Vote Pad 2.0 is a security enhanced easy in use and powerful voting script with web-based fully functional Control Panel, that allows you to create and manage polls easily. VotePad will automatically stop polls, archive old topics, and keep track of who has voted. Template-based system makes VotePad design- and language-independed. You can select one of the professional designs or make your own design to get your voting fancy looking. Script has minimum system requirements and will work on every hosting service.

• Features
• Description
• Requirements
• Installation
• Administration
• Troubleshooting

Features:

• Double-level multiple vote protection (using Cookies and IP)
• Auto-stop feature
• IP Logging who's voted
• Auto-archiving expired polls, unlimited archive
• Advanced web-based Control Panel
• Editable templates sets
• Multilanguage support
• Choose one of 5 existing designs!
• Use pictures in answers
• One answer / many answers type polls
• Variety of options
• Easy installation
• Minimal system requirements
• Runs under Unix and Windows
• For ISP's: you can provide voting service for every of your user!*

* This means, that each user will receive his own logs, options, templates
and personal access to the VotePad Control Panel. Because of this feature essentially depend on ISP's security settings and requests, we will adjust VotePad script to satisfy your needs. Please, submit us your requirements for this feature!

Description

Voting form is inserted in any place of your site using SSI directive. The user chooses the answer(s) to a question and presses 'Vote'. Answer is counting, and user redirected to specified page (this may be the same page where form placed). But now instead of voting form user will see voting results, and will not vote twice. This is called 'multivote protection'. This feature is realized by storing protective key in user cookies files and detecting user IP address and restricting voting from it for specified time. It is possible to track who has voted and what answer was selected.

Voting results form depend on current template set. It is possible to display number of votes, percentage and graphic bar for each answer, total number of votes, voting start and finish time.

Administrator can set voting to be auto-stopped to specified date and time. When stopped, no voting form displayed, only results.

Requirements

CGI scripts support, Perl 5.0 or newer, SSI, FTP-access to web server.

Platform: VotePad 2.0 was tested on Unix and Windows servers, but it will probably work on any web-server that can run perl scripts.

Installation

Unzip the Vote Pad distribution file into a temperary directory and make sure that you preserve the directory structure.

VotePad 2.0 files explanation:

• vote.cgi - main voting script
• vote_admin.cgi - administrative script
• vote_subs.pl - subroutines used by both scripts
• [vote] - default voting set directory

Additional files (don't need uploading):

• [doc] - directory with docs, manual, etc.
• [templates_sets] - some ready to use designs

Step 1 - Upload files
Upload files to server into your CGI scripts directory (generally cgi-bin), preserving
directory structure (you must set ASCII mode for uploading).

Step 2 - Change rights (UNIX only)
Change access rights for files (use 'chmod' command or your FTP agent specific commands):

Step 3 - Install
Open administrative script in your browser (typing something like http://your.site.com/cgi-bin/vote_admin.cgi). In first run, you will be promted for installation. If all access rights are correct, installation will be clean; otherwise return to Step2 and try again.

Step 4- Setup
After installing, enter to the Control Panel (using login 'admin' and password '123' by default)
To work with VotePad Control Panel, you must enable Cookies in your browser. First of all, change password at the 'Change options' page. Than specify correct path to directory where vote scripts are (for example, if you copy them into 'vote' directory of your cgi-bin dir, you must enter '/cgi-bin/vote').

Also take a look at the other options.

Step 5- Start voting
Insert this SSI directive into the place were you want to see your voting (replace /cgi-bin/
with correct cgi-bin path):
<!--#include virtual="/cgi-bin/vote.cgi" -->

That's all! Create first poll and test it.

Administration

Enter to the Control Panel by typing something http://www.your-site.com/cgi-bin/vote_admin.cgi in your browser. Enter valid login and password to authorise (be sure that cookies are turned on). Choose one of the following links:

» Start new voting

Here you can start new polls. Provide question, answers (separate them by new line), poll type and auto-stop time (formatted as [day.month.year hour:minute]). If you want to stop poll manually, leave time field empty. When new poll is created, old existing poll will be automatically stoped and moved to archive.

» Manage votings

Here you can edit, stop or delete all your polls. When poll is editted, all it's results reset.

» Change options

Options lets you effectively control voting flow and customise voting appearance. All options are separated by groups and provided with comments. After editing, don't forget tp press 'Apply changes' button.

» Edit templates

Templates are html-files with 'replacement' parts, formatted as [$data_name]. Data for replacement are generally supplied by script. There are also some global variables, inserted in all templates instead of {$variable_name}.

Templates wich have _win appendix in names, are used to generate user output, displayed in new window. These templates must have <html>,<body>, etc. tags. SSI templates don't need them.

Templates wich have _bit appendix in names, are repeated several times (they are used to display answers, results, etc.). Generally several '_bit' templates are joined and inserted into [$content] place of another (parent) template with the same name.

You can download existing predefined template sets from our site and upload them via FTP (or copy-and-paste in Control Panel).

Remember, that you can edit templates manually or in your favourite HTML editor over FTP or shell.

» View IP log

If Store IP who's voted to log feature is enabled, IP-address of every user who has voted is stored in log. Also stored user choice, and (if possible) it's host (i.e. named address). You can select number of last records to display. Don't forget to clear log from time to time or enable 'Clear IP log automatically' option.

Troubleshooting

I get an internal server error or message [an error occurred while processing this directive]
This usually means that the first line of your CGI scripts is not pointing to the correct path of your Perl interpreter. Make sure that the first line of each of the .cgi files is the correct path to your Perl interpreter.
Second reason is that you have upload CGI scripts in binary mode. Set ASCII mode and upload again.

Still can't solve your problem?
If you still can't solve your problem, try our web forum and FAQ section. We answer technical questions on the web forum on a daily basis so don't hestitate to drop by and post a message.

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