Re: [Slashcode-development] [Slashcode-general] GeoRSS and Google Maps API Plugins for Slash

[Alexandre L. <ale...@ec...>]

Hi,

 >more likely (for my needs) I'd want to focus on "Canada" or "Manhattan"
 >or "Middle East".  It certainly would be easier (for non-geography
 >buffs) to submit something like this (i.e. picking from a list, clickin=
g
 >a map region) with stories rather than coordinate pairs.

You'll be happy Tim, the GeoRSS standard (it's a Open Geospatial=20
Consortium standard, see http://www.opengeospatial.org/) allows not only=20
points, but lines and polygons. So this means, to take your example, you=20
can specify Canada or Middle-East with a polygon. This is -already- in=20
the plugin :-) One of the improvements will be to allow adding and=20
selecting regularly used 'locations' from a list, instead of having to=20
type the whole coordinates in the story edition page. This droplist=20
could be provided to users submitting stories.

I wasn't aware there was previous feature request of story=20
'regionalization'. If you ask me, GeoRSS is the way to go, since it is a=20
standard.


> So this only applies to RSS, and you won't notice anything when visitin=
g
> the site otherwise?  If the story has location info, I'd want to see it
> in the story somewhere.

That's where the Google Maps API part comes into play. (have you read=20
the comments in the IssueList link I provided? ;-) Idealy, you will be=20
able to map your GeoRSS directly on a map on your slash site. Right now,=20
it works when using other sites such as Mapufacture.com to automatically=20
map my slash stories, but having this maps directly on the slash site=20
would be nice. This is only the beginning (but since my own developer=20
skills aren't too high and there aren't that many people developing=20
slash, who knows at what pace this plugin will evolve...). As I wrote,=20
you can also add maps for individual stories whenever appropriate.


> I think it would be a huge value-add, and very useful, especially were

I'm happy to hear this :-)

Have a great weekend!

Alex
--=20
Alexandre Leroux, M.Sc., Ing.
Environnement Canada / Environment Canada
Centre m=E9t=E9orologique canadien / Canadian Meteorological Centre
Division de la r=E9ponse aux urgences environnementales /
Environmental Emergency Response Division
ale...@ec...