Introduction

This article with explain you how our product work. This it not a technical doc or a manual, the main goal is to explain how it work, and the Geocode Factory philosophy.

Main concept

Geocode Factory cannot work as stand alone product, it needs products such as CB, JS, Sobi, etc. to draw from the data and display them on the map.

In some simple steps, you can geocode the profiles, and create maps with markers from differents extensions, and each marker can display it's own bubble.

Show case

Geocoding

The easiest way is to take one example. We use a profile management component profiles (eg CB or JS), and a product to manage point of interest (eg Sobi2 or Mosets tree). To simplify the example, we discuss profiles for users and POI for data .

You have a website for a long time, and many profiles. The profile of these members contains the postal address (city/country/street), but unfortunately not geographic information (latitude and longitude coordinates). In addition, members are created entries (POI) in a directory component.

The first think you need is to set geographical coordinates to all your members. Geocode Factory can do this in one simple click

The first thing you probably want to do is to find the GPS coordinates of existing members, Geocode Factory can do very easily. You just have to indicate which profiles fields are used to store the address (eg street fields) and which fields will receive the latitude and longitude (it may be necessary to create these fields), and then just click on "geocode", and all profiles will be geocoded (of course there is many options to filter the profiles to geocode)!

At this point, all profiles have coordinates. Obviously we will not do this to each new member, or whenever they change addresses. For this there are three different scenarios:

• Products such as Jomsocial (since version 2.0) automatically geocode profiles
• Products such as Community Builder or Jomsocial (before version 2.0) need a plugin to geocode profiles. You find these two plugins in the Geocode Factory zip package
• Products such as Sobi2 as alternative solution to geocode, by customizing the entry form or with third-party extensions

Maps

The main purpose of the component is the display of profiles and/or entries on a map.

We need to create a map that can receive markers. Geocode Factory can create an unlimited number of maps with many customizable settings. Each map can have their own parameters like :

•  map type,
• zoom limitation,
• template (with differents preconfigured controls),
• radius,
• clustering,
  
• ...
  

 Then you must configure the markers, Geocode Factory work with markersets. Each map can receive as many as desired markersets, and markerset consists of custom :

• filters on profiles (based on fields),
  
• bubble (template with all needed fields, tabs, street views, avatars, ...),
  
• marker icon (any icon you have uploaded or user avatar),
• radius,
• ...
  

In our example, if the profile contains information on gender as field, it would be very easy to create two markerset differentiating women and men. With a filter "field_gender = female" and "field_gender = male" and a different maker icon (eg pink for women, blue for men), both can be linked to the map, and all profiles will be visible, with different icons.

Creating markerset is of course also possible from the POI Sobi2, Mosets Tree, JS events, etc., and link them to the same (or other) card profiles.

Then it will be possible to automatically draw a line between profiles that are friends (even from different markersets), and between profiles and their POIs.

In short : create a map on which link one or more markerset and they markersets may come from different extensions and be mixed.

"Creating richs and interactives maps, is very easy."

Faq

I have onyl the city saved as address, it's possible to geocode ? Or I need in all case all data like city, street, ... ? Geocode Factory is capable to geocode from any data, you can use only one or other data (for example only the zip code), but if you enter more data the geocode become more accurate. In 2 words : if you have only one element it will work.

I only use the Joomla internal user management (com_user) can I use the Geocode factory to show my members on a map ? No, a profile component is needed. The joomla users management dont store any addresse, and cannot show the coordinates.