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When you want to do a quick poll but don't want to fuss with a complicated survey, here are several things you can do. If your poll is by email, you can ask people to respond to different email addresses depending on their answer. I.E., "If your answer is 'A', send a blank email to mailto:a@domain.com and if your answer is 'B', send a blank email to mailto:b@domain.com " If you have a limited number of email addresses, you can have different subject lines depending on the answer, such as mailto:me@domain.com?Subject=A and mailto:me@domain.com?Subject=B Because the incoming poll emails have different email addresses and/or subject lines, you can filter them to their own mail folders. Have one folder for each possible answer. When the poll is complete, simply open the mail folders and see how many emails they contain. If you prefer to administer the poll on your site rather than via mailto: links, use the free and easy to install Master Poll Taker. Master Poll Taker is a CGI program to help you with this. Simply install Master Poll Taker and set up a form with radio buttons next to the possible answers. The user selects one of those and then clicks to submit. You can see Master Poll Taker in action on the demo page at http://willmaster.com/a/6/pl.pl?71poll. Complete instructions for setting up the form are embedded in the source code as comments. To eliminate the need for a database, the value of each radio button on the form contains both the email address where the answer is to be sent and the subject line the email is to have. The address and subject are separated with a colon character, like this:
value="name*domain.com:Poll answer was A"
(Notice the "*" instead of the "@" in the email address? That is to help you spam-proof your site. Master Poll Taker will automatically convert the "*" to "@" before sending any mail.) When someone uses the form, Master Poll Taker sends an email to the address specified in the value of the chosen radio button. The email will have the specified subject line. Simply filter the incoming email to their own mail folders like you would a regular email poll. After the poll, open them to see how many answers you received. If you need a sophisticated survey program that can also accommodate answers as checkboxes, dropdown lists, and/or multi-choice menus, read about Master Survey at http://willmaster.com/a/6/pl.pl?71artrefd But for simple polls, the free Master Poll Taker is probably the best way to go. Enjoy Master Poll Taker! Copyright 2000 William Bontrager
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