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.
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.
Vote Restriction Method:Method used to restrict the votes polled by the users. Select cookies, IP address or both the methods. Registered users votes will be checked with username value by default.
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.
Image Settings
Allow Images: Enabled image attachments in poll options if set to yes.
Maximum Image Size: Maximum size of the image in Kilobytes.
Permission Settings
These settings will allow you to configure the permission system of Community Polls and its usage. Three level permission settings are available on current system - on creation of polls, on voting and managing polls. You can set the default groups that needs the access in each category. You can select multple groups by pressing CTRL button and select the entries in list boxes.
Note: WYSIWYG support is available in the future versions and the selections in this box does not have any effect.
Please note that all backend users will have full access to all functions in Community Polls.
Email Notification Settings
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.
Now Community Polls support tweeting whenever a user creates a poll.
Enable Twitter: Enables the tweets whenever a poll is created.
Twitter User Name: User name of your Twitter account on which the tweets will be posted.
Twitter Password: Twitter account password
Short URL Service: The short url service that you want to use for minimizing the length of the Tweet.
Note: It is highly recommended to use short url service as the maximum number of characters supported by Twitter is 140. Longer urls of the posts cannot accomodate in 140 characters.
bit.ly Login: Login name of your bit.ly account. bit.ly is one of the prominent short url service. You need to get the account information and API key in order to use this service.
bit.ly API Key: API key of your bit.ly account. Get it here - http://bit.ly/account/your_api_key
Note: tinyurl.com short url service does not require any account configuration.
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.
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.
