New Module: Geofinder - Location based searching for weblog entries and members

Wow, looks excellent jason!

Have bookmarked it 😊

Thanks Rob, hope you find a use for it someday!

Oh Nice- now I understand your last extension 😉

I need some more info on this: how granular is the search? Does it order results in terms of proximity?

I need some more info on this: how granular is the search? Does it order results in terms of proximity?

Hi - I’m not sure exactly what you mean by “how granular is the search”, but to explain further, Geofinder takes a user entered address like “Nashville,TN” and geocodes it (using Google Maps API). This returns a lat/lng pair that is then queried against the weblog entries you specify.

The results are sorted by proximity, if two results are returned the one that is closest in miles would be displayed first.

Feel free to give the demo a try: http://natural-logic.com/demos/geofinder

and browse the documentation: http://natural-logic.com/docs/geofinder-for-expressionengine

Let me know if you have more questions.

Nice demo! As far as granularity, if I search for any of your example location’s street addresses or addresses near them- they don’t come back in the results. Does it work for street address searches?

Does it work for street address searches?

Yes, it works for street addresses too. You actually found a little bug which is fixed now.

http://natural-logic.com/demos/geofinder/results/1+Cannery+Row,Nashville,+TN/1/

Nice man, you just killed our own location search that I have been using. Do you have plans to port to 2.0, and will this be additional licensing cost?

Hopefully in this case “kill” is a good thing 😉

Yes, I plan on porting to 2.0 and would not charge existing customers any additional license fee.

Been waiting for this Jason, once I am done my new frontpage look then I am grabbing this one up for sure!

Excellent! Lovely site by the way.

Hello there, the module looks great!

Quick question for you about functionality that we weren’t able to answer after looking through your documentation:

• Does the module allow for a more advanced search with additional parameters – say, filtering by custom member fields? (We saw that custom fields could be displayed in the results, but weren’t sure if they could be included as additional search parameters.)

For example, we’d like to do a store locator, but allow people to do a search with not only zip code, but also choose if they’re interested in stores with “wi-fi” … or … “extended hours” … or … “patio”.

Let us know – thanks so much!

Hi -

Thanks for giving Geofinder a look.

- Does the module allow for a more advanced search with additional parameters – say, filtering by custom member fields? (We saw that custom fields could be displayed in the results, but weren’t sure if they could be included as additional search parameters.) For example, we’d like to do a store locator, but allow people to do a search with not only zip code, but also choose if they’re interested in stores with “wi-fi” … or … “extended hours” … or … “patio”.

Geofinder doesn’t currently support a search parameter, are you looking for comparable functionality provided by the weblog:entries search parameter described at http://expressionengine.com/docs/modules/weblog/parameters.html#par_search?

We were using “parameter” in a more generic way - not referring specifically to a parameter passed to a tag. What we were wondering is if Geofinder is capable of searching members by other custom member fields not related to location.

For example, we’d like to build a store locator (stores = members), but allow people to do a search with not only zip code, but also choose if they’re interested in certain amenities. Amenities are stored in custom member fields.

Let us know—thanks so much!

Geofinder doesn’t allow for searches on custom member fields as you describe out of the box, but if you would like to inquire about having it extended to fit your unique requirements you can Private Message me or get in touch at http://natural-logic.com/contact/.