vB Survey (UCCASS Survey app integration)

What this hack does:

This hack will add a full featured survey application system to your forum.

Credits: John W. Holmes: Author of UCCASS Survey.

Application Features: See the UCCASS site for full details. After testing several survey apps, this one is the best:

http://www.bigredspark.com/survey.html

The UCCASS offers some advanced features such as branching conditionals (allows hiding/displaying questions based on specific answers), result filtrations and much more.

Integration features:
Replaced authentication with VB's user database
Set permissions per usergroup, for admin/edit/create/take and view results priviliges.
Replaced config files with vB admin settings
Applied vB style to the UCCASS templates (it uses Smarty)

vB Survey added features:
Added anonymity option. If a survey is not anonymous, members can see how other members answered.
Added Hide/unhide survey option
Added Date answer types (D), with dropdown lists for day, month, year to ensure correct date entry.
Added REGEX control for new answer types, to control the answer format.
Added size control for single like text answers and REGEX answers.

Liscense: The original UCCASS Survey application is released under a modified GPL Liscense (Aferro GPL) : http://www.bigredspark.com/survey/license.txt (or look under the /docs directory in the zip file)

Installation difficulty:
o File changes: None
o DB changes: No changes, 19 new tables

Installation:

• Unpack the included file
• Copy vbsurvey_install.php to your admincp directory
• Copy survey.php to your main forum directory
• Copy the survey directory below your forum directory (cannot change the directory name)
• run the vbsurvey_install.php script in the admincp directory
• Go to AdminCP => vBulletin Options => vB Survey (UCCASS) and set the toptions for acess and other settings
• If you get permission errors, change file permissions for the survey directory and its contents to 744, and the owner/group to apache:apache (or, some servers are setup to nobody:nobody):

cd /path/to/main/forum
chown -R apache:apache survey
chmod -R 744 survey

Added in v1.5.4 (October, 17, 2005
Now checks primary and secondary permisisons.

Added in v1.5.3 (August 26, 2005
Don't show edit box unless user has permission.

Added in v1.5 (June 7th, 2005

• Added a new answer type R, for Regular Expressions (REGEX). This will allow new types to be defined for answers, with controlled format. If the question is required, users will receive an error messages, until they enter the proper format. If the question is optional, the users will only get an error if they try to answer the question, but with the wrong format.
  Note: You can disable REGEX type questions by editing the templates.
• The Size of type 'S' (Sentence) can now be changed, and no longer hardcoded as 50 characters.
• To upgrade, you will need to run the upgrade option in the installation script and re-upload all the files.

Added in v1.3 (June 5th, 2005

• Added a new answer type D, for Dates. This will show 3 dropdown lists for day, month, year, to ensure a uniform formate for dates entered by the user, instead of a text box.
• Fixed a bug in the anonymous message display. It would state survey is not anonymous, when it actually is.
• To upgrade, just re-upload the files (classes and templates directories)

Added in v1.2 (June 4th, 2005)

• Removed the "Previous page" button, if the page is the first page of a survey.
• Answers in the new/edit answer page are sorted by the numeric value. This allows you to add a later value, but set the order higher, without re-editing the whole list to arrange it.
• Fixed a bug in quotes and escapes in the answer types edit.
• Upgrade instructions: Just re-upload the classes directory.

Added in v1.1 (June 4th, 2005)

• Added anonymity option. This is decided when creating the survey. Once set, it cannot be changed. If the survey is not anonymous, users will see on the survey intro a message that they survey is not anonymous, and that their usernames will show in the results table. The results table will show the usernames and a link to their profile.
• Added Hidden option: By default, all active surveys show up on the main page as available surveys. If you set the survey propert to hidden, the survey can still be active, but not show up for members. This can be useful if you want to email the link to a selected user group. Admins and the survey author will still be able to see hidden surveys.
• Navbar update to list the various locations in the survey pages.
• The previous version showed the "no permission" to guests. Now you can allow guests to view the surveys and results by putting usergoup 0 in the admin panel in usergroups who may see the results. But other priviliges will be ignored.
• A couple of bug fixes
• Upgrade instructions: Just re-upload all the files, including survey.php

Notes:
1. If you use FTP to upload the survey directory, you might have problems with subdirectories under /survey/smarty/template_c due to the directory names with % signs. In this case, you can delete all the directories under template_c (but not the template_c directory itself). Those subdirectories will be recreated automatically when the templates are read.

2. The "do not remove" comment on the copyright link in the footer is from the original UCCASS footer template. You may contac the original author, John W. Holmes, for permission to remove the copyright notice, he's willing to talk according to their support forum.

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by pachitalk

Okay, 777 allows it to work. So??? The 744 isn't sticking? Or is it's the SSH?

My parent folder "forums" is set to 755. Could that be interfering?

No, the forums directory shouldn't be a problem. Since 777 works, and 744 doesn't, this means it's the group ownership issue. If you have telnet or SSH, login and change the ownership to the apache process, as mentioned in the first post.

[pachitalk]

Thanks for your help guys! That worked!

[gregwatson]

I've worked through most of the "fixes" already mentioned ...

However, I haven't seen this one - I am now down to the following error:

Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module: user (path: /tmp) in /home/bhm1264/public_html/forums/survey/classes/main.class.php on line 28

Any tips on what to look for here?

Thanks
GW

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by gregwatson

I've worked through most of the "fixes" already mentioned ...

However, I haven't seen this one - I am now down to the following error:

Fatal error: session_start(): Failed to initialize storage module: user (path: /tmp) in /home/bhm1264/public_html/forums/survey/classes/main.class.php on line 28

Any tips on what to look for here?

Thanks
GW

It's PHP session issue. Check this fix:

http://forum.mamboserver.com/showthread.php?t=14198

[gregwatson]

Originally Posted by tamarian

It's PHP session issue. Check this fix:

http://forum.mamboserver.com/showthread.php?t=14198

Any quick way a remote user with cpanel can check for this? I don't think I've ever seen anything about users vs files in a setting I have access to, either in through a control panel or file edit ...

Greg

[subnet_rx]

Originally Posted by gregwatson

Any quick way a remote user with cpanel can check for this? I don't think I've ever seen anything about users vs files in a setting I have access to, either in through a control panel or file edit ...

Greg

I'm looking for a quick way to add choices to this system. I have it installed, but so far, have not used it since most of my surveys are more like elaborate polls. For instance, how could I add a list of restaurants to chose from or a list of Presidents? Right now, I have to add a category, the add all the choices, then set up the survey. I have very few questions in my surveys that use the default answer sets. Any solutions?

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by gregwatson

Any quick way a remote user with cpanel can check for this? I don't think I've ever seen anything about users vs files in a setting I have access to, either in through a control panel or file edit ...

Yes, I should have been more specific That fix is php.ini which is the PHP config file. It's usually placed in /etc/php.ini

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by subnet_rx

For instance, how could I add a list of restaurants to chose from or a list of Presidents? Right now, I have to add a category, the add all the choices, then set up the survey. I have very few questions in my surveys that use the default answer sets. Any solutions?

In UCCASS/vB Survey, you can easily create new answer types, where you can define the available answer choices.

[gregwatson]

Originally Posted by tamarian

Yes, I should have been more specific That fix is php.ini which is the PHP config file. It's usually placed in /etc/php.ini

<grin> ... before I try this and bring down about 20 websites <grin> ... I don't have a php.ini file in that directory, so I assume that php.ini will essentially create a local override ...

Anyspecial formating other than a blank text file with the following command line in it?

-----php.ini--------------
php_value session.save_handler files
-------------------------

Greg

[tamarian]

Originally Posted by gregwatson

<grin> ... before I try this and bring down about 20 websites <grin> ... I don't have a php.ini file in that directory, so I assume that php.ini will essentially create a local override ...

Anyspecial formating other than a blank text file with the following command line in it?

-----php.ini--------------
php_value session.save_handler files
-------------------------

No, there's a single php.ini file for your PHP server

You will find in it a line like this one:

session.save_handler = user

Change to this:

session.save_handler = files