Maps links on Membership Directory

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zaneclark
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Maps links on Membership Directory

#1

Post by zaneclark »

I came across a post where they mentioned a program to download a script to have maps on your member directory. It was called Spicy Ward Web and it needed an extension on Firefox called Greasemonkey. I have added the extension and I think found the script for Spicy Ward Web, but now what do I do? I opened the source for the directory and attempted to add the script but it didn't work... Anyone know what I do now?
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aebrown
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#2

Post by aebrown »

zaneclark wrote:I came across a post where they mentioned a program to download a script to have maps on your member directory. It was called Spicy Ward Web and it needed an extension on Firefox called Greasemonkey. I have added the extension and I think found the script for Spicy Ward Web, but now what do I do? I opened the source for the directory and attempted to add the script but it didn't work... Anyone know what I do now?
Zane is referring to the script linked to from the LUWS wiki article.

Once you have installed the Greasemonkey Firefox extension and downloaded the user script, you can:
  • open the LUWS ward membership directory in Firefox
  • drag the script onto the browser window
  • the extension will pop up a dialog asking if you want to Install the script
  • refresh your browser
Then you should see the Google & Yahoo Maps links by each family.
zaneclark
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#3

Post by zaneclark »

[*]open the LUWS ward membership directory in Firefox
[*] drag the script onto the browser window
[*]the extension will pop up a dialog asking if you want to Install the script
[*]refresh your browser
[/LIST]

Then you should see the Google & Yahoo Maps links by each family.
I must not be doing something right. I did all of the steps, but when I drag the script onto the browser window, it only opens up the script, not a dialogue box. I tried dragging onto both the blue screen and green admin screen with the same results. Here are the first few lines of the script. Do I have right script?
// ==UserScript==
// @name Spicy Ward Web
// @namespace http://scott.barberfam.com/
// @description Making lds.org a better place one hack at a time
// @include https://secure.lds.org/*
// ==/UserScript==
RossEvans
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#4

Post by RossEvans »

Alan_Brown wrote:Zane is referring to the script linked to from the LUWS wiki article.

Once you have installed the Greasemonkey Firefox extension and downloaded the user script, you can:
  • open the LUWS ward membership directory in Firefox
  • drag the script onto the browser window
  • the extension will pop up a dialog asking if you want to Install the script
  • refresh your browser
Then you should see the Google & Yahoo Maps links by each family.

Even if you don't install Greasemonkey and the Greasemonkey script, but just install the Google toolbar in your browser, you can effectively accomplish the same thing by simply doing this:
  1. In the browser, select the block of text that comprises the full address.
  2. Right-click.
  3. Select the option to search Google.
  4. Google will perform a conventional Google text search, but it should recognize your query as an address and also do a search of Google Maps.
  5. The top-ranked item in the search results should be a link to the address rendered in the Google Maps web site.
And if you are accessing the classic LUWS web site via the browser in an enabled smartphone -- I know this works on my Android, not sure about others -- the processing is even more sophisticated:
  1. As you browse the addresses in the member listing, the address blocks for most addresses will be highlighted as links.
  2. Just pressing such a link takes you directly to the address in the Google Maps app installed on the phone.
  3. Not only that, it is apparent that the addresses on the LUWS site have been preprocessed and flagged by geocoding, if not already geocoded. I can tell this is so because the few addresses that don't highlight as links in the browser are addresses I know from experience are problematical to geocode, and there is no lag for geocoding on the fly.
  4. The only problem is that there is no easy way to search for those problematical addresses that didn't get flagged or geocoded in advance, or got geocoded in the wrong place.
Nice work by the developers on that one! I never even saw this announced. as a feature. It mostly just works.
zaneclark
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#5

Post by zaneclark »

boomerbubba wrote:And if you are accessing the classic LUWS web site via the browser in an enabled smartphone -- I know this works on my Android, not sure about others -- the processing is even more sophisticated:

I use iStake on my iPhone and the link to Google maps from the directory is simple and direct. You can also phone or email from the directory....... iStake is terrific!
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aebrown
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#6

Post by aebrown »

zaneclark wrote:I must not be doing something right. I did all of the steps, but when I drag the script onto the browser window, it only opens up the script, not a dialogue box. I tried dragging onto both the blue screen and green admin screen with the same results. Here are the first few lines of the script. Do I have right script?
Yes, that's the right script. I suspect the Greasemonkey extension is not properly installed.

To see if it is installed, in Firefox go to Tools > Add-ons, then go to the Extensions tab. You should have an extension named Greasemonkey. If not, you need to make sure you are following the installation steps (if you go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748 in Firefox, it should be pretty straightforward).

Once the extension is properly installed, there should be a new Greasemonkey item on the Tools menu. When you select that item on the Tools menu, one of the options that pops out is "Enabled"; make sure it is checked.
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aebrown
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#7

Post by aebrown »

boomerbubba wrote:Even if you don't install Greasemonkey and the Greasemonkey script, but just install the Google toolbar in your browser, you can effectively accomplish the same thing by simply doing this:
While that is true, you are doing a whole bunch of steps instead of the one click you do if the script is installed. Call me lazy, but I think it's pretty cool to just do one click instead of all that selecting, right clicking, etc.
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#8

Post by RossEvans »

Alan_Brown wrote:While that is true, you are doing a whole bunch of steps instead of the one click you do if the script is installed. Call me lazy, but I think it's pretty cool to just do one click instead of all that selecting, right clicking, etc.

I am not contending over what is easier to to. Each method has its pros and cons. (Installing Greasemonkey and running such a script is not something most end-users are prone to do. I have never bothered, and I am more geeky than most.)

I am more interested in what is happening behind the scenes technically here. What most of these methods -- the Greasemonkey script, the Google Toolbar, and IStake/iWard apps -- have in common is that they are just taking the displayed address and throwing a URL at Google in a format something like this:

Code: Select all

 
http://maps.google.com/?q=1000+Rutherford+Ln%2C+Austin+TX
or even just

Code: Select all

http://www.google.com/search?q=1000+Rutherford+Ln%2C+Austin+TX
That isn't rocket science. It merely relies on Google to search for the address by geocoding it on the fly, then display the result with or without errors.

I am most intrigued by the way the LUWS website is behaving with the mobile device. There is evidence there that the Church is already adding value by geocoding these records -- or at least testing the probability of their success in such on-the-fly searches by Google -- in advance on lds.org server-side.

What I think is happening today on the LUWS mobile site is that the server-side code only creates a link when it is pretty sure that Google will map it successfully.

I can't be sure, but I don't think the query passed to Google in that case is actually using a lat/lon stored in the Church database ... yet. That kind of smarts might depend on the future rollout of geocoding that resolves errors and captures more reliable coordinates persistently on the Church servers. Once that happens on the back end, which I gather is part of the mapping and geocoding project that is in beta today, there is the prospect of superior performance and error-handling.

The real payoff will come not in such one-at-a-time mapping, but in mapping a whole set of coordinates at once. That is what we saw a glimpse of in the Tech Talk last week. I was further titillated in that discussion by the mention of new "boundary realignment" tools, which is the most explicit hint I have heard of that. Reliable batch geocoding is also a prerequisite for that kind of functionality.
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#9

Post by splassle »

Like Boomerbubba said, that all this be nice with applying it to boundry realignment. I don't know how far along the church is with testing this new tool, but if they want a Stake to test it out right now, mine would be ready. We are splitting our Ward, and this will happen with in the next month or so.
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#10

Post by RossEvans »

splassle wrote:Like Boomerbubba said, that all this be nice with applying it to boundry realignment. I don't know how far along the church is with testing this new tool, but if they want a Stake to test it out right now, mine would be ready. We are splitting our Ward, and this will happen with in the next month or so.

My guess is that there are multiple phases to this rollout. The first phase focuses on correcting the geocoding by some interactive interface, and my surmise is that such a task would fall to ward clerks. I am keenly interested in how that interface would function. (My ward is not part of any beta. I did see a mockup of something from about 18 months ago, and I thought that interface for local corrections was not adequate.)

Any boundary realignment tool presumably would be a separate tool for use by stakes. I can't even recall the whole remark from the Tech Talk in which "boundary realignment" or some such term was mentioned, but the context was not at all definitive.

In the short run, you might search here and in the wiki for discussion of existing tools, both Church-supplied and third-party. Here is a recent thread with some links:

Boundary change info in MLS

Further dicussion of boundary alignment might better take place there.
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