TOPIC: Hotspots Future Featurers

Hello,

I am looking at Hotspots and wanted to find out if you are working on these features or if they are possible with the addition of other extensions?

1. YouTube - We would like our users to be able to upload pictures or video to their location. Are there plans to let users post a link to a video?
2. Facebook - Will there be an option to replace the standard comments with Facebook comments? (so user's comments will post to their Facebook page, increasing web traffic for our website).
3. Custom Markers - Also what size and format do you need, when building your own custom map markers?

Thank you,

Sean

Hey Sean,

1. Youtube is tricky -> you could have a workaround for this right now. If you have a plugin that is parscing the content, then it could work with hotspots. Whenever we display a hotspot in single view we parse the content through the content plugins. Unfortunately this won't work in the map view, which is pretty stupid.
We plan to support youtube in the near future, yes!
2. Facebook comments, no. Actually the goal is to get CComment5 out and make it able to post to facebook & twitter. I don't think that it is the responsibility of Hotspots to manage comments -> this is what comments extensions are for

3. What do you mean with custom map markers? You can put any size you want -> they will display properly on the map. In the category selection they will be downsized to a fixed size of: 32x37px (I think)

Regards,
Daniel

Daniel,

Thank you for the information!

1. We are interested in allowing users to post videos to their listings and using a simply embedded video from YouTube, will save us on storage. Any estimation on a release date for this feature?

2. I agree. Are you aware of any extensions we can use to replace CComment5 with Facebook comments?

3. We want to delete all of the markers that come with the map system and use our own custom image markers. Is that possible?

4. Also, can you link the user ID (who submitted a location) back to their profile?

Thanks,

Sean

Hey Sean,

1. This feature is related to another one - the custom infowindow that I want to build. With the current google maps infowindow -> you can't have a lot of information in it, otherwise the content will go outside the boundaries of the infowindow. So I'm planning to have my custom infowindow with tabs -> content, photos, videos...

2. No

3. Yes, I think that there should be no problem for this. you could go ahead -> delete the sample markers and replace them with your own. The only issue that I see here is that when you update the system -> the sample markers will be again added to the mix... If you need to have only your own markers than I'll need to think of a better way to do that...

4. What component are you using for the user profiles?

Daniel

Daniel,

1. Thank you, that is good to known.

2. Thank you, I will keep looking for a solution

3. When you are referring to update, do you mean when we update Hotspots to a newer version? Our map will need custom markers, as we will be tracking things that do not apply to any of your current markers. So we will have to design and build the ones we need.

4. We haven't decided on one yet, I think JomSocial and Community Builder, may be much more than we need. We are still researching all options.

5. Will there be an enhancement to export all locations and data to excel for back-up and record keeping purposes?


Thank you for all your help. This mapping solution will be a very large part of our website and have an entire tab and page dedicated to it. So we are trying to do our due diligence to find the best fit for our needs. We are looking for a solution that will be very customizable, but extremely easy to maintenance. I feel Hotspots is that solution, I just want to make sure it will grow into meeting all of our needs.

Thank you,

Sean

Hey Sean,

3. Wait! You can have markers per category and per marker(where you can set a different icon for marker only in the backned). You can add your custom markers (there is even an upload form in the backend when creating the category) - so this should not be an issue. You create the category once...

4. Well, it is not difficult to support any of those components -> we have the user id when we store the hotspots -> it is a matter of properly creating the link.

5. I don't think that we need to do anything in this regard. Just look at akeebabackup.com - use their backup software... If you want to export the data to excel you can always use phpmyadmin for example...

Regards,
Daniel

Daniel,

3.4.5. - Thank you!

2. I found a great video that shows how to set up a Facebook comments box to your blog. Is there a way to replace the comments with the Facebook comment box, so every location has a Facebook comment box vs. the default CComment5?

Facebook comment box:

developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/comments/

video (17:52):




6. Map Color Scheme - We are going to be using a dark theme and I was wondering if you can set or invert the hue, saturation, lightness and gamma of the map?

Thank you,

Sean

Make a template override for components/com_hotspots/views/hotspot/tmpl/default.php and add the code for the fb comments there.

6. Not right now, but I'm planning to add support for the styled maps api.

Cheers,
Daniel

2.6. - Thank you

7. Last Question - Is it possible to integrate the location details (read more) into the Zoo Business Directory?

www.yootheme.com/zoo/apps/index.php?opti...w=frontpage&Itemid=5

Thank you for all your help!

Sean

What do you mean? Clicking on the readmore button should bring you to the zoo directory or what?
Daniel

Daniel,

7. Yes, basically using their extension would allow me to still supply a map, image and sort all of my Hotspots into an area where users and I can search and track the number of locations submitted. I am going to purchase this extension to make a business directory and thought it would also be nice if I could integrate it with Hotspots as well.

Thanks again,

Sean

So - Hotspots cannot use other sources for the locations than its own database table. So you'll have to publish the locations in hotspots. In the backend however there is an option to set the readmore button -> right now we have 3 plugins for this -> articles, k2 and sobipro. One could easily write another plugin and then in the selection list one would have option to set a zoo id.

This is the content of the sobiPRO plugin:

One would need to change the created link in the onCreateLink function and when the user clicks on readmore he will go to Zoo.

Regards,
Daniel

Daniel,

7. I would be interested in using this feature. Maybe for K2, if I cannot get Zoo to work.

a.How does the plugin work? When a user fills out the Hotspots location form, the data is posted to k2?

b. Can a user edit their data in K2 after it is submitted?

c. Is there any option to create the listing in Zoom or K2 and have it send over the map and category (custom marker)information to Hotspots?

Thanks,

Sean

Hey Sean,
I think that I'm not explaining very well

So, normally when you have the hotspots on the map and you clik on read more you will land on a page with url something like this yoursite.com/hotspots/1:category-name/1-hotspots-name

This is what we call single view -> in single view you have a big image, a map with only the location and the long description for this location.

Now if you don't want to send the user to this page, but would rather prefer to send them to articles, k2 or sobiPRO - you could use the backend to link to one of those components. If you use it, then when the user clicks on read more he will be redirected to the article in com_content or k2 instead of the hotspot single view.

Basically you need to manually enter the information in the 2 places. Where the information in k2 for example is the "main" info and hotspots is only used to show the locations on the map.


Do you get it now?

Regards,
Daniel

Daniel,

Almost

I get everything except the manual piece. How does the information move over to K2?

- Does K2 pull the image, map and description from Hotspots?
- Does the user enter the location information into Hotspots and then then after saving, is sent to K2 to enter the rest of the data?

How do I manage the data? in both places? Where do I make changes to change what the user sees?

Thanks again,

Sean

You first enter the data in k2.
Then you go to hotspots, create a new hotspot -> write a short description and link it to k2. This way when the user clicks on the read more button he will be sent to k2.

Clear now? If not I'll make you a video
Cheers,
Daniel

I was afraid that's what you meant. I need something the user can do on their own. It would be nice, if you could build one form. where the user enters the location for Hotspots and the data for K2 or ZOO. Entering both manually would take too long for my project.

Thanks,

Sean