Hello,

I am fairly new to Mediawiki , and subscribe to several of the lists. I am hesitant to post to the list, as I feel like a nitwit! I've tried to search for answers elsewhere.

The recent post about the Wikipubs project really struck a chord with our curriculum team, and I've been struggling trying build the same sort of functionality he used for pubs into our Mediawiki (1.52) installation. James did a great job with that project.

We are a school district on the Bering Sea coast of Alaska, and all of our communities are Yup'ik, Siberian Yup'ik or Inupiaq Eskimo. No roads connect the villages, and traditional hunting and gathering activities are the mainstay of the local "economy" ;-)

Our school district is converting our entire curriculum to Mediawiki format, and everyone is jazzed about the potential for wiki use in collaborative resource development, and instructional use by teachers using "place-based" education for writing.

The Problem

I have followed the instructions on the meta "mafs" page about the Google Map Extension...as far as I can tell...at:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Mafs/GoogleMapExtension

- Got a key from Google

- Modified LocalSettings.php with the key like this:

$IP = "/home/wikibss/public_html"; ini_set( "include_path", ".:$IP:$IP/includes:$IP/languages" ); require_once( "includes/DefaultSettings.php" ); require_once('extensions/gmap.php'); $wgGmapKey = "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"; $wgGmapSource = "http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=1&key=";

- Created the "gmap.php" file and put in "extensions"

- Created the "gmap.js" file and put in "skins/commons"

- Modified "MonoBook.php" to add the "function execute()" call

- Created a cache directory

Got this error:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function: curl_init() in /home/wikibss/public_html/extensions/gmap.php on line 291

- Recompiled Apache with curl module (duh!)

- I'm trying to test it with the sample script from the meta.wikipedia page, but each sample comes up with the same problem....a blank page.

My Question: When I go to that page now I don't get any error, and I see the status bar indicating it is contacting Google Maps....but the page appears blank. What could cause this? I don't know how to trouble shoot this.

Our Wiki: http://wiki.bssd.org/

Error Page: http://wiki.bssd.org/index.php/Trail_Markers

If my question is naive, I apologize to the regulars for their tolerance, and thank you all in advance for your help.

Regards,

JTC...in the Bering Sea