Collecting and Displaying Poll Results Introduction Use the mgiPoll tag to get opinions and preferences from visitors to your site. Allow visitors to participate in the poll and/or simply view the current poll results. In this example, you will create a poll to measure presidential nominee preferences. MGI Tags mgiPoll Steps Create a poll form. Create a poll administration page and open it in a text editor. Insert the mgiPoll tag in Admin mode. Save the poll administration page. FTP the poll administration page to the web server running MGI. View the poll administration page in a web browser. Add a new poll. Add post arguments. Add post argument responses. Set poll preferences. Activate the poll. Create a poll results page and open it in a text editor. Insert an mgiPoll tag in Collect mode and an mgiPoll tag in Tally mode. Save the poll results page. FTP the poll form and poll results page to the web server running MGI. View the poll form in a web browser and complete the poll. Step 1: Create a poll form. Create a form named "poll.mgi" to collect presidential preferences using form elements such as radio buttons, checkboxes, and pop-up menus. Text fields and text areas cannot be used to collect and tally poll data.   Name each form element uniquely. For radio buttons, name the set of radio buttons with one name and enter a unique value for each radio button. For checkboxes, name the set of checkboxes with one name and enter a unique value for each checkbox. If you name each checkbox separately, they will show up as different results rather than components of one question. For selects (pop-up menus), name the pop-up menu uniquely and enter a value for each option.   The post argument names cannot exceed 35 characters. Post argument names are not shown to the visitor and can be abbreviated (e.g., "Q1", "Q2", etc.). The value of the post argument is not limited and may be any length. The post argument value is shown to the visitor as a label for poll results with the text entered into the mgiPoll admin (see Step 10).   If a visitor answers some poll questions, unanswered questions are tallied as a "No Response" value by default. If a visitor answers no poll questions, but submits the poll, that visitor's responses are not tallied. To control how your visitors answer poll questions, you may choose to include your own "No Answer" value for each question or you may wish to simply require an answer to each question by validating each question on the poll results page (using mgiValidataData or a custom checking method).   After the form elements, enter a submit button named "Submit".   Enclose all form elements with HTML <FORM> tags and post the form to the poll results page (results.mgi).   The following is an example poll form with three questions. <FORM ACTION="results.mgi" METHOD="POST"> <CENTER> <P><TABLE WIDTH="300" BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="5"> <TR> <TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#00ff00">If you had to vote today, who would you choose to represent the Republican party in the next presidential election?</TD></TR> <TR> <TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#ccffcc"> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="John McCain" NAME="Republican"> John McCain</P> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="George W. Bush" NAME="Republican"> George W. Bush</P> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="Elizabeth Dole" NAME="Republican"> Elizabeth Dole</P> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="Other" NAME="Republican"> Other </TD></TR> </TABLE> <P><TABLE WIDTH="300" BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="5"> <TR> <TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#ffff00">If you had to vote today, who would you choose to represent the Democratic party in the next presidential election? </TD></TR> <TR> <TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#ffffcc"> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="Hillary Clinton" NAME="Democrat"> Hillary Clinton</P> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="Dick Gephart" NAME="Democrat"> Dick Gephart</P> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="Al Gore" NAME="Democrat"> Al Gore</P> <P><INPUT TYPE="radio" VALUE="Other" NAME="Democrat"> Other </TD></TR> </TABLE> <P><TABLE WIDTH="300" BORDER="0" CELLSPACING="0" CELLPADDING="5"> <TR> <TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#00ccff">What is your age? </TD></TR> <TR> <TD WIDTH="100%" BGCOLOR="#ccffff"> <SELECT NAME="Age"> <OPTION SELECTED>18 to 25 <OPTION>26 to 35 <OPTION>36 to 45 <OPTION>46 to 55 <OPTION>56 to 65 <OPTION>over 65 </SELECT> </TD></TR> </TABLE> <P><mgiButton value="Submit"></H2> </CENTER> </FORM> Step 2: Create a poll administration page and open it in a text editor. Create a page named "polladmin.mgi" to display the web-based poll administration interface. Open the poll administration page in a text editing program that allows you to view and modify the HTML and code of the page. Step 4: Insert the mgiPoll tag in Admin mode. Insert your cursor after the beginning <BODY> element and enter the mgiPoll tag and mode parameter. In the mode parameter, enter "Admin". <mgiPoll mode="admin"> Step 5: Save the poll administration page. Save the changes you have made to the poll administration page. Step 6: FTP the poll administration page to the web server running MGI. Upload the poll administration page from your local computer to the web server using an FTP program. Step 7: View the poll administration page in a web browser. View the poll administration page in a web browser. The first screen of the web-based, administration interface displays. Step 8: Add a new poll. In the text field under the "Poll Name" column, enter the case-sensitive poll name ("President" for this example) and click the "Create" button. Step 9: Add post arguments. Click the "Edit" button beside the poll to access the post argument interface. For each poll question (i.e., for each unique post argument) add a post argument to the poll.   In the text field under the "Post Argument Name" column, enter the post argument name (e.g., "Republican") and click the "Add" button. Step 10: Add post argument responses. Add all possible responses for each poll question. Click the "Edit Responses" button beside the post argument name to access the post argument response interface. Add a response for each answer to the selected poll question. To add a response, enter the post argument value in the text field under the "Response Name" column and click the "Add" button.   Click the "Back" button to return to the post argument interface. Step 11: Set poll preferences. Return to the first screen of the poll interface. Click the "Options" button to access the poll preferences. You may set the method, graph dimensions, protection, color cycle method, and color cycle.   Select the tally method. The "Total Votes" method displays results as the raw number of responses for each value. The "Percentage of Total Votes" method displays the results the percentage of the total responses for the question.   Enter the width and height (in pixels) of the bar for each response. If the width is greater than the height, bars are displayed horizontally for each question. If the height is greater than the width, bars are displayed vertically for each question.   To prevent visitors from completing the poll multiple times, set IP or Cookie protection. For IP protection, select the IP Retention Count checkbox and enter the number of IPs to store. If a visitor's IP number matches an IP number in the poll database, the visitor's poll results are not stored or tallied. Once the poll IP database is full, the oldest IP number in the database is replaced with the IP number of the next visitor. For cookie protection, select the Cookie Protection in Days checkbox and enter the number of days to store a cookie on the visitor's machine. If a visitor with a poll cookie completes the poll, their poll results are not stored or tallied.   Select the color cycle method. The "Per Post Argument" method cycles the specified colors by each question (e.g., the first question's bars are blue, the second question's bars are green, etc.). The "Per Response" method cycles the specified colors by each response (e.g., the first response to question one is blue, the second response to question one is green, etc.).   Set the color cycle by choosing the order of colors. In the first column select the first color, in the second column select the second color, etc. Only selected colors will be cycled even if a column is skipped.   Click the "Save" button to apply poll preferences. Step 12: Activate the poll. On the first screen of the poll interface, activate the poll by clicking the "Activate" button. Poll data cannot be collected or tallied while the poll is Deactivated. A poll may be Deactivated for changes, but must be re-Activated before the poll can proceed. If a visitor attempts to submit to a deactivated poll, an error message will display indicating that the poll is not active. Step 13: Create a poll results page and open it in a text editor. Create a poll results page named "results.mgi" to collect poll data and display poll results and open the poll results page in a text editing program that allows you to view and modify the HTML and code of the page. Step 14: Insert an mgiPoll tag in Collect mode and an mgiPoll tag in Tally mode. On the poll results page, enter two mgiPoll tags. The first mgiPoll tag collects poll data and adds it to the poll database. The second mgiPoll tag displays poll results. If you prefer, the data collection and results display can be performed on two different pages.   For data collection, enter the mgiPoll tag and name parameter. In the name parameter, enter the case-sensitive name of the poll where data is stored.   For results display, enter the mgiPoll tag, mode parameter and name parameter. In the mode parameter, enter "Tally". In the name parameter, enter the case-sensitive name of the poll to tally and display. <mgiComment>Collect Poll Data</mgiComment> <mgiPoll name="President"> <mgiComment>Display Poll Results</mgiComment> <H2>Poll Results</H2> <mgiPoll mode="tally" name="President"> Step 15: Save the poll results page. Save the changes you have made to the poll results page. Step 16: FTP the poll form and poll results page to the web server running MGI. Upload the poll form and poll results page from your local computer to the web server using an FTP program. Step 17: View the poll form in a web browser and complete the poll. View the poll form in a web browser. Complete and submit the poll form. On the results page, your poll information is added to the poll database and the current poll results are displayed. For example,