[Tikipro-development] GMap Wiki - seeking advice/ops on organizing the database

[Will J. <wj...@ny...>]

Sorry this is a little long....and sorry if its a little nubish, because 
it is.

As some know my goal is to get some sort of wiki-type package working 
that generates a Google Map on a page and lets you add content and edit 
it like a wiki. I am looking for some advice on an approach to 
structuring its database before I start hacking at php code.

Google Maps is heavily dependant on javascript and XML - there is some 
background about Google Maps at the end of this email.  But briefly, 
there are a vew basic parts to google maps.
*The Map: a javascript(js) engine
*Marker and Polyline Data: which Gmaps likes in the form of XML or js
*Marker Content: HTML

Each part will also need to have options associated with it.
For example for each marker it would be nice to have these kinds of 
options:
*Comments
*Type - Normal Marker (as rendered by Google)
*Type - PdMarker (a hack style with different features)
*Type - GxMarker (another hack style with different features)
*Custom Look and feel
*Connection to Flickr
*Organize as a group

My first thoughts on this were, well, maybe each object, a map, a 
marker, a line could be a little wiki page with javascript content or 
XML content since everything eventually gets sent up to the map 
javascript engine. When you choose a feature via the UI the engine would 
generate the full js code or text with a new Gmap-wiki syntax and that 
could be saved in a wikipage.  But it seems that would make editing it 
through a UI a real pain!

Maybe things should be more structured, more specific.

What would seem to make more sense to me is that each object type would 
have a database table structure and take values from user input.  Except 
that then this seems like it could result in a lot of queries each time 
a map is loaded.  Plus some other questions come up like, what to do if 
someone wants to upload XML? and how to nest stuff or group stuff, like 
100 markers?  Perhaps there is another package, that already has a more 
complex database structure than the wiki, to look at and get some ideas.

oh, or best of both worlds, the data gets rendered into javascript that 
is cached, and the database queries only happen when making the cached 
js and during editing.

Anyway I am looking for some advice on how to store the data and get it 
up to the user.
Hope that all made sense.

I have some longer thoughts on what I would like for eventual features 
on this page:
http://mapki.com/index.php?title=GMap_Wikimap_Project

and, here is a little more background on Google Maps if you are not 
already familiar with them.
*Google Maps is a javascript app.
*Google Maps lets you create markers on a map by submitting lat/lon values.
*Markers can also have html content inside popup windows.
*Google Maps lets you create lines on a map by submitting an array of 
lat/lon values.
*Google Maps makes good use of XMLHttpRequest for updating info on the 
map without refreshing.
*Refreshing a Google Map page is impracticle if not impossible due to 
javescript memory leaks.

All sorts of details about Google Maps API can be found at and via 
http://mapki.com

Cheers,
Will