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Delay in votes being registered for polls and different HTML being rendered for results

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10:46
May 18, 2009


TopBlogPosts.net

New Member

posts 1

Post edited 5:53 – May 18, 2009 by TopBlogPosts.net


I don't have a POLL active right now, but I am sure I have tracked down the symptoms.


When a user registers, they the results page is displayed but there vote doesn't show.  If they refresh after a period or time then it will show their vote. 


First, I thought that the vote would count in real time.  I know the user expects them too.  Sometimes the lag is only ten seconds or so, sometimes it is a lot longer.


Second, to compound the problem.  The poll renders the HTML differently depending on whether it is showing the result page before your vote was counted or the result page after your result was counted.   The preview shows your the former(results not counted), so you can't easily test what it looks like with the actual results page showing.


Finally, when it does display the results with you vote counted, it adds an <div> with an inline style statement and no id with that has padding around the code you set to display once the user has voted.  Since it is inline and has not id, you can not easily compensate for its markups.  Adding an id would be a start, but not putting in the <div> to begin with would be better.


To summarize the four problems :

1. No real time vote tracking in polls. 

2. Poll renders differently depending on whether or not your vote was counted.

3. Preview only gives you a way to see the results page without your vote counted.

4. <div> with inline css and no id surrounds your results page code


Making votes count in real time is obviously the best answer since it removes 1,3,4 and makes the most sense.

2:29
May 19, 2009


jonathan

Admin

posts 1129

Hey!

The poll's results chart actually generates on our server everytime a response is received – but not everytime the results page is loaded (like if someone hits “refresh” or comes back to the page later, after already having voted). The results chart does take at least a few seconds to pull in response data, and generate the chart basedon the response information – if we generated this on the fly everytime the page was loaded, or before the final “Thank You” page was loaded in your survey there would be a slow in the pages loading time as the chart was created on the server, and finally rendered on the page.

That being said, the chart is pre-rendered, and since a “Preview” response doesn't count towards the actual responses, it will not generate a new chart when you complete a preview response. There really isn't any way around the chart renderer “catching” the current response before regenerating without seeing page loading slowdowns as all of the pages wait for the chart generator to process before rendering.

The second and fourth issues are literally one and the same. The first time you complete the survey you get the “Thank You” page in normal page flow, page 1, then the Thank You page. The rest of the time you load the page, the survey sees you've already cast your vote, and immediately renders the pre-generated chart. From a designer's point of view, an in-line DIV with no ID is a bit of a pain (and I can't currently see why it would be necessary) so I'll speak with our development team about that – I'm going to try to get it removed unless there is a specific reason we keep it there.

Jonathan Turk, SurveyGizmo Account Manager
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