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,

[DaveLogic]

Originally Posted by Pseudomizer

Any feedback so far about the UK map ? Does it work ?

Cheers,

I've had a bit of a nightmare....For some reason I cannot use my shell acount at the moment..I've contacted my host (who do provide it!) but I'm still awaiting a response...I have used it extensively before this.Although I know Pear is installed I cannot setup the other modules yet..Because I'm impatient and also exited about this working I tried installing Pear into the root (You can do this with ImageMagick and various other mods sometimes)...I used this installer http://www.phpkitchen.com/article.ph...21201062516970...Just out of interest and as you must know more about this than me. Do you think that this is possible or should I just hold on?? - There is a built in installer for all of the extra mods

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by DaveLogic

I've had a bit of a nightmare....For some reason I cannot use my shell acount at the moment..I've contacted my host (who do provide it!) but I'm still awaiting a response...I have used it extensively before this.Although I know Pear is installed I cannot setup the other modules yet..Because I'm impatient and also exited about this working I tried installing Pear into the root (You can do this with ImageMagick and various other mods sometimes)...I used this installer http://www.phpkitchen.com/article.ph...21201062516970...Just out of interest and as you must know more about this than me. Do you think that this is possible or should I just hold on?? - There is a built in installer for all of the extra mods

The problem will be PHP. You have to enter the PEAR path into your php.ini file. If you install it into your root folder i do not know if the php files will find the Geo folder. I never tried it before.

I am sorry but i have only root server and due to this i do not have restrictions like that. Otherwise i would have tested it. But if you want to go for it, then try it. Give it a shot. Then we know for other people if it works or not.

I know from other people that they are using PEAR in their root folder and it works for them. So the only question that remains would be: "Will the Geo folder be recognized ?". Let's see what you will tell us. Good luck.

Cheers,

[Pseudomizer]

Hi @LL,

i am very sorry but i just discovered a serious bug in the performance enhancements. Under certain circumstances it does not update the new files accordingly. So please add the following changes to your files:

locator.php:

Find:

PHP Code:

    $fp=fopen("./data/numbers.dat","a");
    fwrite($fp,$result[0]);
    fclose($fp); 


Just below add:

PHP Code:

    $datei = file("$count_data"); 


Then find:

PHP Code:

if ( $data_has_changed == "1" )
{ 


Just below add:

PHP Code:

   unlink("./data/numbers.dat");
   unlink("./data/users.dat"); 


Now delete the following files on your server: ./data/users.dat and ./data/numbers.dat. The first view of the page should run all queries but the reload of the page should have just 5 or 6 queries.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Now your locator page should be cached until the number of ZIP codes will change. I will implement this into the next update of the ZIP file.

P.S.: This is also not implemented in the UK version of th?s hack. So please add these changes to the UK version of this hack as well.

Cheers,

[Pseudomizer]

UK ? Any feedback so far ?

Cheers,

[DaveLogic]

Originally Posted by Pseudomizer

UK ? Any feedback so far ?

Cheers,

I'm still having a nightmare...My host agreed to install the 4 extra mods.The first 2 installed ok but the XML_SVG wouldn't...I have managed to install Pear into my Public_HTML root sucessfully and have installed the 4 mods but as you stated there is still a problem finding GEO...I did some research and evidently if the following is added to the top of every Pear dependant page it should work.

PHP Code:

<?php
ini_set(
    "include_path", (
        "path/to/your/pear/folder" .
        PATH_SEPERATOR .
        ini_get("include_path")
        )
    )
);
?>

My question is "Is this correct and what files need this adding to?" The site I got this information from is here http://builder.com.com/5100-6371-5163311.html

This is the error I receive after adding the above to locator.php

Warning: main(Geo/Geo.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/clubnu00/public_html/forums/locator.php on line 32

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required 'Geo/Geo.php' (include_path='home/clubnu00/public_html/pear/PEAR/PATH_SEPERATOR.:/usr/lib/php:/usr/local/lib/php') in /home/clubnu00/public_html/forums/locator.php on line 32

[Pseudomizer]

Hello Dave,

there is an easier way to get this running. Let me guess: You can the error message "no stable version/release found" for XML_SVG ? This is correct because they have a problem with the installer. They are working on this issue. As a workaround you have to do the following:

Instead of typing "pear install XML_SVG" you have to download the latest stable version as a tar.gz file from the PEAR website and the install it with "pear install XML_SVG_versionXXXX.tar.gz".

And of course you can not install IMAGE_GIS because this depends on XML_SVG. So if the one of the 3 packages fail you will not be able to install IMAGE_GIS.

Tell this to your provider and he should be able to install all 4 modules and copy the Geo directory into the PEAR directory as well.

Cheers,

[Johnny]

has anyone did the U.S map yet

[Pseudomizer]

Originally Posted by Johnny

has anyone did the U.S map yet

Hi Johnny,

NO. No one approached me yet to give me the US data. I am still waiting for input. As long as i do not have any input, i can not create anything. Sorry.

Cheers,

[oly51]

Originally Posted by Pseudomizer

Hi Johnny,

NO. No one approached me yet to give me the US data. I am still waiting for input. As long as i do not have any input, i can not create anything. Sorry.

Cheers,

Pseudomizer - What about this link?: http://forums.devshed.com/showthread.php?t=157248

It's free Zip code database and it's in MySQL. Hope it has the data you need.

[58sniper]

<a href="http://forums.devshed.com/t60834/s.html&highlight=zip+codes" target="_blank">http://forums.devshed.com/t60834/s.h...ight=zip+codes</a>