SlyVote

SlyVote version 0.34 beta (released on 2018-01-28) is a voting booth door for Synchronet (written in JavaScript) for viewing and voting on polls, as well as creating polls. SlyVote makes use of the voting feature added in Synchronet 3.17 and also supports displaying of avatars for the people who post polls (avatars were also added in Synchronet 3.17).

Getting SlyVote

SlyVote can be acquired in one of the following ways:

Browse to the CVS and download SlyVote from the SlyVote directory within xtrn (CVS link or mirror CVS link)
Download SlyVote from the Digital Distortion BBS Doors and Tools page

Minimum Synchronet version and .js scripts

SlyVote requires Synchronet 3.17 or newer (for 3.17 beta, a build from August 19, 2017 or newer) and the latest of the following JavaScript scripts (in the exec/load directory) :

sbbsdefs.js
text.js
frame.js
scrollbar.js
DDLightbarMenu.js
smbdefs.js
avatar_lib.js

In addition, SlyVote has an option to post a poll, which executes postpoll.js (in the exec directory).

SlyVote requires an ANSI terminal, since SlyVote makes use of lightbar menus which do cursor movement, as well as a scrolling frame to display poll messages.

Installation

First, ensure that you have an up-to-date Synchronet system running Synchronet 3.17 or higher, and ensure that your Synchronet JavaScript files (in sbbs/exec/load) are up to date. Before the official Synchronet 3.17 is/was released, daily 3.17 beta builds can be downloaded from Vertrauen (the home BBS of Synchronet). See the section below titled “Updating Synchronet”.

SlyVote is comprised of the following files:

SlyVote.js: The SlyVote script
SlyVote.cfg: The SlyVote configuration file

SlyVote.cfg is a plain text file, so it can be edited using any text editor.

You can copy SlyVote.js and SlyVote.cfg to a directory of your choice.

Configuration with Synchronet

Run SCFG (Synchronet configuration) and add the following configuration to SCFG->External Programs->Online Programs (Doors) in the section of your choice. Note that this assumes SlyVote is installed in sbbs/xtrn/SlyVote.

Name                            SlyVote Voting Booth
Internal Code                   SLYVOTE
Start-up Directory              ../xtrn/SlyVote
Command Line                    ?SlyVote.js
Clean-up Command Line           
Execution Cost                  None
Access Requirements             ANSI
Execution Requirements          
Multiple Concurrent Users       Yes
Intercept I/O                   No                                
Native Executable               No                                
Use Shell to Execute            No                                
Modify User Data                No
Execute on Event                No
Pause After Execution           No
BBS Drop File Type              None
Place Drop File In              Node Directory

Configuration file

SlyVote can be configured to use a single sub-board or multiple sub-boards, allowing the user to choose a sub-board and vote on polls and view poll results in the various sub-boards configured with SlyVote. SlyVote's configuration file has the following options:

Setting	Description
showAvatars	Whether or not to show avatars of the people who post polls in the results. Valid values are true and false. Defaults to true.
useAllAvailableSubBoards	Whether or not to use all available sub-boards where voting is enabled. Valid values are true and false. This defaults to true. If this is set to true, then any subBoardsCodes values in the configuration file (described below) will be ignored.
subBoardCodes	A comma-separated list of internal sub-board codes specifying which sub-board or sub-boards to use for polls. A single sub-board code can be specified if you only want to use one sub-board with SlyVote. Also, subBoardCodes can appear multiple times in SlyVote.cfg, and all specified sub-boards will be used. If any of the specified sub-board codes don't exist or refer to sub-boards that don't allow voting, then they will not be used.
startupSubBoardCode	Optional: An internal sub-board code for a sub-board to automatically start in if there are multiple sub-boards configured. If this is set, SlyVote will not prompt the user for a sub-board on startup and will start in the sub-board specified by this setting.

Additional notes for sysops

For sysops, polls can be deleted when viewing results from SlyVote.

SlyVote uses the following lines from Synchronet's text.dat file (located in the sbbs/ctrl directory):