I've been trying to find a way to use Google Maps API to allow users to identify the latitude and longitude of a business and then add it to Yellowikis.
I asked a Google Maps "guru" about this idea and he told me:
"There's a fundamental problem trying to integrate Wikis, Google Maps and Internet Explorer. If you can find a way past this one hurdle, then the rest should be straight forward.
The problem is that IE refuses to allow Google Map API Javascript to be placed inside a <div> or a <table>. Nobody really knows why, it's just one of many bits of strange behaviour exhibited by IE. Wiki's don't like pages to have custom content that's outside the "editsection" <div>.
The API code would like it to be possible to have a chunk of Javascript that sits between these two lines <!-- Served by truth in 0.14 secs. --> </body> (The map itself would appear in a "map" <div> within the "editsection" <div>, it's just the associated Javascript code that must be moved.) My understanding is that it's not easy for a Wiki page to contain custom content there.
Possible workrounds are:
(1) Serve the map in an off-Wiki page within www.yellowikis.org. Write the external page so that it looks something like a Wiki page. It might then be tricky to get the user back to the Wiki page that he came from in order to do something with the geocoded information.
(2) Serve the map in an <iframe>. Will a Wiki allow an <iframe> within the "editsection"?
Here's a possible strategy:
A "create listing using a map" link takes the user to an off-Wikki page www.yellowikis.org/map/map.html. The user sees a map of the world and a set of instructions.
User zooms and pans until happy with the location, then clicks a button that initiates the recording process. Once that button has been clicked, a form is displayed at the side of the map, in which the user can enter basic details like the company name, contact details and classification codes. Clicking on the map in "record" mode causes a marker to be displayed and the latitude and longitude to be inserted into the form. Clicking on the map moves the marker and inserts the new latitude and longitude into the form.
Clicking on the "Submit" button causes a few simple checks to be performed (are the mandatory fields present?) then submits the data to your server.
Somehow your server has to convert a wodge of data into something that's suitable for the "editsection" of a Wiki page. Create the page if it's not there already. Replace the stub contents if there's a stub. Do something sensible if there already is a real entry. (You're on your own with this section of the processing. I know nothing about PHP or the server-side internals of wikis.)
Control then passes back to a page within the Wiki that tells the user that the data has been accepted."
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Will I have to make an extension?
FYI Yellowikisis running: * MediaWiki: 1.5.5 * PHP: 4.4.2-0.dotdeb.1 (apache) * MySQL: 5.0-Debian_4sarge2-log
* Extensions: o Parser hooks: + Inputbox by Erik Moeller o Extension functions: + registerInputboxExtension
Any advice would be welcome.
Paul -- Yellowikis is to Yellow Pages, as Wikipedia is to The Encyclopedia Britannica