XF 1.4 Poll Improvements

Welcome to the first Have You Seen for XenForo 1.4. We'll be posting plenty more of these over the coming weeks so keep checking back for more.

First up, we're going to cover the wide variety of improvements we've made to the poll system.

New Poll Options

There are a number of new options and controls when you create a new poll:

1. Polls are no longer limited to one or multiple choices. The creator can now control exactly how many responses a user can select. If they select the maximum amount, the other options will automatically disable to indicate this.
2. Voters can now change their votes, if the option is selected. This is useful to handle cases where people make mistakes, a response is missing, or if people just change their mind.
3. Poll results can be limited to only be viewed by people that have voted. This can help to limit gaming of polls or "groupthink".

The options surrounding public votes and poll closing remain as is.

Editing a Poll
These new options spill over into the existing system for editing a poll, but there are some important changes.

First, a poll can be added directly to an existing thread. This can be done by the thread creator or a moderator.

The thread creator can also edit an existing poll with some limits. If there are no votes in the poll, they have full access to edit everything about it or to simply remove it. However, if there are votes on the poll, some options remain editable and new responses can be added; the question and existing responses cannot be changed. Moderator poll editing remains roughly unchanged.

Moderators always have the option to entirely remove a poll. Additionally, they can also reset all votes in a poll without changing any other options.

Finally, if you merge a thread with a poll into a "basic" thread (just a simple discussion), the poll will be maintained.

Control Polls per Forum

Each forum now has a control over whether polls can be created in the forum. As noted in the screenshot, polls will be maintained when moved (or merged) into the forum.





That's all for today. Check back for more later.

Just a reminder: Please do not post suggestions in this thread (even if you feel they are related). Use the dedicated suggestion forum so they can be tracked; suggestions made in this thread are unlikely to be implemented.

 

[Liam W]

A HYS for XF 1.4...?

Am I dreaming?

Yay!

These are some nice changes, add poll to existing thread

I await the next HYS!

 

[John L.]

Odd, I was just thinking to myself...I wonder what's going to be in XF 1.4. Awesome that we are starting the HYS series for it. Looking forward to all the previews!

 

[duderuud]

Nice to see another new version of XF! Keep those HYS's coming.

 

[Paul B]

I have deleted all off topic posts.

HYS threads are not the place to make suggestions.
Nor to ask for x, y, or z feature to be implemented in the next release.

 

[Phillip]

Fantastic to see that XenForo 1.4 is underway. Beautiful!

For a poll's end date, we'd like to see the added option for a poll to close at a specified time on a specific day. We frequently have polls that are tied to a specific time in the future and that addition would be quite helpful.

Thanks for your kind consideration and your continued efforts to develop XenForo.

 

[Hoffi]

Great! 1.4 and this great and - i am waiting for - Poll improvment!

Thanks XF!

 

[Mike]

Yes, we expect feedback about what we've shown in a particular HYS, but suggesting new or unrelated features isn't something for an HYS thread. They should be posted in the suggestion forum. (Even if it spawns out of what you see but isn't part of what is shown.)

But that's enough about that.

 

[DFI]

Xenforo is ready to take another step towards perfection.

Good to see that Poll feature is getting improved.

Awaiting another great announcement for XF 1.4

 

[BassMan]

Like the poll features, specially per forum permission. Till 1.4 we needed an add-on for this.

Great work!

 

[TheBigK]

We'll be posting plenty more of these over the coming weeks so keep checking back for more.

*Gets a bag of pop corn*

Bring it on, Mike!

 

[Marcus]

Engaging in Polls are the most easy way to "create" content (and if it is only about voting in a survey).

Polls are very important, it's fantastic xenforo improves them !

 

[Paul B]

Just to reiterate for the last time:

suggestions made in this thread are unlikely to be implemented

The correct place for suggestions is here: http://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-suggestions.18/

Check that it hasn't already been made.
If it has, like the first post.

 

[Mike]

We do appear to be fighting a losing battle over the whole suggestions in this thread thing.

Let me just say that if you post a suggestion in this thread -- particularly if it's unrelated or is really a new feature (even off of what has been done) -- it's likely to be ignored. I don't mean that we'll explicitly ignore it, but it won't come up when we're looking for suggestions in the future and there isn't an easy way of tracking opinions from a random post in what will likely be a large, sprawling thread. So to reiterate @Brogan's post, please use the suggestions forum for them.

 

[Alluidh]

Nice to see something about XenForo 1.4 but I hope there are a lot of more parts of "Poll improvment!"
Until now it is only the tip of the iceberg

There are so many feature missing for polls

 

[TeflonDon]

Anyways, very excited to see 1.4! One thread in and I can already remove an addon. Nice work.

 

[Daniel Hood]

Was a pleasent suprise to wake up to a HYS thread. Wasn't expecting this until August really. I think it's great that focus is going into a feature that has been pointed out to be 'lacking'.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Does the new permission also give us the ability to prevent a usergroup from creating polls? We do not have the problem often, but we get a few members who are "poll happy" and try to copycat by creating too many polls that really create nothing more than an annoyance for others. In essence, we need to ban certain users from creating polls. I can also think of an instance in one forum area where we might only want staff to create a poll (such as a feedback poll and thread in our "forum business" area).

 

[Jon W]

Will it be possible to add a poll to a resource thread (i.e., has anything changed about the way that a thread is identified in the database as having a poll)?

 

[Mike]

It's a per forum option, rather than a per group option. Anyone who can create a thread in that forum could create a poll. (If you really only wanted staff to do it, you could have them create it in another forum and then move it.)

Generally, our take is that a poll is a type of thread (just like a resource discussion). The allowed thread types should be dictated by the forum itself.

Just as a note though: there is a function that could be easily hooked into to add a permission check if someone wanted to do it.

Will it be possible to add a poll to a resource thread (i.e., has anything changed about the way that a thread is identified in the database as having a poll)?

No. See above. It's very unlikely to really ever change from this concept in the core.