How do I use this module?

It would be a shame to introduce a duplicate effort. Especially since much time and care has been taken with this module to make it flexible and to cover a variety of use cases. The broader of a base it serves, the more likely it will continue to receive ongoing support and maintenance.

For that reason, the included modules are:

* Vote smart API, which does "nothing" on its own, but provides a query function, key management, and recommended table schemas. Your module can make calls to the query interface and/or create tables based on the definitions in this module.

* Vote smart field module, which allows you to store a vote smart record ID on any node type using CCK. When your node is saved, other fields on your node ( e.g. first_name, last_name, bill id, and so-forth ) can be populated by the information returned by Vote Smart.

* Vote smart factory, which allows you to create content types (e.g. State, Bill, Candidate, ... ), which already contains the recommended fields and mappings. If you have other modules installed, such as Image Field or Geo, it will use those field types

I did all of this on behalf of a voterguide site last fall. I got this module functionally complete in order to:
* Generate content types, with appropriate fields, for candidates
* Import all candidates into nodes, and, using Geo, tag them with valid political boundaries

Then, using Views + Geo, I was able to find all of the candidates in "your" boundary.

Thus it's "available" today, provided your use cases roughly overlap those that have already been built up by this. Since you're handy with modules, you can check all the code out via CVS and see if it suits you. At that point, I'd love to hear about your use cases and how you can put some of your resources towards making these tools better documented, more polished, and/or more functional.

That way, everyone wins!

What's the status of this module development? Anything I can do to help?

I'm updating the title of this issue, because I've been getting a lot of support requests about this topic and I'm hoping people will find the answer here!

Hi,

Thanks for the description above Allie, but it would be good if you could upload a documentation or a video on how to use this module in the drupal.org website.
I am trying to implement a Candidate detail retrieval feature by searching with zipcode using project votesmart.
For this , in my webform i have a zip code and a markup field. When user enters the zipcode , i need to show the candidate picture in the markup field. For this ,i have included the project votesmart in my modules, configured project smart in settings to retrieve candidates, added a content type of for candidates in my webform. Now when i edit the webform, i cannot see anything nor do i know what to do with it. Do i need to enable anyother modules. Also the votesmart module was not there in drupal.org and i got it from : http://drupalcode.org/viewvc/drupal/contributions/modules/votesmart/

I am new to drupal and hence would require some detailed documentation to know how to retrieve votesmart details to drupal pages.

Hey folks,

Quick ping to say that my company is about to put out a VS integration module that takes a different approach using webform:

http://drupal.org/project/vs_webform

The VoteSmart Webform module is meant for email petition campaigns. For "lightweight" uses, it might be a better choice. This VoteSmart module is pry better if you really need to collect representative data w/in nodes - for views integration, rules integration, etc.

Cheers,
S