Hi all. A few days ago I had announced that the release of Steem Poll was very close. Well, I did chew a bit too much when I said that. Especially after making the last moment changes which kind of broke several crucial features on the DApp. However, the MVP with basic functionalities of a Poll app is now deployed and can be found at https://steempoll.tech/

What is SteemPoll:

As the name suggests, SteemPoll is a Poll application that can be used to run a few surveys/polls on the Steem blockchain. By manipulating the data posted onto the blockchain, the posts created using this new DApp can be used to run Polls on the blockchain.

Tech stack used to build SteemPoll?

SteemPoll is built using the latest version of .NET 6. The last moment of change that helped ease the server load was the shift towards WASM and SignalR. Like I explained in my last post, with these two features in place, not all requests need to go to the server for saving/commiting.

Instead, the files required for this validation are loaded onto the browser and do the validation on the browser itself. This reduces the amount of load that the server that SteemPoll is hosted on. Consequently helping to reduce the overall costs of the server.

To broadcast transactions onto the blockchain, you would need to use Steem Keychain browser extension to be able to create or vote polls. I will be adding DSteem support in the upcoming week(Kind of got messed up when I moved to WASM).

For fetching posts from the blockchain, SteemPoll uses @steemchiller's SDS API to fetch the votes and the Polls themselves.

What doesn't work?

As mentioned before, the initial MVP requires you to have keychain to use the DApp.

I have also gone with the decision to block all edits that can be made on the Posts and the votes. This was done to ensure that no one deceives the community. Additionally, editing the post on Steemit would not change anything on SteemPoll. I am open to listening to your opinion on this decision.

Uploading images is also currently not possible on SteemPoll. You can edit your post on Steemit and add an image.
PS: I haven't tested it with images, so, not sure how it would behave.

SteemPoll only uses your private posting keys to create Polls and Vote on a poll. This means you cannot vote for a post on SteemPoll. This can again be put to a vote. If the majority of you want the voting feature on SteemPoll, I will change that up.

How to create a Poll using SteemPoll?

Head over to https://steempoll.tech/ to land on the homepage of SteemPoll.

On the top left side, you will see a login button, click on it and sign the transaction on Steem Keychain(This is a sign transaction and no broadcast will happen)

After you have logged in, you can head over to Add Survey button.

Clicking on it will redirect you to a new page with the template where you can enter your Poll details. Please ensure that you don't provide an extremely long URL as there is a 255 character limit on the blockchain. Additionally, ensure that you provide at least 2 options for the voters to choose from.

The EndTime that you see on this screen is the UTC time. So, it won't be your local time.

^{The post gets submitted for broadcasting after you hit submit}

On clicking submit, you would be asked to sign and broadcast the transaction using Keychain. You would also be redirected to the homepage once you broadcast the transaction. You might not see your Poll instantly. This is due to the latency between the broadcast and the API. On refreshing the screen, this should appear.

How to vote for a Poll?

^{By clicking on the view survey option, you will see the details of the poll}

Remember, you can only vote for surveys that have not expired yet. By clicking on view survey details on the card of a survey(In the home page) you will be taken to a new screen with the details of the poll.


^{You can click on the options to vote for it}

You can now click on the option that you would like to vote on. This would result in keychain popping up for your approval to sign and broadcast the transaction.

You would also get to see how many votes each option has right on the Survey details page.

Currently, I haven't added the logic to view the people who voted for a particular post. However, I will be doing that very soon.

What next?

For the next couple of weeks, I would be concentrating entirely on fixing the UI glitches and bugs that might pop up. I will announce my entire plan for the future updates/features that I would bring on to SteemPoll in a day or two.

For now, Happy Belated New year to all. I'm really very excited to see how the whole Steem community is going to use SteemPoll

New Update:

Polls that were voted using SteemPoll can now be edited on Steemit. This would not change the option that you chose initially. However, you would be able to provide justification for your views by editing the comment on Steemit.

PS: Also need to design a new logo for SteePoll. Might keep it simple. Will update it soon though. All polls would be posted in the community https://steemit.com/trending/hive-190929

CC:
@steemcurator01
@steemitblog
@pennsif

Also, I would like to thank all my supporters who have voted for me as their witness. If you do want to support my work further(and haven't voted me yet), please do consider voting me as your witness by heading over to https://steemitwallet.com/~witnesses and voting starlord28 as your witness. Currently, I'm ranked 47 on this list.