Mini Polls
Mini Polls is a little script I wrote based on one I saw in 2006 that is sadly no longer about. The old developer, Aidan Samuel, kindly gave me his code before his system went offline and I based my version on that cutting out some features and adding a few others in too.
The basic premise is that people have a question and want people vote on things from anywhere on the web to get a user response but it's usually awkward on things like forums unless you dedicate a whole thread to it and some forums don't have polls built in. Well the Mini Polls see to that by having each votable option displayed as a bar from a bar graph and all linked to a script that casts a vote that can be included simply on many forums as the bars are just images.
For example, I wish to find out what people think the best programming language is. I could ask and get a whole heap of responses via email and have to trawl through all the data manuall to get meaningful metrics or I could use Mini Polls to generate something like this:
Best programming language
All the bars are dynamic PHP rendered images showing the data. Each bar is linked to a vote page for simple voting with controlable flood protection by the creator and optional banning by the administrator.
On the poll page it gives you some extra data and you can now also download a CSV file (for use with excel or similar) containing even more in depth data.
To make your own poll just New Poll, fill in the form and click Generate.
News and updates
06-09-2010: Partial Fixes:
- Argh! Server went down due to Robs uber-poll of toys
- Added in static image caches all over the place
- More fixes to come when I have time!
15-07-2009: Fixes:
- Added better validation to the creation page
- Added set up for custom bar colours and fancier bars
- Cleaned up some crappy polls and added an auto-clean function to my tools :)
- Tweaked view.php to stop a few errors
- Tweaked captcha to aid readability
- Tweaked random bar colouring algorithm
- Fixed typos on view page that messed up html code
20-04-2009: Features:
- Addes .htaccess redirects to images so they can be used on more restrictive forums
- Added some more backend tools to make admin a bit easier
- Tweaked the tinyurl compression, though it's still lagging badly for unknown reasons
10-04-2009: Feature:
- Added SQL stats at the bottom of the view pages, mostly for my own use
- Added user page, listing polls created by a specified username
09-03-2009: Fixes:
- Fixed character limit (40 chars) on dynamically created textboxes
- Shows 5 options as default instead of 4 like before as 4.7 is the average options per poll
- Shows who created the poll on view page
- Tweaking bar rendering code again for SQL query optimisations
- Tweaked database to near godlike optimisation
28-02-2009: Feature updates:
- Export poll data (Currently in CSV format for Excel use)
26-02-2009: Feature updates:
- Up to 35 options now due to request
- Fixed bug in bar code
- Added message letting you know what you're voting for on the vote page
- Added username option and user stats on view page
- Added required fields
- Added 'no bars' embedding with compression options
- Added show count option to show votes on each bar
- Added links at the bottom of poll list to see older polls
24-01-2009: Stats and tweaks:
- Added stats to the bottom of the view list
- Added a creation stat to each poll
- Tweaked SQL for efficiency
- Updated banning system
- Fixed null title issue when adding a new poll
- Fixed and fiddled with a bunch of other little things too
01-09-2008: Mini updates:
- Fixed ordering bug
- Tweaked captcha
- Started work on extra options
07-07-2008: Done a few updates over the past two days:
- Added a captcha system when making a new poll to get around spam
- Increased poll title limit to 60 character
- Increased poll option limit to 60 character
- Optimised the way bars are drawn and tweaked colours
- Added top referer links in poll view