Community Polls runs on most of the systems/platformshowever the below system configuration is recommended.

Installing the main component:

1. Download the component and its supporting extensions from CoreJoomla
2. Login to administration control panel of the website on which you wish to install the extension
3. Select Extensions->Install/Uninstall on the main menu
4. Click on Browse and select the main component zip file you have downloaded and click open
5. Now click Upload file & Install This will install the component.
6. This procedure is applicable for updating the component as well.

If you are updating the component to the latest version, you need not uninstall the older version. Just follow the above procedure and install the update package. The installer will automatically updates your extension. Data in your database tables will be retained.

Please login to administration control panel and check the configuration options of the extension once the update is finished.

Installing Alpha User Points plugin:

1. Download the plugin from CoreJoomla
2. Login to administration control panel
3. Go to Alpha User Points component from the main menu
4. Click on plugins button
5. Click Browse and select the plugin zip file you have downloaded and click open to choose the file
6. Click Upload file and Install button.

This will install two plugins, one for awarding points when user submit poll and other for awarding points when user cast his vote.

Please go to Community Polls extension configuration options and configure the Points sytem as Alpha User Points and the points as desired.

Installing JomSocial plugin:

The JomSocial plugin is bundled with the main component. So you need not install anything seperately.

1. Go to JomSocial->User Points on your Administration Control Panel components
2. Click on Rule Scan button on toolbar.

Installing

Please refer the installation instructions here

Configuring

The next step after installing and before using Community Polls is to configure the basic options that are must needed by the component. Please do not access the component or create menu item for front-end before configuring the necessary options.

To configure go to Admin Control Panel -> Components -> Community Polls -> Configuration

The configuration options are saperated into tabs for easily understanding the options available. Here is the complete description about the options:

General Configuration

Show Categories: Select Yes to show categories list above the polls list on front-end.Select No to hide them.

Time Before Cookie Expires: How many days you want to keep the cookie active on user's machine so that the poll he voted on will show as voted. This does not have any effect on Registered users as their votes recorded in the database.

Allow Guest Voting: Select Yes to allow guests to voteon polls else select No

Allow Guest Poll: Select Yes to allow guests to create polls else select No

Limit poll:The number of polls you want to allow the users to create per day. Type 0 for unlimited polls per user per day.

Polls Moderation: Select Enabled for moderation of polls created by any user, Disabled for no moderation and Guest Polls Only for polls created by only guests.

Description of the Poll: You can force the user to enter description of the poll apart from title. Select Mandatoryon this option for that. Select optional for users to decide whether to give description or not.

Minimum Character: Minimum number of characters required for the description column.

User Permission: Select Yes to allow users to unpublish the polls created by them else No.

Notify User: Select Yes to allow an email sent to the user when his poll is approved. Applicable when poll moderation is enabled.

Sender Email: Sender Email address

Sender Name: Sender Name

Title of the approval mail: Title of the mail that is sent when the poll is approved.

Body of the approval mail: Body of the mail sent on approved poll

Title of the disapproval mail: Title of the mail that is sent when the poll is disapproved.

Body of the disapproval mail: Body of the mail sent on disapproved poll

Third Party Integration

Comment System: Select the comment system you want to use. Currently available: JomComment and JComments. Select none to not use commenting on polls.

Points System: Select the points system to be used. Award the users with points for creating and voting polls. Available: JomSocial Points and Alpha User Points. Select None to not use any points system.

Points For Polls: If selected the points system above,give the number o points for creating polls here.

Points For Voting: Give the number of points here for voting on polls.

JomSocial Poll Activity: Select Yes to enable JomSocial activity stream when polls created else No.

JomSocial Vote Activity: Select yes to enable JomSocial activity stream for poll voting.

Poll Suggestions

You can display useful list of polls in the polls view page which allow the user to navigate to the other polls that he like. Available poll suggestions: Author Polls, Featured Polls, Latest Polls, Most Voted Polls, Related Polls. Give appropriate number in each field to display respecting number of polls. The polls suggestions are displayed in tabs.

Poll Suggestions Order: The order poll suggestions that you want to display. This option allow you to control the order of the poll suggestion tabs. Each tab is designated with one letter key that you need to use to control the tab order.

Give the appropriate order saperated with comma. For example A,F,R,L,M

Keyword Length: The length of the keywords used to determine the related polls. The related polls will be searched based on the currently displaying poll title. Generally 3 charaters is enough for this option but you can customise whatever you like.

Excluded Words: You can give common keywords that need to be excluded while searching for related polls. Words like the,and,when,where etc are few examples. Saperate the keywords with comma.

Display Settings

Polls Per Page: The number of polls that you want to show on the polls listing page. If this option is ommited, your Global list length value is taken.

User Avtar: If you want to use Avatar image from your favourite components, you can do so with this option. Currently available options:JomSocial, Community Builder, Kunena, Alpha User Points.

Date Format: The format of the date to be used on front-end.

Comments on list page: This option allow you to display the count of comments that are posted on polls in the listing page for each poll.

User name: Select name or username that you want to use to display the user's name.

Template Specific

Default Template: Select the template you want to use for the main component.

Chart Type: Select the type of chart you want to use. Currently available Bar chart and Google Pie charts.

Show Author: This option allows you to show or hide the author/user column on the listing page.

Show Avatar: This option allow you to show or hide the Avatar.

Chart Colors: Select the Hex format the colors that you want to use when displaying the charts. If left blank, default list of colors as shown below are used.

B2DBF9|F7C01B|90BD0C|D45049|089191|FFEBCC|5FD8A5|E72D29|0957B7|FEFECC

Please saperate each color code with the pipe character as shown above.

Pie Chart Height: Height of the pie chart. Applicable only when selected Google Pie Chart option in  Chart Type option.

Allow Previewing Result: Allows the user  to preview the result before voting on the poll. Select disallow to force the user to vote on the poll before he can view the result.

Joomla Community Polls comes with few built in module positions in which you can insert your own modules or ad code. It is as simple and equal to configuring your modules with Joomla module positions.

Below are the positions available on Joomla Community Polls:

jcp_poll_X (This will display the module after X polls in the polls list page. Please replace X with the number of polls after which you want to display the module. Available in Sirimalli template.)

jcp_list_bottom

jcp_view_poll_bottom

The first three positions are in the list page, one for top of the list page, one for the bottom of the list and the other one is used to display the modules/ads after X number of polls.

The last position is used to display modules/ads in the view poll page. It could be voting form page or results page which is dynamically decided.

v1.5.0 Change log

v1.0.9 Change log

v1.0.8 Change log

v1.0.6 Change log

v1.0.5 Change log

v1.0.4 Change log

v1.0.3 Change log

+ Added support for JComments. Now Community Polls support two great comment systems JomComment and JComment.

v1.0.2 Change log

+ Added moderation feature for polls. The submitted polls can be reviewed in the admin control panel before they get published. Moderation can be set to guest polls or all polls.

v1.0.1 Change log