Thread: Polls and its docs

The doc page in HELP really doesn't cover Polls in ver 8 very well.
Does anyone have information how the categories work which I could have found out by making the (!POLL!) token work. Is there a trick to placing the token? I tried in the template file and it didn't show up.

Try to place the token (!POLL!) under this line:

<div class="leftNav" id="helpbox">(!Topic Name="helpbox"!)</div>

on your template.ascx file and reset your cache and IIS.

Make sure that you have set up everything with your Poll settings, please refer to this manual

Check if this works for you.

If I have to put a token into my template, then why does the admin setup have categories to be assigned?

I don't clearly understand what you're trying to achieve here, please elaborate your request; but as far as I can see, you only want to activate the poll, then that's the only procedure. Simply, place (!POLL!) anywhere on your template.ascx and that's it.

*Poll Name:
Expires On:
*Poll Sort Order: SELECT ONE As WrittenAscendingDescending
*Published: Yes No
*Anons Can Vote: Yes No
Category(s): here there are check boxes for all the categories. Why?

In order for you to indicate where you want your poll to appear on those categories and sections.

Polls show up on the template pages when the choosen categories appear. Once the poll is answered it disappears and cannot be answered twice by the same person.
Can polls be placed in the checkout pages? Or even the home page?
Richard

Well, if there's really a need for such behavior you could give this procedure a shot:

Note: This can only be done if you have the source code...

Project: AspDotNetStorefrontCommon
Class: Parser.cs
Method: BuildPageDynamicTokens

Add the highlighted part:

Code:

                if (AppLogic.AppConfigBool("Polls.Enabled"))
                {
                    String PollString = String.Empty;
                    int CategoryID = CommonLogic.QueryStringUSInt("categoryid");
                    int SectionID = CommonLogic.QueryStringUSInt("sectionid");

                    // polls are assigned to specific categories or sections via Admin > Misc > More > Manage Polls
                    // they are not displayed on non-category or non-section pages. These include product, topic, home, and checkout pages.

                    if (CategoryID != 0 || SectionID != 0)
                    {
                        PollString = AppLogic.GetPollBox(ThisCustomer.CustomerID, ThisCustomer.IsRegistered, SkinID, 0, CategoryID, SectionID, false, ThisCustomer.LocaleSetting);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        PollString = AppLogic.GetPollBoxForAllPages(ThisCustomer.CustomerID, ThisCustomer.IsRegistered, SkinID, 0, false, ThisCustomer.LocaleSetting);
                    }
                    m_DynamicTokens.Add("(!POLL!)", PollString);

Project: AspDotNetStorefrontCommon
Class: AppLogic
Method (customized) :

Code:

        public static String GetPollBoxForAllPages(int CustomerID, bool IsRegistered, int SkinID, int PollID, bool large, String LocaleSetting)
        {
            StringBuilder tmpS = new StringBuilder(10000);
            tmpS.Append(
                    "<table width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"2\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"border-style: solid; border-width: 0px; border-color: #" +
                    AppConfig("HeaderBGColor") + "\">\n");
            tmpS.Append("<tr><td align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">\n");
            tmpS.Append("<img src=\"" +
                         LocateImageURL("skins/Skin_" + SkinID.ToString() + "/images/" +
                                         CommonLogic.IIF(large, "poll.gif", "todayspoll.gif")) +
                         "\" border=\"0\" /><br />");
            tmpS.Append("<table width=\"100%\" cellpadding=\"4\" cellspacing=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"" +
                         AppConfig("BoxFrameStyle") + "\">\n");
            tmpS.Append("<tr><td align=\"left\" valign=\"top\">\n");

            if (PollID == 0)
            {
                // try to find an active poll this user hasn't voted on yet:
                StringBuilder sql = new StringBuilder(1024);
                   sql.AppendFormat(
                            "select PollID from poll with (NOLOCK) where AnonsCanVote in ({1}) and published=1 and ExpiresOn>=getdate() and deleted=0 and pollid not in (select distinct pollid from pollvotingrecord with (NOLOCK) where customerid={0}) order by CreatedOn desc, DisplayOrder, Name",
                            CustomerID.ToString(), CommonLogic.IIF(IsRegistered, "0,1", "0"));

                using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(DB.GetDBConn()))
                {
                    con.Open();
                    using (IDataReader rs = DB.GetRS(sql.ToString(), con))
                    {
                        if (rs.Read())
                        {
                            PollID = DB.RSFieldInt(rs, "PollID");
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            bool anyFound = false;
            if (PollID != 0)
            {
                anyFound = true;
                Poll p = new Poll(PollID, SkinID, LocaleSetting);
                tmpS.Append(p.Display(CustomerID, !large));
                p = null;
            }

            tmpS.Append("</td></tr>\n");
            tmpS.Append("</table>\n");
            tmpS.Append("</td></tr>\n");
            tmpS.Append("</table>\n");
            return CommonLogic.IIF(anyFound, tmpS.ToString(), String.Empty);
        }

Comment out the following though:

Code:

static public String GetPollBox(int CustomerID, bool IsRegistered, int SkinID, int PollID, bool large, String LocaleSetting)
{
    return GetPollBox(CustomerID, IsRegistered, SkinID, PollID, 0, 0, large, LocaleSetting);
}

See if this works for you...

I would like to ask people what was their checkout experience. I would guess that this is not really for this function the way it shows the results.

Can the results screen not be shown? I found it preferable to have a choice to speed things up for the viewer on a quick survey.