JulianW

byJulianW, January 29, 2011
JomSocial Member Map
Hi everybody,

I bought the Pro-Version ... I nearly woldn´t have, because of the lots of bad ratings. But in the actual version I can´t confirm them.

To start with the good things:
The Module (it´s a module, not a component!) works right "out of the box", really quick and good. I instantly got a Google-API-Key, put it in and ... woow! The Hover-Bubble for the Users looks really good, it has "Message"- and "Add-as-Friend"-Buttons beside the avatar ... very nice.

I quickly found two little bugs
- The "Auto-Center" does not work, so you should put your own latitude/longitude in the settings (easy)
- The "Latidude" and the "Longitude"-Fields are switched. So if you feel you can´t "center" the map, just try to switch the values. ;-)

I "only" gave the Module four stars because of some "advanced problems" in the map. This is an easy logic, but I would not call it "bugs", I personally would call it "missing features" and I hope for improvements in the next version.

-> The pulled Data only affects Country, State and Town. So you can´t use the Street for publishing the users on the Map.

That results in lots of users "on the same position" of the map. Whenever somebody is living "in the same city", he will be shown on exactly the same position like all other users of that city.

Unfortunately, they don´t "overlap". There is no chance to find somebody "behind". To be clear: You only see the user "on the top", but you don´t see all the users "behind" and you also can´t click them.

In my case for example, I got about 50 Users in Cologne, Germany. All 50 Markers are "stacked", but I can´t see any other as "the top one" and I also can´t click any other as "the top one".

Then, in the middle of germany I have one position with hundreds of users (on just one stack): All users, that did only put "Germany" in theire profile. They are all placed "in the middle of the country". Bad Idea ... this obviously is a wrong position for them.

My personal suggestions are:

- Differ the Marker for "multiple Users" and create a way to click on the users "behind". A good thing would be a "hover-field" which shows all users.

- Add the ability for more precise positioning. At least the street should be able to be set in the maps.

- Set an option for "hide inacurate positions". I would like to hide all users that have the field "city" empty. I would love the options "Hide Users with empty city" and "hide users with empty street".

Well ... this is a 50-Euro-Module, so it´s not the cheapest one. On the other side ... it works good. Having the three Features above solved I would give 5 Stars, that´s great. But on the other side ... the "overlapping"-Problem is a real big problems in the usability, the map doesn´t look as full as the user-database is ... this definitely should get solved.

In the moment you have to descide for yourself. When the trhee above problems are solved I would say "Buy it, it´s great". ;-)

All the best, Julian!


PS: Yes, an official Support-Request is comming. I just wanted to first post it here. ;-)

Join 180,000 websites creating Amazing communities

JomSocial is the most complete, easy-to-use addon that turns Joomla CMS into a
full -fledged, social networking site

TRY NOW BUY NOW