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Recently I've had the chance to build two small sites based around certain modules. survey.rabble.ca and access.tao.ca

The first was rabble.ca. They were setting up a survey with an online service called surveymonkey and the survey module popped into my head so I suggested we build a much nicer custom looking one using the survey module in drupal. The other motive here was to get them used to working in drupal as we've more projects down the road that will be using it.

The survey module in drupal is basically the forms module packaged into a content type called survey. First look seemed perfect. I could set up this page that would allow them to create as many survey's as they like. It would allow easy addition and editing of the survey questions, a downloadable excel file, and the use of a number of field types.

To make it simple for the users I also made this current survey node display as the front page.

Of course it's not all pie in the sky. :) And while I didn't encounter any bugs, a feature wish list slowly built up as happens when you start to really use it.

Primarily it's around content management and ease of use especially when the survey gets 'long' :)

• An 'ajax-y' type form/survey manager would be great, so that we could:
  • create new fields without having to enter a new screen each time
  • move questions up or down either like how it works in views or a weight function that is viewable in the fields list like in the block manager.
• Ability to create a pure text/description item. Many surveys are divided into parts, and need a description between questions. In this survey I put the extra description text in one of the questions. Which is fine, but makes it a little messy when looking at the survey results.
• A decent way to have an 'Other-please describe' option. Ie. when the user can choose one of 5 options and they are all radio buttons except that if the user chooses 'other' they are asked to describe it. For now I just created a second question below it as a textfield for the the description. This may be the best option, but for many users building a survey it might not come as quickly to them.
• And lastly, some form of analysis of the survey right on the site would be a great bonus feature . If it's to be a great contender with surveymonkey, for general users it would need some of this functionality built in with it. But for anyone who knows their way around a database program and can import the data, it's no problem .

All in all a great module to use and one I hope to be able to work on some more for other clients.

The other site I mentioned above was for the Cupe3903 Accessibility Committee. They wanted a site that could be used for people in Toronto looking for an accessible meeting space. Ideally it would allow users to input locations, add ratings, search for locations under different categories and locate the locations on a map.

Through the use of a number of taxonomy modules, in combination with GMap, location, and fivestar I created a great little site that is serving this purpose.

Gmap with location modules will allow you to fill in the location for any node you set it up for. One key trick here was to remember that in location > geocoding options you need to configure the google maps with your google maps key. This is what enables the code to pinpoint your location on the map. I had difficulty figuring this out at first as it looked like the 'configure' link in this area was only for the Geocode.ca option.

In general though I am quite impressed with the capabilities of this module and have spun off numerous other potential website applications in mind :)