Submitting Polls Shouldn't Change Pages

[rebelsheart]

Title:
Submitting Polls Shouldn't Change Pages

Area:
entries, reading page

Summary:
When you click the submit button on a poll, you are taken to specific page for the entry containing the poll, pulling you away from your reading page. Answering a poll is not the type of action I think should act like I've clicked a link. Instead, you should remain on the page you were on when you clicked the submit button.

Description:
Clicking 'Submit' is not the same as clicking a link. It should not navigate you away from the page you are on. Instead, you should receive some sort of indicator that your answer was submitted:

- The poll somehow reloads to show the results.
- The page reloads and takes you to the same entry.
- An ajax-y message appears saying 'Thanks for voting. Please refresh your page to see the results.' or similar appears.

While the first of those three option would be great, I think the last one is more likely.

Poll #940 Submitting Polls Shouldn't Change Pages

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
43 (79.6%)

Should be implemented with changes.
0 (0.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
5 (9.3%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (9.3%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (1.9%)

Comments

[cesy]

I'd also love it if submitting took you back to that poll rather than to the top of the page. If there are several polls in an entry, or a long entry before the start of the poll, scrolling all the way down again to see the results is annoying. I guess that should be a separate suggestion, though.

[turlough]

I would love to have this so I didn't have to open any entries with polls in separate tags just to answer the poll.

[7rin]

My thoughts entirely.

[archangelbeth]

*opens a separate tag and answers the poll, then reads this post*
*agrees with you*

[zarhooie]

I am not sure that I think this is a good idea, but I can't think of any concrete reasons that it isn't. I just don't like it.

[pauamma]

For one thing, it treats answering a poll differently from commenting.

[rebelsheart]

this.

I can't ctrl+click/center-click a submit button and send it to another window for action. The submit button takes control over my browsing and I don't like that.

[pauamma]

But currently, clicking submit to answer a poll behaves the same, in this respect, as clicking submit to leave a comment. Why should it behave differently? (Or am I missing something?)

[rebelsheart]

I believe you are correct. But I have the option to remain on the same page or open the comment link in a new page when I click it. The button doesn't give me that choice. While it's probably something the browser should support in the long run, Dreamwidth probably has the ability to improve the user experience right now.

Most sites seem to have polls running in a widget on the side of their content and submitting the poll, generally a poll running in flash window or something, has no effect on my browsing the page.

Alternately, the polls occur after what I'm reading (Irregular Webcomic) - I'm done reading, so it's less annoying to be redirected upon submitted a poll.

IIRC, polls in phpBB forums occur before any discussion of the poll, so I wind up answering the poll before reading anything.

Then there's sites like LiveJournal and Dreamwidth. The aggregate reading page is where most people read things and answering a poll on that page takes you someplace else.

Now, given the relatively recently development of all styles having their titles linked to the page where the entry is, it just occurred to me I could just open the entries in a new tab by doing that. (As a comment link might not always be available.)

[triadruid]

phpBB polls reload the page, though. They're just already on the single page, so you probably don't mind as much.

I really, REALLY don't want our polls to become Flash. Flash is totally unnecessary in many settings, but people want Teh Shiny.

[rebelsheart]

I agree with your thoughts on Flash.

[archangelbeth]

Agree with anti-flash. O:>

[triadruid]

I'm pretty sure that's a browser issue, though. No browser I'm aware of allows center-clicking buttons (as opposed to clickable images, which can be made to look like buttons).

[rho]

In Firefox, the SubmitToTab extension allows this.

[triadruid]

Huh. Speaking of shiny... thanks!

[turlough]

Ooooh, a useful extension I didn't know about, shiny! Thank you!

[denise]

Safari lets you clover-click a submit button to submit the form into a new tab!

[triadruid]

Is clover-click how they get around not having more than one mouse-button??

I kid, I kid...

[sofiaviolet]

Ctrl-click, in my experience.

One can also set the laptop trackpad to "right-click" if tapped with two fingers. :) One of my favorite little tips.

[triadruid]

Eh. Mark me down for "nice to have, IF it doesn't break in my non-mainstream browsers (I know bupkis about Ajax), IF it degrades gracefully without scripting languages on, and IF it doesn't trash all old polls."

Oh, and after we fix about 407 other things. :)

[denise]

That's the nice thing about our dev process, though -- the more little things we have like this, the more chance someone new will be able to find something to work on, and it doesn't stop development on other things.

Hrm. In fact, I should post about that.

[triadruid]

Sorry, I know you have an OSS development model; it's just usually useful to know how many users would actually use/want a particular feature, not just whether it's a good idea. Does that make sense? I'll follow-up on the new post you made...

[katieastrophe]

I was just thinking "I'd have more time to answer all the polls here if it didn't insist on reloading everytime and since I'm on mobile internet, it takes so long!" and then I came across this entry! You are made of win.

[althea_valara]

Eh. Usually when I answer a poll, I then read any comments on the post to see how people are responding. So I'd actually prefer being directed to the Entry page rather that the interstitial "you've voted in the poll!" page. But I'd be fine with implementation as discussed in this suggestion, so I voted "no opinion".