Location of members

stubbie7 · #1 December 30th, 2005

I was noodling around the search area and had a thought. Is there a way (or could there be a way) to search members by location? It would be interesting to find who is geographically close to me or to find out how many members live in certain areas of the world. I know it is listed by there name but that would be a lot names to go through manually.

Not really important, but just a thought.

Rick

glendalecamper · #2 December 30th, 2005

on another forum i am visit they use this cool mapping system by google. web address is www.frappr.com - once set up it allows members to put their location and photos on a map of the world. Would probably be best to be set up by one of the moderators if they were interested.

phil

Kirk Lorange · #3 December 30th, 2005

Clancy has already had a look at the Google thing ... it's semi-installed I think. I'll ask her about it

dora · #4 December 30th, 2005

fabulous idea, I've often wondered myself exactly where everyone is and as this site grows it will be even more interesting.

Clancy · #5 January 1st, 2006

Stubbie,

There is a way to search by location. Just go to the "Member List" link on the nav bar and then click on the "search members" link located at the upper right hand corner (I've outlined the "search members" link in red in the screenshot I've attached to this post) when you click on that link, you will then see a drop-down box, click on the "advanced search" link - you will then be taken to a page where you can search by different fields. You will see location as one of those fields ... from there just type in a location and you'll get a list of members from that location.

It's not perfect however, for example, if a member has just put in their location as ca (for Canada) you won't find them when you search for Canada... You could always put in just "ca" but then you will get any member with the letters "ca" anywhere in their location, which can include state/province, country or town.

Also, as Kirk mentioned I had semi-installed a googlemap add-on for this forum so we could visually show our locations on a world map. It had a few bugs so I put it on hold, but I looked into it again yesterday and sorted out some problems I was having and it's looking like it will be ok now.

I did also have a look at frappr.com Phil and it looks great, but I've decided that it would be better to keep it more tied into the forum here rather than everyone having to sign up to frappr to add their location. The one I have installed isn't perfect, but once you are logged into the forum, you can just add your location on the map and it will automatically put you there using your forum username.

I should have it up and running either today or tomorrow. I'll update this thread when it's ready.

Thanks for the suggestions. Keep them coming.

Clancy

Clancy · #6 January 2nd, 2006

Ok, I'll announce this in the "What's Going On" forum in a minute but wanted to update this thread first.

I've just added a link to the nav bar "Member Locations" - if you click on that link you will now see that we have our own Guitar For Beginners and Beyond Googlemap page. On this page you will be able to put a marker to show the approximate area in which you live. North America is shown in detail. You can see streets etc. The rest of the world doesn't have that kind of detail yet but you can still add your marker.

I suggest that North Americans only put the marker on their town, not on the street address.

Anyway it's done. The directions on how to add your marker are on the page itself, but feel free to post back here if you are having problems. Please note that this script has some bugs (but these should be ironed out in the near future).

Thanks goes to stonyarc at vbulletin.org for coming up with the Googlemap extension.

Have fun with it

Clancy

dora · #7 January 2nd, 2006

I FOUND MY SPOT , THANKS Clancy!

Clancy · #8 January 2nd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by dora

I FOUND MY SPOT , THANKS Clancy!

Thought you'd like that

Clancy

bluesguy · #9 January 3rd, 2006

Sweet! Just added myself onto the map.

Jean · #10 January 3rd, 2006

I accidentally added myself in the ocean

but I fixed it now...

Clancy · #11 January 3rd, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jean

I accidentally added myself in the ocean

but I fixed it now...

I noticed that, but I thought you'd just gone swimming

Clancy

Jean · #12 January 4th, 2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clancy

I noticed that, but I thought you'd just gone swimming

Clancy

How did you know? I went riding yesterday, (in the water

) and that hoss of mine (In my profile pic) almost tossed me, he likes the feel of the water, and goes.. how should I say it..

and then

...

dora · #13 January 4th, 2006

hi Phil, just looked at the london map as years ago I lived near mitcham.they sound like they're up to their ears at frappa with email

Clancy · #14 January 12th, 2006

Just thought I'm bump this thread and remind anyone (any member that is) that if you haven't already added your marker to our new Member locations Googlemap, why not do it now

- the more the merrier. We have 62 place markers already but we're hoping to build that up.

To add your location marker, just click on the "Member Locations" link in the nav bar and follow the directions on how to add your marker from there.

Clancy

dora · #15 January 17th, 2006

There are 66 countries represented on the forum so far .Surprises, Vietnam, Iran, Bangladesh,Saudi Arabia, Egypt,Sri lanka,Malaysia,Venezuela, so far we are unknown territory to the Czechs and Argentines and yet two members from Chile and two from Brazil discovered us.The power of the world wide web still amazes me and happily it brings lots of international twangers together.
What could be better Cheers!