About VAR: feature (and TOKEN:) feature.

I already think EM can be expandable by a way : something like this {PLUGINNAME:VARIABLE} or (maybe SESSIONARRAYNAME:VARIABLE, because TOKEN is a session var name).

It's just an idea

We just started to use LimeSurvey to enable customers to build up their own surveys.
LimeSurvey is a nice tool to manage surveys, it is easy to handle, so nearly everyone can build a survey.
It is responsive, you can use templates to give all surveys the matching CD.

but one big feature is missing and propably this will kick out LimeSurvey: There is no role-concept for admins. you have to set individual rights on individual basis (the user groups are only shortcuts for individual assignments).
Also it is very difficult to restrict access to the admin backend with an additional security layer like htaccess.

Another option we miss: export and import a survey (or template) with all belonging files (images, JS, CSS, ...) in one step/file.
Especially as our admin does not grant access by ssh/ftp to the server.

About Permission : it's extandable, you can do 'What do you want for Permission" www.limesurvey.org/manual/BeforeHasPermission
It's really the most easy Plugin Event here.

About survey (or template) with all belonging files : teplate can be already export/import, and look at survey ressource to export/import survey files.

What features are missing the most?

- Response Rate in the Survey List View
- Standard Deviation and Arithmetic Mean in the Expert Mode
- Overall Arithmetic Mean Rating for all the Questions (To check the Overall Performance)
- Pages are too long when the reports are exported in pdf files. It should not be page by page. It is very tiring looking at the reports of LimeSurvey in pdf file.

Hope all this can be solved and available in the LimeSurvey as LimeSurvey is almost perfect.

Most wanted features:


- Loops: Iterate through multiple objects (e.g. people in a family, jobs, variations of experimental questions)
- Lists: Allow 0 to maxInt() answers to a question (the user can add new lines or delete them - maybe eben copy/paste them in bulk?)

Both Loops and Lists share the need for a serialized data structure - maybe in an additional lime_survey_serialdata table which is referenced in lime_survey_xyz as a foreign key? That would also solve the problems with the column limitations of database engines.

- Custom questions: Consisting of only elements that already exist in LimeSurvey, custom question types are possible with some tricky jQuery and CSS to combine multiple questions on the same page, but a feature in LimeSurvey (e.g. to integrate a short text field as the "Other" option within an array) would be very nice.

- Following best pratices regarding codes/labels:
* Allow some form of symbol in the question code. Of course, there are some limitations because of LS's use of "_" and then R, Stata, SPSS and the likes. But maybe there is a symbol that could still be allowed? It would make it easier to have a good structure of question codes.
* Subquestions should be numbered or lettered by default, but using 5 characters just to differentiate between SQ001 and SQ002 is a bit overkill. And the protected "_" symbol still allowes to make a clean cut between question and sub-question code.
* And the most important regarding the coding: ALWAYS use numerics as default for answer options. Almost all statistical software is based ón numerical variables for statistical analysis and strings need to be recoded and then the variable type changed if the survey was not set up with this in mind. Also, software like Stata does not allow to label strings - therefore the labels get lost on the way there.

Finally, one thought: Could queXML be integrated in a way that allows a DDI codebook to be generated directly from the LimeSurvey GUI?


Source: Many, many surveys in Social Sciences


THANK YOU developers and the whole community for such an amazing project!

Hi Jonsen,

Thank you for your interesting & detailed suggestions...

About answer/question codes, I wrote a feature request a couple of weeks ago after trying to help the best I can in this discussion:
www.limesurvey.org/community/forums/can-...-answer-code-length/

About Loops/List , i work currently on a Question settings : Survey inside survey.
See screenshot and framagit.org/SondagePro-LimeSurvey-plugin/questionExtraSurvey .

About use numerics by default : Noooooooooo ! Because it's a false good idea. I explain why . A real situation.

Some year ago, i work on a “cabinet d'étude”. They make a lot of survey with paper + online. In France : we always start list at 1. And we use an old tool allowing only number in code. This tool work only on MacOS 9.
The society make survey in Brasil, with paper. To don't have to send paper by airmail: they earn another society to write paper in a numeric/computer way. This society can not use the same tool , then they use another tool. BUT : seem in Brasil we start list at 0.
We receive the file, put in the system (import XLS file), the system read it and make report : we don't find issue in report automatically. Our tool set 0 to 'no answer' and all other code seems OK. Last one is never set : but it can happen in rela situation too.
Then we make a lot of report, and finally someone read the report … we have only ONE question wher this really seem strange ( A yes / no question …).
We lost 3 day of work, must make a new system before importting in our old system.
Now : i always try to use CLEAN code . When importing in tool : the system didn't anderstand the code and send a warning.
Example of code : NA (Not applicable), DNK (Do not know), etc …

I use numeric code only when i really want a numeric value.
Example 'Agrrement rate' can be:
1. Disagree strongly
2. Disagree somewhat
3. Neither agree nor disagree
4. Agree somewhat
5. Agree strongly
NA. Not applicable
DNK. Do not know

And here : it's better to use assesment value.

Unique: has comprehensive features for both SURVEY and ASSESSMENT, Expression Manager is very powerful
Most Missing: Survey level timer (when survey is used as a test, if LS has improved ASSESSMENT features so much then it makes sense to go all the way); Drag and drop question types
Other tools: xAPI to record user progress

I'm a developer, inheriting an very cool website which integrates LimeSurvey, Drupal, and CiviCRM.
Good:
Nice to see the theme engine upgrade to twig
Nice to see a plugin architecture with an API
Missing:
I'm not seeing much in they way of developer documentation. If I'm wrong on this, somebody please post some links.

jackrabbithanna wrote: …
Missing:
I'm not seeing much in they way of developer documentation. If I'm wrong on this, somebody please post some links.

+1 … never found time … try to add good doc in source code

One quick-ish way to get alot of documentation is to use Doxygen comment blocks and the documentation generation tools there. www.stack.nl/~dimitri/doxygen/manual/starting.html