solved Poll vote text options not showing

I've allowed Admins to create polls, and have allowed all members to vote if logged in.
I created a poll with 8 voting options with text descriptions... in my master admin profile and checked 'add to timeline'.
Not only is the new poll not showing up to me or to regular members in any timeline, but the various vote option text descriptions do not show. What am I doing wrong?
Here's the poll URL:
https://fotmd.com/strumelia/poll/1/poll-how-long-ago-did-you-start-playing-dulcimer


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 01/29/18 06:15:45PM

Never mind- the first time I SAVED the poll all my typed text for all options disappeared/cleared... including the 'save to timeline' checkbox.. Typing it in again now and it seems to be 'sticking'. Will get back here to update after I do more testing.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/27/17 08:11:19AM

Seems I can only add and save ONE vote field description at a time. If I try to fill in all the fields and save, it clears everything. ? I'm thinking this shouldn't be this way?

The other problem I have is that 'somewhere' I am not being allowed to use the > or < characters (rather important when constructing polls!) ... as master admin I have my core quota allowed to post html. But when I try to type in a poll vote description of for example "<1 year" ... I get this error and can't save it:
"You have entered an invalid value for "Option Text" - value must be numbers, letters, spaces or punctuation and contain no HTML" Where would I likely find this setting to allow me to use the carats in the poll vote text input?


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015

It is most likely the Form Designer > Validation setting.

When viewing the form as the admin, click the "Form Designer" button and then click the "Modify" button for the field in question and then change the "Validation" setting for that field and save your changes.

Hope this helps!


--

Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos
updated by @douglas: 10/28/17 06:38:01AM

oops- Doug hold on, you and I were posting at the same time- let me check on your fix.


Added: This is not an 'issue' as it is a suggestion. In the Language tab for the Poll module, line 46 reads "voted on a poll". Since the poll was created by me, in the site's index page Timeline, every time a new member votes in the poll it shows as an entry with my member picture, my member name, and then the default language string of "voted on a poll", followed by the poll title. It gives the strong impression that it's me voting over and over... and that's pretty lame. So I changed that line 46 to read instead: "New vote entered in the Poll". That no longer creates a false impression, and it creates curiosity to go see the new vote. HOWEVER ---> I'm not sure whether that line 46 in the language tab is used elsewhere though..where changing it might mess something up in another poll user message location?


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/27/17 01:56:00PM

I did check there at first, but the only fields in either the poll/create or poll/edit form designer are:
Title, description, start date, and end date. These don't cover the input fields for the poll vote options. Can I add a new field to the form designer- if so, what name should it have to make it govern the voting options that the member chooses from?
(keep in mind that as master admin, my quota is allowed to insert html into the text editor...yet the error message is telling me I can't when I try to use the or characters in my votes options descriptions.)
Those two characters are sort of needed in polls, when asking questions like How old are you: "less than"60... or "more than" 60 years old for example.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/27/17 02:08:17PM

Does it happen when you type
Should probably add, for accessibility reasons it might be better to say "greater than" rather than ">" if your users are 60+ ???


--
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

Ah, it breaks here in the forum as well


--
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

Does it happen if you put a space between the greater than symbol and the "1 year" was what I was asking, but no matter, the greater than character breaks things.


--
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Education, learning resources, TEL, AR/VR/MR, CC licensed content, panoramas, interactive narrative, sectional modules (like jrDocs), lunch at Uni of Bristol. Get in touch if you share my current interests or can suggest better :)

Yes it happens when using a space too. Usually not a problem, but when creating polls... it really ties one's hands! Seems i got it to work but irregularly, if I typed the character, then 'cut' it, then used "paste as plain text". But I couldn't get that workaround to work reliably.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/29/17 07:12:54PM

You'll want to use the the entities for greater than and less than...

Greater Than Entity

Less Than Entity

Hope this helps!


--

Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos
updated by @douglas: 10/30/17 02:30:34AM

Oh that works- I learn something new every day! Entities... who'd 'a thunk? Makes me feel like a cosmic traveller. Ok, the 'greater than/less than" problem is solved by using the entity text for such characters. This is handy for all such special characters...search for their entities...I'll remember that. Thanks Douglas

That leaves only the OTHER issue I had - when creating a poll for the first time, it didn't seem to let me add multiple voting options at once. if I did, when I 'saved' all my options would disappear and I'd have to start all over. I found if I added only ONE voting option at first, saved, and then added more voting options one at a time, saving after each, then it would 'stick'. Is this a bug? Does it act the same for you? Seems to me one should be able to create a poll by entering all the poll content and voting choices at the same time. btw I seem to have no trouble editing and saving the poll or the voting options AFTER it's already created.


(USER TIPS: If you plan to be the only user allowed to create polls, then think about creating a special profile off of your master admin user account just for creating site polls. I created one and called it Pollster and gave it a clipboard image avatar. For future polls, I'll have Pollster create (and thus 'own') all polls. That way when member go to vote on a poll, or when they see the "new vote placed on the poll" item in the main page activity feed, the avatar and name associated with it will be Pollster's, not my usual personal profile. Makes it seem more official and less personally connected to me as the site owner. ....Also, try that tip in one of my above posts concerning line 46 of the Poll Module's language string so it doesn't look in the Timelines like the poll creator voted over and over.)


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015
updated by @strumelia: 10/30/17 08:49:41AM

I'm not seeing an issue with adding multiple poll options at once.

Are you getting any errors?

Have you tried it with using entities? Maybe the < and > characters where causing the issue?

Hope this helps!


--

Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos
updated by @douglas: 10/31/17 07:28:47AM

I tried creating another new poll, this time without using 'problem' characters that might require entities. I had no problem, so I'm concluding it must also have been the greaterthan/lessthan characters somehow preventing me from creating a new poll easily... For a long while it did not occur to me to scroll all the way up to the very top of page to see that error message after unsuccessfully hitting the Save button at bottom of page over and over.

It's an interface/design type of issue at work:
The error message doesn't popup at you, it just becomes present along the very top of the screen- only visible if you scroll up to there. So what you experience is that the save button doesn't save, it just 'flashes' when you click it and your content doesn't get saved (like when I was unknowingly using 'illegal' characters) ...leaving you wondering why it's not saving.
If you don't think to manually scroll back to the very top of the page (which i didn't), you wouldn't know there's an error message along the top...which I think is what happened to me. I just kept wondering why SAVE wouldn't save, and because I had like 8 poll option fields, there was was substantial scrolling distance between the Save button at bottom of page and the error message sitting quietly at the top of page.

So, I think both my problems were caused by the not-allowed characters, and compounding my frustration was that the location of the error message caused me to not be aware of it for a good long while.

Thank you Douglas. Marking this solved now.


--
...just another satisfied Jamroom customer.
Migrated from Ning to Jamroom June 2015