Member World Map Hack Request
 

There is a vBulletin 3 hack that permits members from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to enter their ZIP codes via a field. If they do so, their location will be plotted on a map.

Example:
http://www.kampfkunst-board.info/forum/membermap.php

Here is the hack:
http://www.vbulletin-germany.com/for...ad.php?t=10817

I can imagine that this implementation has to rely on large data tables, linking the ZIP codes to a position on the map and the town's name. Hard to imagine that someone would compile all these data for the whole world.

However, there would be an easy alternative to it: Why not permit members to enter their lattitude and longitude and plot them then on a world map, like the aforementioned hack does with a map of the German-speaking countries.

I think that would be a great addition for everyone that runs an international vBulletin board (= really most people.)

I could imagine that many vBulletin board operators would even be willing to make a small PayPal donation for such a hack.

Comments, ideas, suggestions, and, above all, any master coder volunteers? ;)

Maybe everyone that would be interested in installing such a hack on his board can leave a brief comment. Thank you. :)

that would be nice especially on very large message boards where their is too many profiles to look at to know who lives where and a world map would be a nice and easy way. i would like this feature as well.

this would be very cool!

yup, would love to have something like this available too :)

That would be an excellent idea, Njord :up:

I would love to see something like this

I'd love a nice map of all my forum members. Heck, I'd pay decent money for it too.

Please somebody do this!

Here is the best I could do with a map program from Microsoft and it stinks!

http://www.pro-touring.com/map/

yes, i'd like it too

Maybe a coder will have mercy upon our souls. ;)

For sure!

I've been looking for something like this too, and I would also pay a few $$$. Don't like the idea about having the users post their own latitude or longitude though. It should be made so there is no thought necessary to participate, for example maybe a geographic-location field in the user registration can be made mandatory so that the user has to select a location from a drop down list of places

Bump
Example: http://ktmtalk.com/index.php?act=membermap
Invision Version: http://www.theperfectpage.org/bb/ind...?showtopic=147

I agree, also check out towards the top, you can select different maps around the world to view...cool!

Does anyone know of anyone working on this?

the ipb 1 is nice

Example: http://ktmtalk.com/index.php?act=membermap
Invision Version: http://www.theperfectpage.org/bb/in...p?showtopic=147

No one intersted in porting this?

I would install this hack aswell!

Me too!

Would be an awesome hack...

Right now we have something like this at our forums, but we have to add each user to the map one by one so its really not much anything like this i guess :-p

I have a world-wide version, I have yet to release. Possibly in the future.

Let me know when you decide to release, I wanna be the first to download it.

Has anyone done anything for this yet? the IPB version is very nice looking.

Hows this guys

http://www.tech-unity.com/index.php?page=guestmap

Click the link in the center to create your own guestmap.

Take the code they give you, create a new template, call it MAP and paste the code in.

The take your index.php rename it to map.php or whatever, then

Search that file for

and replace it with

As you can see I used the vbAdvanced, but you dont need to.

Use the directions above and you are good to go. ;)

tomshawk - thank you!

however, my map isn't showing up.. i'm getting a button that you have to click on to view the map, but not the map itself...

Link? I looked around your site real quick and did not see a link to it.

That and I made a small / er OK, a big goof

Copy your FORUMHOME Template, paste it into the new Map template

Then in the new MAP template find

<!-- main -->

<!-- /main -->

and replace everything in between it with the code they gave you.

My apologies, I was obviously sleep deprived when I posted last night.

ah.. i see what the problem was..

when you click on the 'get code' button on their site, it seems to just give you code for buttons that link to your map. once i went to my map from there, i was able to 'view source' and get the <iframe> code for the actual map.

i've added it as a block in my vBPortal. thanks again!

I haven't played with the version of vbPortal, but...

On that page, is there a way to remove the right side blocks, because it is cutting off some of the map.

Glad you got it working though, Glad I could help ;)

wouldn't it be better to link this to the ip of the member then to the zip-code?

at least I would prefere ;)

will add tonight a link to another type of worldmap and source code

http://www.xpenguin.com/plot.php

as promised

I've seen this done in various ways. Here are few good examples:

vbulletin v2 (flash): https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=51731

vbulletin v3 (german): http://www.vbulletin-germany.com/for...ead.php?t=8740

Proprietary: http://climateapps2.oucs.ox.ac.uk/cpdnboinc/usermap.php

Proprietary: http://mappic.org

I'd like to see it be done strictly via the information the user places in their profiles. I would be willing to pay $$ for this hack or to add money to a pot for the designer.

Probably best to do it by IP address since databases are readily available to convert that into a geographic location. You could put something in the user profile allowing the user to opt out of having their location show up. The pin or icon could simply be a link to the member's user profile with the user's name shown on the pin.

Unfortunately I'm not skilled enough as a programmer to even approach creating something like this. Though I'm sure many people on this board could do it.

- Sid

That sounds even better. :)

The version I posted in an earlier post that is working on Invision board works off a user profile field. This is often better because members may log into the forum from various computers. Also the IP databases are not that accurate. Right now I am in Dallas but MaxMind shows me in Seatle (Sprint IP from our T1 at work).
http://www.maxmind.com/app/lookup_city

Plus why add a dependancy of having to subscribe to an IP database when your member can explictly tell you where you are.

You're right of course. Your IP is not a good indicator of where you're logging in from since your ISP can be anywhere. I currently use a free geotracking IP database for my adserver and it's quite incomplete. A more comprehensive version has a monthly or yearly subscription.

There exists already a vBulletin v2.x compatible flash user map; has anyone who's competent with coding taken a look at this and seen if it's readily portable into 3.x or 3.5.x?

- Sid

The 2.2 version works like a charm on 3.0.7 if you follow the directions in this thread: https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...205#post745205

I followed those directions .. didn't work at all for me.. :disappointed:

I'd be interested.

??? Er... in what?
Claygp, follow the instructions in my last post in that thread, re-do things carefully, experiment around a bit (although following the instructions in my last post will be most important) and I'm sure you'll get it.

It works great in 3.0.7

Do you happen to have a sample of another board running this mod?