Extension talk:Semantic Google Maps

Hi Robert, i talked with a some time ago about mediawiki and maps, good to know you migrated to Mediawiki. This extension it's the same i requested to Yaron from Semantic forms. It's really very interesting. As can see in these days, another extension with same propose was released too: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Layers I really would like to chat with you by IM, but for a long time i don't see you online on gtalk. For next i'll give some suggestion, thanks. Lleoliveirabr 16:45, 2 September 2007 (UTC) Lleoliveirabr 17:23, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Hi Robert, i saw on your web page on Semantic forms that if you want to move the placemark, is necessary to click on any place on map. Another thing: there's no option to use a search to go to a city for example. On this example you can see how i would like to see. It's possible to move the placemark and option to move the map by typing a city... http://perso.orange.fr/universimmedia/geo/loc.htm What do you think?
 * Robert, some months ago i posted on Semantic forms google groups about this idea. Look the message:http://groups.google.com/group/semantic-forms/browse_thread/thread/e60db1b0bf11d692
 * I think Yaron could integrate your extension in Semantic forms. Lleoliveirabr 18:19, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Eventually, yes. First the problem of the degree-symbol showing up as a question mark or html-character code in stead of a degree symbol should be solved.--Robert Buzink 22:17, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Geocoder
I added a geocoder to the coordinatesmap input-type --Robert Buzink 22:12, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Great.

Custom icons
I would like to know if is possible to add custom icons to forms that have coordinate map. So in the future when we have a way to search semantic data in the map, we could see the custom icons.
 * I don't know if this could be by uploading an icon and make a field in forms to specify this icon directory. What do you think Robert? Any idea? Lleoliveirabr 00:21, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Would be no problem. just make extra field in the form called icon and specify url to icon file there. The overview-map (that doesnt exist yet at present! currently there are only maps within articles for one location) uses the coordinates-variable anyways, could just as easily use icon-variable.--Robert Buzink 13:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Technical Difficulties with Parser functions or is this a gottcha with my IIS server once again
Love the extension and if I get it working I will be using it to death on my site.

I have working to the point were it appears in the form with a map and "Lookup coordinates" field which works wonderfully. However when I save it dones not add the coordinates. Nor does it appear to be parsing. I get the following text on the page instead of a map:

I am not expert Mediawiki developer, more of a wikivoyeur... so I am at a lost as to why it is not working. I do have the required dependency Parser functions. Am I missing something else? I run the site on an IIS server which bites me in the ass from time to time with MediaWiki. Currently I have Semantic Google Maps installed on our out of site development server but the live server has most of the goodies with the exception of Semantic Google Maps.

http://www.placeography.org/index.php?title=Main_Page Any ideas? Thanks. --Myotus 17:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

I have moved the Semantic Google Maps extension to my live server since it appears to do no harm other than it not functioning correctly for me. If anyone has any ideas on why it is not functioning correctly I would love to know! Thanks! Location Template Form with Semantic Google Maps Extension Example of Form with Data --Myotus 14:53, 6 September 2007 (UTC) Sergey gave me the solution (no, it is not the IIS server) so I figure I would put it here for anyone with similar issues... Works like a charm... --Myotus 13:53, 15 October 2007 (UTC) Solution:

"Stationstraat 3 Maastricht Netherlands" Default is confusing
Using the address "Stationstraat 3 Maastricht Netherlands" is very confusing for users. Especially if the coordinates have already been created and the user is editing not creating the page. Instead of an example, wouldn't it be better to have some text saying something like "Add address here"

Also, is it possible for that field to keep the value once it has been entered so the next person editing will know what the coordinates are for? see example of one of my pages using it to see what I mean --Myotus 05:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree that this would be very helpful. For the time being I've changed "Stationstraat 3 Maastricht Netherlands" to something like "Please enter the address" (in Semantic_Maps.php), but like Myoutus said, having the actual street address in there once it's been entered would be ideal. Possible? --Weakmassive 19:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No default size
One of the problem I faced is that there is no default size for the map so #insert_map parser function doesn't show the map with just coordinates specified.

P.S. it might be a good idea to set up a a discussion group (on Google groups for example) or mailing list and have a place to accept bugs like Mediazilla.

A few problems
Hello, just discovered this extension and am trying to work it into my wiki, which is using Semantic Forms. First off, I'm getting these errors on my homepage along with an error popup that says "Error: Failed to derive URL prefix for Timeline API code files".

Notice: Undefined variable: wgGoogleMapsOnThisPage in /home/2603/domains/mographwiki.net/html/extensions/Semantic_Maps.php on line 33

Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in /home/2603/domains/mographwiki.net/html/extensions/Semantic_Maps.php on line 61

Notice: Undefined variable: output in /home/2603/domains/mographwiki.net/html/extensions/Semantic_Maps.php on line 39

Notice: Use of undefined constant noparse - assumed 'noparse' in /home/2603/domains/mographwiki.net/html/extensions/Semantic_Maps.php on line 49

Notice: Use of undefined constant isHTML - assumed 'isHTML' in /home/2603/domains/mographwiki.net/html/extensions/Semantic_Maps.php on line 49

Also, I'm trying to get "Lookup coordinates" to work on my form pages... right now the map doesn't display and it's just a text field. I'm probably doing something wrong. I've disabled Semantic Maps (because of above errors), but the code is still in these pages:

Example of page with map Location template "Company" page template "Company" form

Thank you! --Weakmassive 15:34, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think I've somewhat fixed the above problems. I added "display_errors = off" to my php.ini to suppress the php warnings (which I think were due to the combination of the Dynamic Page List extension used and the front page and Semantic Maps). Then somehow I got the geocoder to work - I think it has something to do with how (and where) I entered the Semantic Maps info in LocalSettings.php. --Weakmassive 19:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I finally set up and tested this extension myself and got all the same PHP notices, so I fixed the problems in the source code - if you copy over the code again, you should be able to run it without suppressing warnings. I also removed that "Stationstraat etc." default value - the text entry at the bottom now just defaults to blank. Yaron Koren 17:39, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Lookup map does not show
I can display maps wonderfully, in the forms I also can add the coordinates. Anyway, the map with the lookup-function does not show up in the form.

The solution to this was to put the call to Semantic Google Maps AFTER the call to SemanticForms!

Coordinate changes
When I go back and edit a form in which I've previously added coordinates, the format for the coordinates changes once I save the page. For example, "39.092868° N, 94.575409° W" turns into "39.092868,-94.575409". When this happens, the coordinates are no longer seen in Attribute:Coordinates or in Semantic Layers. Any ideas? Thanks. Weakmassive 00:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

PHP Warning that aborts Skript
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/www/web406/html/extensions/SemanticMaps/Semantic_Maps.php:1) in /home/www/web406/html/includes/WebResponse.php on line 10

Since a few days I get thi strange message when Using Semantic Google Maps. DaSch 21:04, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * When I supress the error reporting all wikipages are displayed very strange, Tamplates are not included complete and some Text ist converted to lowercase. Is somebody working on this Extension or is the development stopped? DaSch 16:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

#ask does not display any points
Hi there,

this extension would be perfect for what we are doing with our wiki! I already got it working for displaying single points which is already great.

But I would also like to display the results of an ask query (e.g. : "show me all my points in a city" )

I think I did everything like described in the Documentation and also checked againsted referenced sites like verwaltungskooperation.at. The only thing I receive is a world map without any points at all.

Versions used are:

MediaWiki 1.12.0 PHP 5.2.6 (apache2handler), MySQL 5.0.45, SMW 1.2, SemanticGoogleMaps 0.3.1, SMW+ 1.1

update: also tried SMW Version 1.2.1a-SVN (SVN revision 37993) but with the same result

This is what I do:

Which simply displays the world map

To check whether the query itself is correct I do a

which diplays the following results:

- Hotel (Coordinates 49.43452° N, 11.871479° E) - Shop1 (Coordinates 49.428993° N, 11.866682° E) - Shop2 (Coordinates 49.429993° N, 11.866682° E)

So the fact base seems to be correct. Since displaying of single points is also working I have no clou whats wrong here. Is somebody able to help me with this one?

Thanks in advance! Michael


 * Very odd. Since you have "SMW+" installed (which I guess is the current name for the Halo extension), and I don't know if anyone else has tried running SGM with Halo before, I suspect that that might be the source of the problem. Can you try un-including Halo (to the extent that it's possible - I've heard that there are some problems with that) and seeing if that affects the mapping? Yaron Koren 12:11, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the quick response! I un-included Halo and also upgraded to the latest Mediawiki version (1.14-alpha) but with no effect. Still the empty world map remains. Do you have any additional suggestions? Is there a debugging functionality that I can use? Thanks! --Mkonder 15:37, 24 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Wow, I have no idea, then. There's no debugging functionality that I know of, but you could try debugging it manually using print statements and the like... that's the only solution I can think of at the moment. Yaron Koren 13:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Including Semantic form data
I thought I'd include data entered through Semantic Forms and output through a template but I am having problems here.

Using

Produces the intended map in the template output.

Making a simple table with the form output, thus

Also produces the intended output, that is the data that would produce the map. Trying to enclose the form data by a call to semantic_google_map like this:

Fails utterly in producing anything at all. I checked the brackets and they should be OK.

Am I doing something stupid or doesn't the extension support this (yet)?


 * There are a few issues here: first all, you have too many braces. The call should look like:

{{#semantic_google_map:{{#geocode:RecipeGeoStreet::, RecipeGeoTown::, ...
 * Aha, OK I'll give that a try.
 * Hm no, doing

=Where in the world is }}}?= {{#semantic_google_map:{{#geocode:}}}, }}}, RecipeGeoCounty::,RecipeGeoCountry::}}|8|G_NORMAL_MAP|GLargeMapControl|pmap|600|450}}
 * Gives the header "Where in the world is Shrewsbury?" But no map.

Second, if any of the properties are of type "Page", that still won't work, since it'll be a link passed in to #geocode instead of just a string; it might be easier to call the properties separately from the mapping call. Yaron Koren 20:26, 27 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, they are strings all of them so that's OK then.


 * I would try separating that call into its constituent parts, to try to see where the error is coming in. Yaron Koren 12:14, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
 * I thought I already had done that. Putting }}} etc outside the {{#semantic_google_map:{{#geocode: ...}}...}} call gives me all data I need to produce a map. If I add the form data place holders inside the semantic google map call (as in the code snippet above) I get nothing. Perhaps I am missunderstanding what you mean? --85.225.73.203 04:34, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, try having just the #geocode call by itself and see if that works. Yaron Koren 13:57, 29 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Aha! {{#geocode:Shrewsbury, England}} gives me coordinates, while {{#geocode:}}}, }}}}} does not. And again, checking all my form placeholders outside {{#geocode:...}} produces the correct values. So the fault may lay with the geocode extension....? Perhaps I should try contacting the author of that extension.--85.225.73.203 06:31, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, I just tried a simple test of using #geocode in this way, and it actually worked for me. I have two thoughts: (a) is it possible that at least one of these semantic properties is of a type other than "String"? (b) if you're displaying these values by themselves elsewhere in the template, you can remove the property tag from around the instance of those values within #geocode - they don't need to be tagged twice. Yaron Koren 12:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This is getting really bizarre. Well, yes I was certain they were strings (they were listed as such, although I faintly remember changing one of them to string after creation) so just to make sure, I created new properties (sans the "Recipe" part), type String and used those in the template. Same bizarre behaviour - no map. They are listed under "Unused Properties" although they return correct values not in the geocode call (apparently there is some limit for being listed as used). And no, they are not used twice in the same template unless I am testing the behaviour.--85.225.75.113 06:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)