Location v3 Goals

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Guys,

Brandon (Bdragon) and Massa (brmassa) are going to maintain the Location module for now on. We are going to launch a new version, the v3.

We need to focus on some bug fixing and making some features more generic. Then we will think about more sophisticated features.

If you want to suggest new features or bugs, please, use the Issues List.


Location 3.0

Location 3.0 will be launched at the end of January. Then we will start the port to D6.

Big Clean Up

  • Drop unused functions and mark poorly thought out functions deprecated (done)
  • Aim for E_ALL compliance (done)
  • Go through the issue queue and classify all issues
  • Drastically reduce the module footprint (the amount/size of files load on every Drupal load) by:
    • moving all admin function to a .inc file and loading it only when needed
    • only keep the hook function on the .module file
    • only load the COUNTRY.inc files when needed

Address module

  • Multiple addresses per user
  • Autocomplete "State/Province" field
  • Do the "easy" data updates to the inc files
  • Tons of bugs fixed

Geocode module

  • Add geocoding for more countries (new: australia)

Documentation

  • Document the code using Doxygen (partially done)
  • Review the README.txt

Views integration

  • View the module for bugs

Location 3.01

Preliminary plans

Big Clean Up

  • Further work on reducing the module footprint: optimizations
  • Split the module into Address and Geocoding submodules

Documentation

  • Consider a new website dedicated to Location
  • Review the API txt

Geocode module

  • Consider add new Map services by default

Comments

CCK Widgets!

+1 for CCK widgets

Boris Mann's picture

CCK widgets give us the most flexibility. bdragon / brmassa -- are you OK with this direction? It seems like CCK is the best path forward...

cck widgets but

greggles's picture

If you create cck widgets for location (which makes sense to me) then I think it would make sense to

1) remove the lat/lon widget from geo
2) replace the location module's address field with the cck address field

I'm excited by all the work on Location, but concerned that it will lead to duplication/confusion with the other mapping/location related modules.

--
Open Prediction Markets | Drupal Dashboard

Needs planning

Boris Mann's picture

Yep, all the location activities need planning and coordinating.

1) these are clearly candidates for CCK fields
2) so, agreed that location doesn't need address fields BUT I'm not a huge fan of the CCK address field, either. In some cases, I'll just want a city and a state field. Some will be dropdowns and some will be autocomplete or free typing. So, a way to indicate which fields are "address" fields and how they should tie into geocoding seems to be the need.

Essentially, "location enable" or "location map" fields. The same / similar discussion is taking place around signup and how it should detect date fields in different modules and content types.

Also not a fan of CCK address

mlncn's picture

All for the CCK direction, Boris Mann's suggestion (with a sensible default provided, whether CCK Address or a set of textfields or something new provided by Location itself) seems best.

(I'm the author of the new Place module (used on WSF2008.net and being updated soon) which uses taxonomy terms for country, optional state/province, city/town, and optional postal code, all of which can have their own lat-lon fields– so if Location v3 could be flexible enough to accept this approach, taxonomy for places as well as CCK, I would be very happy. Right now it just uses location.module for the rest of the address and the node's lat-lon, leaving half the table empty. I really think it just makes sense to implement places, a complex hierarchy, as taxonomy, and could help if location module wants to move that way internally.)

benjamin, Agaric Design Collective

benjamin, agaric

architecting

Boris Mann's picture

Well, the proper design here would be to location enable taxonomy terms with your place module. Also storing lat/lon separately is no good -- you would write a connector to store it in one place: the location lat/lon table.

Oh yes, and while we're talking this through....it looks like Geo might be the way to do storage? Location handles mostly glue code?

All needs sitting down and architecting...

Token Support

RobLoach's picture

Another thing that needs to go in there is Token module support. It would let us do things like use PathAuto to create path's based on node locations, use custom_breadcrumbs to have the node's breadcrumb display the location, etc. Here's the issue.

Agreed

robomalo's picture

+ 1

+ 1 on CCK location

cosmicdreams's picture

I wish all modules had contributing to the collection of CCK widgets in mind. Thank you for your hard work thusfar. You're making my work easier. Have a tip jar?

Software Engineer @ The Nerdery

CCK + CCK Address

jbrauer's picture

I like the idea of having both a Location CCK field and the ability to use the CCK address field as a location field as well. This way it is still simple to have a state and country selector on a location field but also have a profile (Bio) field that gets an address and can map them. The big problem I have with location today is that need to have users re-enter addresses.


Blog: Adding Understanding | Drupal Developer Search

ChrisBryant's picture

It would be great to include the ability to have a "Map It" button to do a geocode live on the page before submitting. That way you can see the results and if there was a valid location returned before submitting the node form.

Check out the feature request and example screenshot.

We would be happy to help with implementing this if people are interested.

--
Gravitek Labs

...

Fieldset within fieldset

robomalo's picture

I should probably just put this in the issue cue, but one thing that always bothered me is the location fieldset within the location fieldset on the node submit/edit page for nodes with one location. It looks like:

--Location------
----Location----

Using CCK fields would probably allow this to look prettier, and you could put location fields into your defined CCK groups.

Queue

Michelle's picture

Actually, I'm fairly sure that's in the queue already. I fixed that on my site and I believe I got the code snippit from the queue.

Michelle


See my Drupal articles and tutorials or come check out the Coulee Region

Drupal 6

GuillaumeDuveau's picture

[edit] Ooops, I didn't read carefully enough at the first time

Location and Mapping

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