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[uk_martin]

Please also have a look at this thread - http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php?topic=26571.msg171001#new

Given some PHP programming ability and the time to do it, I can't see why a MOD for Coppermine (shall we call it CoppermineR?)  can't provide self contained solutions for photo sharing, photo-guest-books, community sites and a whole lot more. TranznDance has a brilliant MOD that can form the basis of the project, which needs opening out to;
1) allow other site users to post their pics on the same map
2) Get directions to/from locations "pinned" on the map
3) Get small "Bio's" on the visitors to the map.
4) Plenty of other things that I've not even thought of yet.

I can see this as being ideal for church & social groups, teams, clubs and any other sort of organisation which has an interest in bringing together the visitors to their site.

This could be the next generation of photo / video guest book, who knows.

As I may have explained on the other thread, I've seen Mappr and Flickr, and it seems that these are taking the USA by storm (no worldwide facility on Mappr yet), however to take part, photos etc all have to go "off site" into the Flickr database.

What we could do here is to have a similar but site-specific facility, available across the world (as per Google Maps) in a style that could be customisable to the users own desires.

Now while I can do Ideas, and I can do graphics and HTML, I can't do PHP or JavaScript, so my contribution may be limited. However if there are others who can do PHP etc and like the idea, I'd be grateful to hear, so that we can team up to create something.

Thanks in advance for any  responses which may be forthcoming.

Martin

[Tranz]

Thanks, Martin. I'm flattered by your comments.

I think #1 is possible.

I don't think the API currently supports #2, but since they started giving us geocode support, hopefully they will follow with directions support. I would rather do something that is supported by the api than come up with hacks around it and then redo things when the api offers the desired functionality. However, others are welcome to do it.

I'm not sure what you meant by #3.

All this extra information on the map means a higher likelihood of pins being close to each other. That's currently one of the issues we have with photos taken at the same location... how to best represent them on the map in a meaningful manner. I have something like that on my development map but it's buggy so I haven't posted the code for it yet. I think before we go on with development, I/we need to address the clustering issue.

[uk_martin]

TranznDance - thanks for the reply

re #2 = if you look at my page here - www.ukmartin.com/googlemaps/uk.html - you will see an implimentation of a "get directions" facility which I thought was widely enough used to be deemed as being acceptable.

re #3 = For clubs, societies or other grouplings where people want to expand on their Usernames, by adding a bit of personal info about themselves. Basically, bringing some of the info from the User Profiles into the Info WIndows, and something in free text adding to Profiles for "Any other information".

Of course it will need tabbed Info Windows to take the extra information

I take the point about pins close together, but the risk of that depends on the zoom level, the size of the country and your target audience. My own audience is likely to be speedway supporters in the Birmingham area, where a well zoomed in local map might have a couple of hundred pins in it at max. Shouldn't be too hard to manage. Of course others might face different situations.

Going back to the Side Bar being tabbed, "overspill" information could be shown there over and above what is in the InfoWindow, maybe with a show/hide option for the Side Bar if the map needs to be "maxed"

Just some ideas...

Martin