By Ian Ward on

We are building out functionality to allow multiple locations associated with a content node. The idea is to make location nodes, changing nothing to the location module, but making a new module which will facilitate in the creation of and association between location nodes to their content nodes.

New Geocoder for Drupal: Step2
New Geocoder for Drupal : Step1We plan to allow node publishers to create and relate location nodes during the node creation process, via the location drop down on the node form. The mockups depict a gmap will make it possible to select a location when multiple locations are found based on the user's initial query. The query is done in one single text field to make things simpler. Based on the results of the address query, the latitude and longitude boxes are populated if there is an exact match (using the geocoder API from google) or when a user clicks on a marker from the gmap when there are multiple results.

The user can then click to add the location, then query again, and add as many locations as needed. If a user wants to delete a location, they can do so, then add another location, etc., all without reloading the page.

Overall, when you are creating a content node, like a blog post, and you create related location nodes on the fly, the actual location nodes will not be created until the blog post is saved. This will prevent creating location nodes which may never have a related content node.

*Settings*

The site admin will be able to assign a cck node type to be the designated node for location nodes, or use a basic node type made available by this module.

There will be settings to turn off the inline location node adding at admin/settings/content-types/node-type-x

There will also be user access which determines who can use the inline location node adding.

*Other*

The first location added to a node will be what is used in the RSS feed.

What do people think of this plan? Any additional ideas, thoughts?

*References*

http://drupal.org/node/41088
http://drupal.org/node/18917
http://drupal.org/node/59683

⋅ Categories: Drupal 4.7.x

Comments

boris mann’s picture

boris mann commented

What you have described is usually mentioned as a "venue" -- where a venue could be a place like a club, but also, say the Big Tree in Stanley Park (just to be clear that venue doesn't have to mean a building). It's easier to talk about a venue rather than just using location to say two things....

You should, of course, see about integrating with the gmap module for some of this functionality. Try cross posting this to Mapping group on groups.drupal.org.

coupet’s picture

coupet commented

Excellent thoughts! I would add Location validation

U.S. Postal Address Validation
http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/

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Darly

nevets’s picture

nevets commented

It sounds interesting and would probably help with a project I have in the planning stages.

Ian Ward’s picture

Ian Ward commented

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone. Here's a question - i think reusing venues between content nodes might be problematic - because then if you need to change something on the venue, you're not just affecting one node, but there may be many, and maybe you just had Washington, DC before, but you need to change a venue to Columbia Heights, Washington, DC.

Something else I am thinking about is, maybe you do not reuse venues, but you can let other nodes inherit venues by relating them to the initial node that relates to the venue. Does this sound useful, or does not belong?

Development Seed Blog

stanbroughl’s picture

stanbroughl commented

i'd appreciate an update when this is ready to roll.

i'm desperate for this at the moment at the country level - any idea if you will incorporate that or are you just going on multiple geo lat/long points?

csc4’s picture

csc4 commented

Anyone know what happened to this project?