Poll Management System

A Poll Management System built with Laravel 11, utilizing Breeze for authentication, Alpine.js for frontend interactivity, and Reverb WebSocket for real-time communication. This application allows admins to create polls, display them to users, and manage voting efficiently.

Table of Contents

• Poll Management System
  • Table of Contents
  • Prerequisites
  • Features
  • Technologies Used
  • Installation
  • Testing
    • PollVoteTest
    • Running the Tests
  • Populate Admin User and Poll
  • Usage
  • Endpoints
  • Real-Time Updates
    • Client-Side Integration
  • Setup with Docker

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have met the following requirements:

• PHP: Version 8.2 or higher
• Node.js: Version 14 or higher
• SQLite Driver: Ensure the SQLite driver is enabled in your PHP installation.

Features

• Admin Poll Creation: A simple interface for creating polls with one question and multiple options.
• Poll Display: A public page for displaying poll questions and options with a shareable link.
• Vote Submission: An endpoint for authenticated (or guest) users to submit votes.
• One Vote per User/IP: Mechanism to ensure each user can only vote once.
• Real-Time Updates: Broadcasts updated vote counts using Laravel's event broadcasting and WebSockets.
• Client-Side Integration: A frontend that listens for broadcast events and updates poll results in real-time.

Technologies Used

• Laravel 11: The backend framework for building the application.
• Breeze: For user authentication and simple UI scaffolding.
• Alpine.js: For enhancing frontend interactivity.
• Reverb WebSocket: For real-time communication and updates.
• SQLite: Database for storing poll and vote data.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/abhihyder/poll-man.git
   cd poll-man

2. Install dependencies:

   composer install
   npm install

3. Build the frontend:

   After installing the npm dependencies, run the following command to build the frontend assets:

   npm run build

4. Set up your environment variables:

   Copy the .env.example file to .env and configure your database and other settings:

   cp .env.example .env

   All the required values for environment variables are already defined in the .env.example file, making it easy for you to get started with testing.

5. Generate the application key:

   php artisan key:generate

6. Run migrations:

   php artisan migrate

7. Start the local development server:

   php artisan serve

8. Run WebSocket server:

   php artisan reverb:start

9. Run Queue:

   php artisan queue:work

Testing

This project includes automated tests to ensure the functionality of the polling system. The following tests are implemented:

PollVoteTest

The PollVoteTest includes two main test cases:

1. User Can Vote in Poll:

   • This test checks that a user can successfully vote in an active poll. It verifies that the vote is recorded in the database.

2. User Cannot Vote More Than Once:

   • This test ensures that a user cannot vote more than once for the same poll. If a user tries to vote again, the response will return an error indicating that they have already voted.

Running the Tests

To run the tests, use the following command:

php artisan test --filter PollVoteTest

Populate Admin User and Poll

After successfully running the tests, you can populate the database with an admin user and a sample poll using the following commands:

php artisan db:seed

Usage

1. Login Instructions: Use the following credentials to log in as the admin user:

   • Email: admin@example.com
   • Password: password

2. Public Poll Page: Visit the public page (e.g., /) to see the available polls.

3. Voting: Users can submit their votes through the public poll page.

Endpoints

• GET /dashboard: View all polls as an admin.
• GET /: Display all public polls.
• POST /poll: Create a new poll.
• GET /poll/{uid}: Display single poll.
• POST /poll/vote: Submit a vote for a poll option.

Real-Time Updates

This application utilizes Laravel's event broadcasting capabilities to provide real-time updates. When a vote is cast, the updated vote count is broadcasted to all connected clients via Reverb WebSocket.

Client-Side Integration

• The frontend listens for broadcast events to update the poll results in real-time using Laravel Echo and Pusher.js for WebSocket communication.
• Alpine.js is utilized to manage dynamic updates on the poll results page.

Setup with Docker

If you want to set up the project with Docker, you can use the following Docker Repository.