BETA VERSION: Map Locator Hack

Welcome to my first BETA Release of

Map Locator Hack or How-to-Find members in a nutshell

This is my first try to get help from you guys. I tried to develop this on my own but i failed. I need help from all of you.

Before i start to describe what this hack does please take a look at the live demo. It makes my life much easier. Live demo can be viewed here.

Please move your mouse over the marks. You will see userinformations.

So this hack provides a map for VBulletin to show where your members are living. But i do not have the data for the US. I just have the data for germany and due to this i can only provide the german map. I have added the US map and a map of india but without the data i will not be able to finish this hack for other countries.

Please read my installation instructions completly BEFORE you start installing this hack. This hack is not easy to install and it will take you at least 30 min to get it running with the german map.

I would like to add: This is not an official release. This is a BETA version which is currently in production. I would not post this in this BETA section when i would not need your help. So what i need from you ? Please read my install instructions and read the part about the US data. If someone can provide this kind of data, i will be able to publish this hack.

If no one can provide this data, i will not continue with this hack because it works for me and due to the help of an indian VB member i will finalize this hack for him for india. So it is up to you.

UPDATE BETA 1.01:
After having done the base work, i focused now on the performance. If you have many members in your domain and many people open this map, your server will struggle. The heavy SQL part of this hack will bring down your server. Due to this i implemented a performance improvement.

I created the following logic around the hack:
- check if the number of ZIP code entries of the members has changed.
- if yes, then redraw the map with all queries ( a lot of queries which are required )
- if no, then take the already drawn map and take the userinfo which has been saved into a file rather then redo all queries again

Improvement:
- Up to 800% because people do not change their ZIP code so often
- if new ZIP codes are added only 1 person will issue the heavy SQL load to your server and this just ONCE
- every other person will get the cached version of the map with a really nice performance ( 5 queries in total )

And on top of that i added the Locator template to the cached templates. So this hack should be performing very well now. You can check it on my live demo site.

I have updated the ZIP file with the new locator.php file. For upgraders, just replace the locator.php file in your forum root folder. Then please do a "chmod 777 data" in your forum root folder. All set all done.

Cheers,

[DjTaz]

Anything further on this ? (not to be bugging ya .. just curious) ..

Id be delighted to see this working .. Im not in the U.S. myself anyway , im in Ireland

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by DjTaz

Anything further on this ? (not to be bugging ya .. just curious) ..

Id be delighted to see this working .. Im not in the U.S. myself anyway , im in Ireland

Then please read the threads where i talked about UK and how to gather the required infos and maps. Without them nothing can be done. I am living in germany and i can not collect the information for other countries. This is your part.

Cheers,

[ConqSoft]

There's a Member Map hack for InvisionBoard that seems to work fairly well, if some of you guru's want to try to port it to vBulletin.

Someone sent it to me. (Attached)

[caliman]

Hi I am new to vBulletin - just installed it - and I am importing over my old YaBB site - thought I'd share a 'member map' mod I installed on my old board:

http://www.3reef.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Ya...all;defmap=usa

The way this works is javascript/dhtml and some flat files... but basically a member goes to the right map and uses the mouse to 'pin' a pushpin on it. The coordinates are saved in their profile. This might be an easier approach than the zip code thing. :lick:

[ConqSoft]

Yeah, that's the way the one for InvisionBoard that I posted works. The user places their own pushpin.

[caliman]

Ahhh well there you go.. I do think that would be easier.

[bold]

Originally Posted by ConqSoft

There's a Member Map hack for InvisionBoard that seems to work fairly well, if some of you guru's want to try to port it to vBulletin.

Someone sent it to me. (Attached)

someone port this please

[Pseudomizer]

Ok guys. Just to make one thing clear. I will not release any map hack with placing pins on a map. This has been discussed before and this is not my intention of this map hack.

If you need someone to convert these map hacks from other boards to VB then good luck, but I will not do it for sure.

My current solution works for Germany and UK with the limitation of up to 2000 users. A new solution will come in this year with a better performing solution but until then that's it.

Best regards,

Pseudomizer

[Torben]

How about this? http://www.thedigitalmapstore.com/Fr..._database.html
It's a couple of years out of date but worth a shot me thinks.
Let's get this thing going again! :devious:
One other idea - google maps and the other mapping services online all use geo data to calculate directions and display maps etc. google maps may even have an sdk or even an api for their service. Just a thought - might be worthwhile investigating.

[zeeko1212]

Coooool Hack!