User Adds New Marker

Hi Dima
I am investigating whether I can use your very comprehensive component in a project I am developing.
I intend to use a CMS and a mapping component and display them in an iframe within a HTML page. This means that I will be committing to Joomla and your ZH Googlemap component to accomplish this. I will be making a respectable donation to the developer once I have decided on the best CMS and Map to implement. I have been looking at commercial software but nothing I have seen comes close to doing everything I want.
I've had a good look at the documentation but must admit to having a bit of a struggle getting my head around all that your component can do.

I need to be able to -

• add up to 10,000 markers
• have each marker display a title, text description about the location, a hyperlink and an image
• get directions to the markers
• enable a user to add his/her own marker from the frontend

I don't want the user to have to register and/or login to add a new marker e.g:- anyone can land on the page and simply drag a marker to a location, type in a title and description and upload an image. No user needs to be able to edit, modify or delete a marker once it has been created.
Can you tell me if this is possible?

Can you also tell me if there are any comprehensive instructions anywhere on how to accomplish this and details in particular on user added markers.

Thankyou Cal

Hi Cal.

You can test 10k placemarks - load it for example from file (I did instructions in docs).
You only should enable dynamic loading infowin content (it is in map details) - it will do less page size (because mootools request to get infowin content) in this case.
I did it in my development site, but now remove this menu item. I can create it the second time if you need to look at it.
And I use placemark creation to show placemarks - it take a page size and time to creating, not drawing on canvas or dynamic loading placemarks only in visible map part.

You can also try to show your placemarks by KML files (if KML's is supports what you want).

As for placemark entering - it is easy to enable
- go to map details and set it enable (in advanced slider) for registered users.
Yes, I check that user have to be registered and logged on, because he/she can change only its placemarks.
If you don't want to support a lot of users - create demo user and publish its login and password in map header, for example.

In you don't want to give ability to change placemarks - in current release I did ability - in that slider you can set Update allowed, Delete Allowed to No - and placemarks will not have ability to be changed

Forgive my ignorance Dima, I have every little experience with Joomla and I have read the documentation thoroughly.

At present I have the component installed only.
The map is called on as a menu item.

In the Zh GoogleMap Manager, in the Advance options, I have selected -

1. Loading content data dynamically - No
2. Marker Manager - No
3. Placemark Filter - Show only user's placemarks (does this matter? Can I show all placemarks?)
4. Allow to user enter placemarks - Yes (all registered users).
5. Insert Allowed - Yes
6. Update Allowed - No
7. Delete Allowed - No

The map is displayed but that is all. There is a message in the header - "You are not logged in".

How do I setup a Demo login so a guest can add a marker. I assume this function is handled via the Joomla side of things rather than the Zh Map functions?

What is used to add a marker from the frontend. I am expecting a Tab or something similar that says "Add Marker" for example.

What am I missing? Is there a working Demo of this function anywhere?

Cheers Cal

Hi

Demo page for user placemarks I don't create - a lot of spam posts, and if I enable placemark entering - I have to check new placemarks avery day.

As you can see in demo for K2 plugin call - the commenting is disabled - by this reason too - I've got 60k spam comments on development site during a month, because I'm not disabled it

As for you:
create simple user,for example:
username: demo
password: demo

And publish this info in map header.
And users read your info, loggen in on site (not admin), and insert placemarks.
It is user friendly - click on map where you want to create placemark - you'll see insert placemark, click on it - you'll get infowin with fields to enter and button "Add"
As for update/delete - if it is your placemark (it is your user) - click on it - you'll see infowin with form and filled fields. Change it and press "Update" button.
To change placemark position - drag into new place, open infowin and press Update button

Hi again Dima

Thankyou, got it working. It looks good and works very well. I can understand the spam problem from your point of view.

Couple of problems for me and the way I want to implement it.

1. Once a user is logged in then a new marker is created every time the user clicks on the map. I see the potential for a lot of meaningless markers to be created because the user will simply click "Add marker" to get out of the screen.
2. Most of my visitors have no concept of what "URL Image" means, have no way of entering a valid URL that will display the image and have no image storage anywhere on the web to call on a URL for an image. I would need them to be able to browse their local files to select an appropriate image.

A more elegant solution (for me) is to have a button to add a marker rather than have to log on. A button would also eliminate the problem of a new marker being created unintentionally.

Is these 2 things possible? I am willing to talk privately with you about developing this.

Cheers Cal