Name: E-mail: Comment:

  We don't suggest doing this though, because after submitting a comment the user will be taken back to the same form, and probably won't realize they've submitted it, and may re-submit! So really, just use the link built-in to your poll!