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.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

Keep up the good work!

 

[Marcus]

I hope this is fine with the idea of using this thread for feedback, and not giving additional suggestions.

Yellow parts are mostly redundant, each of the yellow part indicates the element is there to create a poll.

My idea would be this:

Now you have all the functionality with much fewer options visible for the first view. "New Poll Options" and "Post a Poll" are quite redundant as "Poss Question" is all you need. The admin sets "single choice" as standard as well as "allow voters to change their votes" etc.

- Hide optional not that much used funcitonality behind a "more options" button
- keep the phrases the same as much as possible (only use the word "response", not using two words for the same (well kind of) meaning like "response" and "choice").
- keep it that simple that its so easy to use and does not use so much space


To conclude, I would just add this button to the thread_create template:

When you click on this button, the above screen is displayed.

 

[imthebest]

Quick suggestion regarding this HYS (nothing new, nothing unrelated): please do this by default.

Way more cleaner.

 

[Wildcat Media]

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.)

That's a good idea!

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.

I think someone may already have an add-on for that--I'm just reluctant to use it (and have it abandoned at a later time). We do not have too many problems, but we always have that small 0.001% of members who upset the whole forum by creating pointless polls, and being able to ban them from polls is helpful.

I also had wanted to prevent new members (three posts or less) from creating polls, but that's a moot point now that we put all new member posts in moderation.

 

[AndyB]

Thank you, Mike.

The improvements are wonderful and will be greatly appreciated.

 

[borbole]

Looking forward to see what other new things will be added in 1.4.

 

[Eagle]

Thank you Mike, that is awesome!

 

[Veer]

Nice!

Looking forward for some new and big features.

 

[Jay]

Mike has decided never be in a HYS video again ever since XenForo became "zoo amazing".

 

[dawg]

This is great news. I plan on staying up to date and never falling behind. Thank you for all the hard work! Looks great.

 

[0ptima]

Glad to see this in the core. I can now remove one template addon

 

[Wildcat Media]

This is great news. I plan on staying up to date and never falling behind. Thank you for all the hard work! Looks great.

This is one of the few web software systems I've used where I have never regretted upgrading a version. Few if any add-ons have broken, and the new features usually work without a hitch. Thing is, some of the small bugs found after an upgrade are typical of what happens when you release software and thousands are using it on a variety of different platforms and devices. But, that is why we have the bug fix updates.

XenForo's upgrades have been about as painless as WordPress upgrades--I have yet to encounter any problems when upgrading my dozens of WordPress sites, using all different combinations of themes and plugins.

 

[wedgar]

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

This is outstanding! Looking forward to see more information on the new polls and XenForo 1.4 as it is released.

I have to congratulate you guys. You've got excellent software, outstanding support and outstanding service.

You've made the operation of my forum much easier and certainly much more enjoyable.

Thank you!

 

[Jay]

@Mike don't you think in the button "Add Additional Response" could just be "Additional Response" or "Add Response"?

 

[Mike]

You could tweak the phrase if you want. I'm pretty sure it has been that text since day 1 (it wasn't changed with 1.4) and I don't recall any other comments about it. (I assume you're mostly referring to it going "Add add...")

 

[Jay]

yep

 

[Karelke]

Is it possible for anonymous / unregistered users to vote?

 

[Mike]

Is it possible for anonymous / unregistered users to vote?

No and that's unlikely to change. It's a big change to the underlying system of unique voters.

 

[Karelke]

No and that's unlikely to change. It's a big change to the underlying system of unique voters.

Thank you for the answer.

The usergroup "Unregistered / Unconfirmed" has the option "Vote on polls" but it does not work as expected.

 

[Paul B]

There is a hard coded permission in the PHP which overrides that for guests.

The user group permissions also apply to unconfirmed users.