Nested vs. Threading Poll
Submitted by Guthrum on Sun, 01/21/2007 - 11:01am
Just for shits and giggles, I posted a poll. I wanted to see how it worked and also maybe somebody will vote.
(ok, I did the creat new content poll. I filled out the poll thing. Now I don't see the actual poll. Where did it go?
Which is your favorite TdB tee shirt?
1999 (Black)
33%
2000 (Dark Green)
17%
2001 (Grey)
17%
2003 (Light green)
17%
2006 (Brown)
17%
Total votes: 6
polls
Although you have the permissions to create and vote on a poll, you didn't publish it to the front page which might be where you were expecting to see it. There is a special page for polls:
http://tdbcelts.org/poll
...but I never put a link to it anyplace. I could add it to the list at the top next to (or now, replacing) blogs. If you go to the link above and edit the poll, look at the options at the bottom, and choose the publishing option 'promote to front page' if you can. If you don't have permissions to do that, I'll look into it.
I didn't see anywere where I
I didn't see anywere where I could do that. I also don't see the link to the poll page except in the above comment.
see pic
I promoted it.Promote to Frontpage
I don't get any of that. Is
I don't get any of that. Is that on the poll page or when you create the page? It isn't when I do it.
I see
I see what you mean (testing it locally) it appears that the only way to get things on the front page is if I set up a particular type of post to always appear on the front page, or if a user has 'administer nodes' permissions. This is pretty heavy duty permissions, and I won't give it to everyone. I added polls to the links at the top of the page.
polls
on my beekeeping website they have polls fight in the forum. If you want to post a poll on something it goes in the forum and people comment on the poll in the forum.
Here's an example
Polls in a popup
I checked out the beekeeping forum you linked to and I see that they don't actually have the poll 'in the forum', what they do is have a link to the poll, and instead of leaving the page to go to the poll, it loads the poll page in a small pop-up window. This is nice because you don't lose your place in the forum I suppose, though I am so used to right clicking and opening links in a new tab with Firefox that it doesn't do much for me. I looked into how this could be done in Drupal, and it seems pretty straightforward, but it would take some custom php coding on my part (to add some javascript to open a new window). Personally I'm not planning on doing any custom work till the dust settles here and we know what the workflow will really be, it might turn out to be a waste of time. It would be useful for you to learn how to create a clickable link in comments so you could link out to a poll or another page if you wanted.
Polls in a forum
Well, I got a bit closer to having polls remain in context in a forum thread. It's not a javascript popup window like on the bee-keeping site, but it can appear at the top of a forum thread. The only problem with it is that when you vote on it, it takes you to the poll itself and, so you leave the forum thread. But once you've voted on it (or if you don't vote at all) your comments regarding the poll and the poll all remain in the forum thread. I think this makes a lot more sense - but normal users can't do it by themselves.
To get it to work, you create a new poll as usual (which is now set to not allow comments), then create a forum topic to announce it (and have a discussion about it). To have the poll appear at the top, an administrator needs to link it in by inserting a little snippet of php code:
$block = module_invoke('poll', 'block', 'view', 0);
print $block['content'];
and changing the number '0' to the poll number in question. Then the 'input format' of the post is changed to allow php (this choice is disabled for normal users since it's a security hazard). For an example of what it looks like, see the top of this forum thread. Note: editing the poll resets it. Before it was tied 2 to 2.
note: I used the 'comment mover' module to move the comments that were attatched to the poll to here.
Polls made easier
When you create a new poll, mentally note the node number in the address bar. For example: The Yahoo Groups poll is 'http://tdbcelts.org/node/428', so the node number is 428. Then create a forum topic for discussion since folks can't comment on a poll directly anymore. In the forum topic, just include the following code after some initial explanation of why you are doing a poll, and replace 'node_id' with the node number:
[[poll: node_id]]
and what's great about this solution is that when you vote, you're not swept away to another page which can be confusing. I might remove the link to polls at the top of the page, which is, if we use the above described workflow, not necessary.
Would you prefer the forums in nested format or flat.
The comments in this thread were originally attached to the poll itself, which is no longer permitted. I have moved the comments to this forum thread since it makes more sense here. --admin
Test it out yourself!
I have enabled the comment viewing controls. Underneath any initial topic in the forums, but before the comments start there is a couple drop down lists like those shown above. Check 'em out over in the forums - they change the way the comments are displayed. It makes this poll pretty much moot - since you can save it however you prefer, or change it on the fly. I'm all about choice, man!
I like
I like it. What is the difference between flat and expanded, though.
comment views explained
There are actually three classes of things here being combined to make many choices for viewing comments.
1. Flat vs Threaded: in flat, messages are chronological. Message just appear after one another with no concern for if the reply is to a message several back or not, threaded are chronological but indented based on which message you reply to so that replys to a specific comment appear under it and indented to the right so you can follow a conversation on a specific point raised. This is my preference.
2. Collapsed vs. expanded: collapsed is showing just the Subject lines (good for forum topics where there are thousands of posts), while expanded shows the subject and the contents of each post (you don't have to click on a subject to read everything)
3. Chronological order: choose whether oldest is at the top, or newest is at the top.
What happend here?
Nate, this is more directed at you specifically. The above coment says that it was posted by me at 9:39 am on 1-27-07, yesterday. I know that it doesn't say anything, but I'm confused about it. I was asleep at that time. My computer was shut down. what happened? Not that it's a big deal, but it's confusing.
something is wrong
I'm seeing the wrong poll up at the top of this thread. Could things be wacked?
update: the php code I used to get the poll at the top of the page apparently only pulls out the active poll. I have since changed the site to do polls in forums differently. See this post for details.
To answer your other question, I disabled commenting on polls and brought the comments that were over there to this thread - it took the date I moved it.