Nordmographs GeoCommunity CB Module/Plugin User Search Query?

Hi All,

I am utilising Nordmographs GeoCommunity Mapping CB Plugin&Modules on my site and to be honest it's brilliant and well happy how his extension and CB work in tandem.

However, for us there is one huge missing thing and this was my initial post on their forum;

TOPIC: Is It Possible To Build In A Simple Search.....

...by distance. So users who are registered and use my sites Community Builder, they geolocate themselves on the map but they want to find other users local to them and are given a drop down option of say;

Under 1 mile
1-5 Miles
5-10 Miles
10-25 Miles
25 Miles+

Is the above possible in any way, as without this kind of feature it doesn't harness the ability for members to be able to truly locate one another, especially once the member numbers get in to the hundreds?

I look forward to hearing from anybody who may have accomplished the above, something similar or can give me some guidance and advice.

Regards,
Rob

I've finally recieved a reply as below and then my current outstanding reply, although not what I was hoping I appreciate I can't get this kind of functionality from their end and so now I have to see if there is any way, even a crude temporary way from CB's structure?

nordmograph wrote:
Hello

Geommunity is not a search product, it is a geo location product.
I offer quick support but I can't reply to every feature requests.
All I can do is take these into consideration when these feature requests get popular.
So I will think about a search feature in the future.

Hi Nord,

Thank you for the reply, much appreciated.

I appreciate that the over riding feature of your extension is Geo Location / Community and I'm a total avid fan of everything within GeoCommunity and utilise ALL it's features, please let me clear that up.

However, whilst it's predominantly geo location and mapping and especially as you enable both Community Builder and Jom Social versions in their own right, for members of any website that implements your GeoCommunity extension the need to locate others who for e.g. show on the map, being able to search from one member to another for pre defined parameters be it age, sex, location distance (as we desperately need to do) and others has to be the holy grail and put icing on the cake of your extension?

Is there anyway currently you have heard of or know from a GeoCommunity and / or Community Builder point of view, that would enable even a crude but temporary way to insert the distance parameters and it tie in with GeoCommunity and Community Builder?

P.S. Would you accept to accelerate and build this "Search Facility" for a fee at all and then release it to the wider clients of your extension once done? Just a thought

So, does anybody know if with GeoCommunity being developed to sit within CB, is there anyway I can hardness CB's powerful structure to enable a simple distance based search in the standard CB Search function maybe, or something similar?

I look forward to hearing from you soon, whatever the outcome and thanks for reading.

Regards,

CB does not have any geolocation features. There's no radius search of zipcodes, etc.. It's doable though, but it takes a new CB fieldtype plugin that has custom searching code to perform the database lookup to determine who is within a radius around their zipcode, which requires a geolocation database table to perform the lookup. Ideally it's something that GeoCommunity should implement as a new fieldtype, but I've no idea what their plans are.

Best I can suggest ATM is to implement an Integer field for them to supply zipcode then use Simple Any or Advanced searching mode for your userlist. This will allow them to search between 2 integer values as often zipcodes are incremented so it should help in finding other users near them. The easiest approach is to simply have a Country, Sate, City field usage for them to search for users in their city, etc..

Radius searching will be doable with CB 2.0 as a built in feature though.

Your first paragraph would seem like the way to go but not possible at present it seems, although as we know Geo Location is becoming more widely adopted in all walks of life, including CB users sites no doubt.

OK so I currently ask for during registration to our site already,
Town, City, Post Code, do any of these need altering in anyway from how they're currently set-up as normal?

I also would like to know if I can just amend the current "User List Search" that is by "Username"? Then add in the new fields for users to search like, 'Town', 'City' and 'Post Code'.

However, I've had a search on Google and the Forum here to try and understand all the possible options that can be selected in the 'Community Builder List: Edit [ Members List ]' so I can achieve the above but cannot find anything, is there a resource anywhere to help me in this area?

Lastly, are there any estimated time lines as yet for CB 2.0, just curious if it's on it's way or quite some way off still?

Regards,
Rob

krileon wrote: CB does not have any geolocation features. There's no radius search of zipcodes, etc.. It's doable though, but it takes a new CB fieldtype plugin that has custom searching code to perform the database lookup to determine who is within a radius around their zipcode, which requires a geolocation database table to perform the lookup. Ideally it's something that GeoCommunity should implement as a new fieldtype, but I've no idea what their plans are.

Best I can suggest ATM is to implement an Integer field for them to supply zipcode then use Simple Any or Advanced searching mode for your userlist. This will allow them to search between 2 integer values as often zipcodes are incremented so it should help in finding other users near them. The easiest approach is to simply have a Country, Sate, City field usage for them to search for users in their city, etc..

Radius searching will be doable with CB 2.0 as a built in feature though.

Your first paragraph would seem like the way to go but not possible at present it seems, although as we know Geo Location is becoming more widely adopted in all walks of life, including CB users sites no doubt.

It's very possible. We just don't have a solution for it. There's a few 3rd party solutions I believe that others are currently using, but I can't recall what exactly.

Town, City, Post Code, do any of these need altering in anyway from how they're currently set-up as normal?

Probably not. If Postal Code is already an Integer field then you should be able to use Simple Any or Advanced search mode for your userlist to search between two values.

I also would like to know if I can just amend the current "User List Search" that is by "Username"? Then add in the new fields for users to search like, 'Town', 'City' and 'Post Code'.

You can edit the sample userlist if you loaded sample data as you please or create a new one. It's entirely up to you.

However, I've had a search on Google and the Forum here to try and understand all the possible options that can be selected in the 'Community Builder List: Edit [ Members List ]' so I can achieve the above but cannot find anything, is there a resource anywhere to help me in this area?

The search options that are available are purely based off what fields you have and if the those fields are set as searchable. You can review a general overview of userlist parameters within your CB documentation, which you can download from the Advance downloads section. Please also see the descriptions to the right of each parameter.

Lastly, are there any estimated time lines as yet for CB 2.0, just curious if it's on it's way or quite some way off still?

Sometime by end of year is our goal.