vBulletin 4 Geographic Location Mod Request

[danyol1706]

Is there a geographic data mod that would allow for a “member location” user profile field, finding members by location, and for postings in a forum for classified ads?

A - When registering or updating their profiles, I want users to be able to set their location based on a drop-down menu of Country -> State/Region -> City -> Area.
For example: United States (country) -> California (Region) -> Los Angeles (city) -> South Bay (area in the city).

B - I also want users to be able to filter search for other members by location using the "member search" tool based on the same drop-down menu as part A mentioned above.

C – Finally, there will be a “Classifieds Forum" that would function like a miniature version of Craigslist, where members can post apartment/house/vacation rentals, announce events, and gigs by listing their postings based on City location. In addition, members doing searches should be able to enter the Classifieds Forum and do a filtered search of postings by item/service -> category -> location. When entering the Classifieds forum, members will see two buttons above the first posting: "Post a Listing" and "Search Listings".

Thank you.

[35mm]

Not sure if there is an existing mod, but I have been working on something similar recently outside of vb, but am planning to implement it into vb4 as well soon.

I have created detailed geo databases for the UK and USA that both include the following: postcode/zip (prefix only for UK) , town/city/(& postal city for UK), region/county, state(england, scotland, wales, n ireland - for uk), latitude,longitude.

There are a couple of hassles though. Not all countries have a postcode system, and some that do, only make them available commercially at a high cost. Many countries post code systems are also copyrighted by the countries government. So you will be limited to providing your service to visitors from only a few countries who's postcodes are publicly obtainable, although, USA & UK (which are easily obtainable) will probably make up most of your traffic any way, so no big loss.

I have a powerful, and fast db query for doing proximity searches based on a user's postcode, and because of the db design it's also possible to do any geo query based on a place name. As well as that I also use geo ip functions to "try" to capture geo data about a visitor when they arrive at the site. That's based on a frequently updated database that I have my server download and extract once a week.

With all that, it's certainly possible to add geo functions to vb4 (all that you want and more), which is what I'm about to start doing, but it is a huge amount of work, and that's before you even get any where near adding it to vb4! So if you want it, I may be able to help you, but it would have to be for a fee due to all the time, effort and data gathering etc.

[dankreiner]

i need a mod that will do a search by zip in cms and display a set of users from multiple specific usergroups based on the users proximity to the zip code entered.

the output would need to be customized to include info from the profile such as address.

Anyone workin on this?