Open NavShopOpen Search

Forums > Technical Discussion > Events database + Google maps = cool :)

Login/Join to Participate
Page:
*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
Some time ago, I PM'd Malcolm with an idea...

Written by:

Hi Malcolm,

After going to the Falmouth meet in the UK, I'm thinking I'd like to start going to other meets that are going. Browsing the meets thread is one way, but it'd be nice if the information was available with a map so you can quickly see what's going on in your area.

I was thinking of having a go at using the google maps api to do it and was wondering if HoP would be interested in hosting it? Something like a list of events (maybe a timeline as well?) going on and a map so that you can see where they are.

What d'you think?

Cheers,
Jon



Being the somewhat lazy chap that I am, it's taken me some time to get round to doing anything about it, but I'm starting to tinker now. I've got a test page running here. I've started to tinker with the google maps stuff to get a feel for how we might get this going, but what I've seen so far looks really promising.

There are three parts to this new page I'm planning:

The map - shows you where all the events / meets are happening
The events list / timeline - I've not decided which would be best - whether to have a time line that you can scroll through, or just a simple list. Either way, this will be a list of all the events going on.
The event display - when you click on a link, this will display all the information about it: Where it is, when, a link to the forum for discussions, general information.

I think it's going to be rather cool, but I'd appreciate any ideas anyone else has? For example, what information would you want stored per event?

Cake or Death?

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
Did you get anywhere Sym?

Help would be most welcome Suibom smile

Cake or Death?

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
no - i've been far too busy to do anything about it! Sorry redface

I'll look at it again once i've finished making the play ticket booking system and working on a paid site i'm doing!

I've had many thoughts about it though - like how it will fit in with the HoP system, how the data gets in to the database, where it will be hosted (I'm willing and able to host it) and where will it fit in to the page on HoP, if at all. It would be great to be able to a map on the first post of a thread in the same way as a poll is now...

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
Interesting.. sounds quite ambitious, but I like a challenge smile

Cake or Death?

Suibomaddict
577 posts
Location: Oregon, USA

Posted:
So, is this still mostly in the concept phase right now, or are you starting breakin into code yet?

Definition of poi- A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.

Ahnold discussing poi - "It is naht a toober!"

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
have a look at the FTP info above - hyperlight has done some code, but it's not working on the server at the moment. Feel free to download and play about with it - but I still think we need more of a master plan smile

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
Got it! That's a step in the right direction smile

Cake or Death?

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
hehe, cool smile

I've just added Play 2006 in to the database too - I think the lat/long will be easy, as the maps API has the data of the centre position on the page. I'll have a look at an AJAX-y adding tool, so someone can add a pin and drag it about to add an event...but I'll not ahve time to do that for a while frown

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Suibomaddict
577 posts
Location: Oregon, USA

Posted:
I'll dive into it this weekend... see if I can catch up.

Definition of poi- A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.

Ahnold discussing poi - "It is naht a toober!"

UCOFSILVER Member
15,417 posts
Location: South Wales

Posted:
hug nice stuff smile
*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
 Written by: Suibom

I'll dive into it this weekend... see if I can catch up.


Did you get anywhere?

Cake or Death?

Suibomaddict
577 posts
Location: Oregon, USA

Posted:
Unfortunately not.. general exhaustion, chaos, death of a grandma and sickness have thwarted any attempts to do anything productive recently.

Definition of poi- A Hawaiian food made from the tuber of the taro that is cooked, pounded to a paste, and fermented.

Ahnold discussing poi - "It is naht a toober!"

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
I've been more or less the same!

Are either of you going to any of the Fal/BJC/Play etc meets? Maybe we could talk about it then...

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
When's Falmouth this year?



[Edit]Ah, I see! I should be able to make it there. Who knows, I might even have some new(ish) toys to play with smile[/Edit]
EDITED_BY: *HyperLight (1143717941)

Cake or Death?

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
I've still done nothing about this, but I think it would be silly not to include the Calendar API....

https://code.google.com/apis/gdata/calendar.html

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
Hey everyone!

I've just done 80% of this in 5 minutes (really, that was all it took!) using drupal and a few modules.

At the moment (with a few bugs) I have a site where:

* A user can add an event and select the location using google maps
* Other users can sign up for this event, you can see all the users that have signed up, and therefore the people coming (this is optional)
* You can see a map of all events, or events within a category or with some keywords
* See all the events on a calendar or map. clicking on the map beings up a bubble with a link to the page.

I am just uploading it now, I will edit this post when it's up... smile

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
So I'm guessing you either fell asleep or it's taking a reallu long time to upload? wink

Cake or Death?

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
I fell asleep wink



And, the damn SQL database is on a silly port that I can't access from work, and I forgot to upload it at home....



It's coming...



...It's here biggrin



https://events.strayman.co.uk/



Sign up, test, break etc
EDITED_BY: Sym (1148484762)

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
Nice one.. needs a bit of fine tuning to make it more obvious what to do (a step-by-step AJAX wizard would be nice wink), but aside from that, it's looking very nice!



Next steps?

Make the map start with just the UK showing

A Google Calendar to display the events smile

A way to display the next two weeks (say)

Splitting meets from events



Just some ideas wink



P.s - I added a couple of events / my location!
EDITED_BY: *HyperLight (1148548506)

Cake or Death?

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
There are many more options that you see at the moment. I will upgrade your account to an admin so you can have a look. Once you get your head around drupal you'll see how far we can take it...

 Written by:

fine tuning to make it more obvious what to do



I think that is a matter of having a nicer design, and actually thinking about the workflow rather than getting it done quick.


 Written by:

Make the map start with just the UK showing


Can be done at the moment, have a look at the gmap settings under admin > settings

 Written by:

A Google Calendar to display the events


There is a really ulgy looking cal at the moment. Exporting to ical wouldn't be a problem, then you just need to subscribe to it in Google Calendar. If you're talking about having the Google Calendar on the site: I don't think google have an api for it yet, so wee can't

 Written by:

A way to display the next two weeks (say)


I'll add the 'upcoming events block in admin > blocks

 Written by:

Splitting meets from events


This can be done with categories. You'll see that there is a tagging system at the moment (with some ajax working like del.icio.us tags) but we can just set up a category for event types. I will do this now actually.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

*HyperLightBRONZE Member
old hand
1,174 posts
Location: Great Malvern [UK]

Posted:
Nice one - sounds like it's all under control. Good point about Google Calendar; You're right! I'll have a play with it all later if/when I get a chance smile

Cake or Death?

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
Cool smile

I've just added you to the admin role. Take a look at 'views' - thats where all the cool stuff goes on. You can set up a custom view of any of that data in the site, and if it has geo information, you can show it on a map. All I've done with the events map is set up a view (almost like an sql query) that selects all the events and shows them. I (or you now) can make it only show events in a category, in a country, from a user etc etc.

Have a play

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

SymBRONZE Member
Geek-enviro-hippy priest
1,858 posts
Location: Diss, Norfolk, United Kingdom

Posted:
I've now updated the event map page so you can select what type of event you want.

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Mr MajestikSILVER Member
coming to a country near you
4,696 posts
Location: home of the tiney toothy bear, Australia

Posted:
mwahahahaha, thanks to google and some explanation i know where ravehead lives!

"but have you considered there is more to life than your eyelids?"

jointly owned by Fire_Spinning_Angel and Blu_Valley

Page:

Similar Topics

Using the keywords [event * database google map * cool] we found the following existing topics.

  1. Forums > Events database + Google maps = cool :) [53 replies]

      Show more..

HOP Newsletter

Sign up to get the latest on sales, new releases and more...