LimeSurvey

We're pleased to announce the release of 1.92 RC5 which you can download it from here. It fixes all of the reported bugs in 1.92 RC4, especially some issues discovered with multilingual support.  We expect this to be the final release candidate ... [More] before releasing 1.92 stable near the end of February. 1.92 includes many new and improved features, plus dozens of bug fixes.  The wiki documentation has been updated to clarify which features are new.  You can also review the old 1.92 RC announcements for details of the main new and improved features. So, please test 1.92 RC5 and let us know if you find any issues (by reporting them to the bugtracker). You can also test 1.92 RC5 at the demo site:  www.limesurvey.org/demo Enjoy! [Less]

The LimeSurvey team is pleased to announce the release of 1.92 RC4, which can be downloaded here. This release resolves over 50 issues reported about 1.92 RC3. It also adds a new set of CSS classes available within templates so that you can tailor ... [More] how you display the different types of validation messages.  Details can be found here. Unless any truly major issues are discovered with 1.92 RC4, we are planning to release 1.92 stable on February 27th.  So, please test out this version and report any bugs you find via the bug tracker. [Less]

The LimeSurvey team is pleased to announce the release of version 1.92 RC3. You can download it here. It fixes all bugs identified in the 1.92 RC2 release, plus adds several new features including: Default values now available for the ... [More] following question types: Date, Short/Long/Huge Text, Multiple ShortText, Multiple Numerical array_filter now also available for multiple_numeric and multiple_short_text min/max_answers - now also available for all array types, multiple_numeric and multiple_short_text min/max_num_value_n - now also available for multiple_numeric new question attributes to call validation functions for each sub-question Improved validation display - no more pop-ups. If validations rules fail, the validation tip is shown in red (it turns to green if it is OK). For questions with multiple text entry fields, each invalid field will have its background color changed to red to indicate that there is a problem. print answers at the end only shows relevant questions several fixes to better ensure support for existing surveys Furthermore, we have updated the wiki documentation to describe how to use the many new features available in 1.92, especially Expression Manager and the new features described above. We hope this will be the final release candidate before a stable release, so please download and test it. If you find any bugs, please report them on the bug tracker. [Less]

The Google Code in 2011 contest is nearly over and once more it was a great success for Limesurvey. Besides lots of awesome work done by our student porting the upcoming 2.0 version to the "Yii" MVC framework some further work was done which we want ... [More] to present here: 1. One of LimeSurvey’s Google Code-In 2011 projects that didn't include actual programming involved analyzing the statistical data about visits to the www.limesurvey.org website using Google Analytics. LimeSurvey uses Google Analytics to collect a wealth of information about the countries its users are from, their language preferences, their browser preferences, and what pages they view. Full results from the project can be found here.The data from Google Analytics showed that in the last two years the number of monthly visits to www.limesurvey.org have nearly doubled. In the month of October, the website was visited by people in 185 different countries. Firefox is the most popular browser among users by a large margin. The most common source of visitors is the Google search engine, and the most visited pages other than the main page include the English instructions, demo, and downloads page. 2. One of our students developed a small survey for us to collect more information about the question type usage (fill it out here). The results were analysed by another studend and can be looked at here. 3. To demonstrate the use of certain feature we have created several demo surveys which you can import using the "import" tab when creating a new survey at the Limesurvey admin backend:- Download Limesurvey Array filter demo survey- Download Limesurvey Assessments demo survey- Download Limesurvey Conditions demo survey- Download Limesurvey Question attributes demo survey- Download Limesurvey Quotas demo survey 4. To gather some more user feedback, GCi students have created several surveys. Please take some time to fill them out:- Limesurvey question type usage- Limesurvey feature usage- Limesurvey user interface survey 5. Other tasks included translation updates of the most important manual pages to German, French and Spanish or extending existing English documentation.Feel free to extend the first version of the Limesurvey glossary we created and check out the new "How to create a good survey" tips (please add your thought there!). We want to thank all students who have helped us, you did a great job! [Less]

The LimeSurvey team wishes you a very happy new year. 2012 is going to be a very exciting year for all the community since we are finalizing the 1.92 version with its lot of outstanding new features based on the powerful Expression Manager engine ... [More] developed by our core developer TMSWhite (see announcement for the 1.92RC1 release). At the same time we are actively working on porting LimeSurvey 2.0 to the YII framework. Let me thank all the Google Code-in participants who are working on this project, their commitment and skills are a fantastic help. So let's start this year by the release of  LimeSurvey 1.92 release candidate 2. In this version, we have fixed all of the known bugs with 1.92 RC1 (especially the installer problem) and we are confident that the 1.92 stable release is soon to come. It is now time for you to give it a try (download here), you won't regret it. As always, should you find bugs, please report them to our bugtracker. [Less]

The LimeSurvey team is pleased to announce the availability of release candidate 1 (RC1) for version 1.92 of LimeSurvey. You can download it here. This version is based on the 1.91+ code base, but completely replaces the survey-taking logic with ... [More] Expression Manager (EM). Although this is a complete re-write of the survey-taking portion of the code, it has been thoroughly tested and we expect a rapid migration from Release Candidate to true release status. In addition to being fully backwards compatible with 1.91+ (see the one caveat below), EM provides the following new features, several of which have been on the wish list for some time: Use complex equations to decide if a question is visible/relevant or not (a successor to conditions, supporting much more complex logic). Use Group-level relevance to show/hide entire groups without needing to set conditions on each question Use advanced piping, micro-tailoring, and conditional logic to tailor questions that are visible. Generate complex reports (like showing users a table of questions and answers) mid-survey. Save any computations or generated reports to the database (via the Equation question type). Write expressions using the Question Code as an alternative to using {INSERT:SGQA} syntax. Write complex expressions using 70+ mathematical/date/string functions, parentheses, and any math/logic operators. Use cascading conditional logic, like cascading array_filter / array_filter_exclude. Eliminate the need for most custom JavaScript - computations, scoring and tailoring are done by EM. Run surveys with complex conditions and piping in All-in-one mode, even if highly dynamic. Run large, complex surveys faster, even if they contain many conditions. Use the Question/Group Navigation Index even with complex conditions. Jump forward in Navigation Index, re-validating all intervening steps and stopping if any are invalid. Auto-convert Conditions to Relevance - so you can still use the Conditions editor if you like it. Re-order and/or delete any questions or groups, even if they contain complex conditions. Use EM syntax-highlighting to quickly validate and debug your work. All variables are color coded to indicate whether they are set on the current, prior, or later pages (or not at all). Tool-tips show the question code, SGQA, question text, and enumerated answer choices. Clicking on the variable opens a new tab that lets you edit that question (also letting you quickly navigate cascading relevance logic). Use the new Survey Logic File view to show all of the key content and logic in the survey. This includes all group, question, sub-question, and answer codes, values (if assessment mode), and text; all defaults; all question attributes; and all relevance and validation logic. This file uses the click-able syntax highlighting and shows which questions have errors (e.g. bad syntax, undeclared variables, or re-used question codes). Use most EM-related functions and attributes in your own custom JavaScript, you don't need to re-invent EM functionality One Caveat. LimeSurvey 1.92 is fully backwards-compatible with 1.91+ except for less-than / greater-than comparisons against empty values. One of the LimeSurvey demo surveys uses a set of conditions that translates to this relevance equation: {(age < 16) or (age == 20) or ... or (age == 80)}. In LimeSurvey 1.91+, (age < 16) is FALSE when there is no answer (the value is blank). However, in LimeSurey 1.92, (age < 16) is TRUE when there is no answer, since both PHP and JavaScript treat blank as 0 in mathematical comparisons. Thus, 1.91+ would hide that question when age was unanswered, but 1.92 would show it. We went to great pains to prevent this, but since we needed to have the Expressions generate identical results in PHP and JavaScript, there was no way to make 1.92 treat "" < 16 as FALSE. Fortunately, there is an easy work-around for this. If you want (age < 16) to be FALSE, then use this expression instead: {(!is_empty(age) and age < 16)}. You can use the new Survey Logic File view to quickly identify and fix any such comparisons in your survey. The best way to get started is to download and install 1.92, and play with the included survey, /docs/demosurveys/limesurvey2_sample_survey_english.lss, which demonstrates the majority of EM's functionality. Read more about EM here: Main EM Documentation: http://docs.limesurvey.org/Expression+Manager HowTos: http://docs.limesurvey.org/Expression+Manager+HowTos Information for Developers: http://docs.limesurvey.org/Expression+Manager+for+Developers Please contact us via the Forum or IRC with any questions/comments. If you find any bugs, please report them on the Bug Tracker. Also note, for those of you watching the development of 2.0, EM will be included in it too. At present, the version of EM in 1.92 is considerably more robust and feature complete than the version in 2.0a. However, as the Yii port progresses over the next several months, these new EM features will be ported to Yii and the 2.x branch. [Less]

In the light of recent events we are happy to announce that the LimeSurvey project will participate in Google Code-In 2011 (GCIN). Two prospective GCIN partipicants contacted us and are very eager to help port LimeSurvey to the new PHP framework. ... [More] After collecting all requirements for our future PHP framework and after these two students helped us to do a Proof-of-Concept base port of the admininstration login/main menu/global settings we decided that we will use Yii as future framework for LimeSurvey. It has a very vibrant community, is really fast and offers every comfort in addition to our requirements. So far it looks like we will be able to port huge parts of LimeSurvey during the GCIN contest and that means that the LimeSurvey project in general is moving with full speed again. Yay! [Less]

Unfortunately we have some bad news this time. We withdrew LimeSurvey 2.0a a couple days ago because of license issues, we also advise you not to use or distribute version 2.0a. Here is what happened: When we chose a PHP framework as a base for ... [More] future development we decided for CodeIgniter (CI) because it was lightweight, fast and easy to learn. Their website said that 'CodeIgniter is licensed under an Apache/BSD-style open source license' so everyone assumed that the license would be GPL-compatible because LimeSurvey is under GPL. (even one of the past CodeIgniter developers, Derek Allard, thought so because he developed an application based on CI being under GPL). A new team member, Tom Klingenberg, joined us a couple month ago and pointed out there might be something wrong with the CodeIgniter license. We started to investigate and contacted the CodeIgniter project lead, a company named EllisLab. It went downhill from there. As we insisted on getting some conclusive response if the license is GPL-compatible we seemed to have woken some sleeping dogs. About 10 days ago EllisLab suddenly changed the license in their source code repository on the future CodeIgniter version 3.0 to OSL (Open Software license) which is incompatible to the GPL for numerous reasons. A huge discussion about this started in their forums, especially why this license and why this was decided without including the community or past contributors. EllisLab reacted by publishing a number of articles on their blog 'educating' their community about license issues. That's when the real bomb went off: The current CI license is als not GPL-compatible. Many many people assumed otherwise before that and so people are angry and disappointed. In the days after that announcement EllisLab did not revise their decision. There will be no GPL-compatible license on CodeIgniter and they will be using OSL (which we think is kinda stupid for a PHP framework). For us that meant that LimeSurvey 2.0a is/was in violation of the CI/GPL license and so we had to withdraw it. What now? In the upcoming days we will decide on a new PHP framework to use. For the previous port done to CodeIgniter by two of our team members we needed full two month of fulltime work, which means that 4 man-month of work went partially down the drain. Luckily most frameworks are similar and we won't have to re-invent the wheel completely. But the port to a new framework will take time so expect a delay on a new version for another 3 months at a minimum. Who's to blame? Sure, not checking the current CodeIgniter license closely enough is to blame on our own stupidity - but in the available information at the time and threads in their forums EllisLab never disclaimed that their license is GPL-compatible. There were even GPL components listed in their Wiki. EllisLab had it in their hands to choose a better license for the next generation of CI. We did alot of arguing in the forums, there was a uservoice with hundred supporters, we even contacted them personally but nothing helped. Obviously EllisLab only cares only about their own IP (how legal that is could be discussed because no past contributor was asked about the license change) not about their community or other open Source projects (they weren't even aware of Derek Allards project) based on CI. Contrary to this we respect our past contributors. LimeSurvey was and will be always under GPL license. Please bear with us and be patient waiting for the next version of LimeSurvey. If you are a PHP coder, have great experience with PHP frameworks and like to give a helping hand porting to a new framework, please contact us. [Less]

The LimeSurvey team is proud to release the first alpha Version of LimeSurvey 2.0. This new version has come a long way and basically is a port of LimeSurvey 1 to a complete new codebase. It is NOT a complete rewrite which we intended to do a couple ... [More] years ago - unfortunately we lacked resources to ever complete that one so we decided to go this much more transitioning way. However LimeSurvey 2.0 does not lack new features. Beside the port to a PHP framework the new version most notably sports a new condition engine which we call Expression Manager (EM). Currently it runs in parallel to the old condition engine and will on a short term replace it completely. EM makes it possible to use advanced piping, micro-tailoring and complex equations to decide if a question is visible/relevant or not. Also LimeSurvey offers now an archive format which makes it possible to archive & download a complete survey in its current state (including responses/timings/tokens). You can restore it later again at any LimeSurvey installation. There are many more new features - click 'Read more' below to learn about it. Download now the LimeSurvey 2.0alpha version and give it a try - report any issues you come across to our bug tracker so we can release the next version as soon as possible.   Changes from 1.91+ to 2.0alpha: Ported LimeSurvey to use the CodeIgniter PHP framework (magiclko,dionet) Advanced way to create conditions/piping/micro-tailoring based on equations by using the Expression Manage (EM) engine (tmswhite) Auto-generate Relevance Equation from Conditions when save question (tmswhite) GUI for ExpressionManager (tmswhite) Central participants database (anieshh) A real installer (magiclko) CodeMirror UI editor now used when editing templates  (magiclko) $lwcdropdowns setting removed from config-defaults.php and moved to Advanced question settings for List with Comment question type (c_schmitz) Ability to make last minute changes in the survey activation screen to settings that cannot be changed after activation anymore (c_schmitz) Export multiple survey archives at the survey list as one big ZIP file (c_schmitz) Export survey ZIP archive function with includes the survey structure, responses, tokens and timings - can be used for archival purposes or to move a survey from one server to another. (c_schmitz) Global setting to restrict the languages being available in administration or frontend (c_schmitz) Implemented mass actions in surveylist which allows to delete/expire several surveys at the same time - only available to super administrators (c_schmitz) In deactivation screen you can choose now between deactivation and expiration (c_schmitz) Multilingual question attributes (c_schmitz) New RemoteControl 2 XML-RPC interface (instead of the old SOAP interface) (c_schmitz) Randomization groups for question groups (c_schmitz) Reorder questions/question groups per Drag-n-drop (c_schmitz) Show modified question attributes at question summary (c_schmitz) URL params for integration of survey panels (c_schmitz) [Less]

The LimeSurvey team is proud to release the first alpha Version of LimeSurvey 2.0. This new version has come a long way and basically is a port of LimeSurvey 1 to a complete new codebase. It is NOT a complete rewrite which we intended to do a couple ... [More] years ago - unfortunately we lacked resources to ever complete that one so we decided to go this much more transitioning way. However LimeSurvey 2.0 does not lack new features. Beside the port to a PHP framework the new version most notably sports a new condition engine which we call Expression Manager (EM). Currently it runs in parallel to the old condition engine and will on a short term replace it completely. EM makes it possible to use advanced piping, micro-tailoring and complex equations to decide if a question is visible/relevant or not. Also LimeSurvey offers now an archive format which makes it possible to archive & download a complete survey in its current state (including responses/timings/tokens). You can restore it later again at any LimeSurvey installation. There are many more new features - click 'Read more' below to learn about it. Download now the LimeSurvey 2.0alpha version and give it a try - report any issues you come across to our bug tracker so we can release the next version as soon as possible.   Changes from 1.91+ to 2.0alpha: Ported LimeSurvey to use a PHP framework (magiclko,dionet) Advanced way to create conditions/piping/micro-tailoring based on equations by using the Expression Manage (EM) engine (tmswhite) Auto-generate Relevance Equation from Conditions when save question (tmswhite) GUI for ExpressionManager (tmswhite) Central participants database (anieshh) A real installer (magiclko) CodeMirror UI editor now used when editing templates  (magiclko) $lwcdropdowns setting removed from config-defaults.php and moved to Advanced question settings for List with Comment question type (c_schmitz) Ability to make last minute changes in the survey activation screen to settings that cannot be changed after activation anymore (c_schmitz) Export multiple survey archives at the survey list as one big ZIP file (c_schmitz) Export survey ZIP archive function with includes the survey structure, responses, tokens and timings - can be used for archival purposes or to move a survey from one server to another. (c_schmitz) Global setting to restrict the languages being available in administration or frontend (c_schmitz) Implemented mass actions in surveylist which allows to delete/expire several surveys at the same time - only available to super administrators (c_schmitz) In deactivation screen you can choose now between deactivation and expiration (c_schmitz) Multilingual question attributes (c_schmitz) New RemoteControl 2 XML-RPC interface (instead of the old SOAP interface) (c_schmitz) Randomization groups for question groups (c_schmitz) Reorder questions/question groups per Drag-n-drop (c_schmitz) Show modified question attributes at question summary (c_schmitz) URL params for integration of survey panels (c_schmitz) [Less]