Blog Directory : Listing Details
Smashing Magazine details
Listing ID: 359
Title: Smashing Magazine
Description: This blog's information about recent trends and techniques in Web development is useful for both designers and developers.
Category: Internet : Web Development
Owner:
listed on: April 28, 2008 07:36:05 PM
Number Hits: 0 times
Recent Posts:
| Forms On Mobile Devices: Modern Solutions - 2010-03-11 11:58:05 |
Mobile forms tend to have significantly more constraints than their desktop cousins: screens are smaller; connections are slower; text entry is trickier; the list goes on. So, limiting the number of forms in your mobile applications and websites is generally a good idea. When you do want input from users on mobile devices, radio buttons, checkboxes, select menus and lists tend to work much better than open text fields.
But constraints breed innovation, and mobile forms are no different. The limitations of mobile devices have forced developers and designers to find new ways to allow users to input data faster and more easily. Thanks to the modern solutions covered in this article, the mobile space may not be a place to avoid forms much longer. Instead, it may become the place to encourage them.
Mobile forms tend to have significantly more constraints than their desktop cousins: screens are smaller; connections are slower; text entry is trickier; the list goes on. So, limiting the number of forms in your mobile applications and websites is generally a good idea. When you do want input from users on mobile devices, radio buttons, checkboxes, select menus and lists tend to work much better than open text fields.
But constraints breed innovation, and mobile forms are no different. The limitations of mobile devices have forced developers and designers to find new ways to allow users to input data faster and more easily. Thanks to the modern solutions covered in this article, the mobile space may not be a place to avoid forms much longer. Instead, it may become the place to encourage them.
By the way, what was the last time you visited our sister site
Field Zoom
In many mobile Web browsers, when a user selects a form’s input field, the “field zoom” feature expands it to fill the screen’s viewable area. This makes an otherwise tiny field large enough for people to actually see the data they are entering. Given that many form errors are caused by people not seeing their inputs well enough
The Safari browser on Apple’s iPhone makes use of field zoom together with a “form assistant.” The form assistant displays “Previous,” “Next,” “AutoFill” and “Done” buttons below the magnified input field, giving people an easy way to move through and complete a form. No need to worry if an input field is off screen: the user just hits “Next” and won’t miss it!
However, not everyone will know about the form assistant or know how to hide the keyboard. So, make sure the controls on the Web page still allow them to complete the form. Excessive spacing around the “Submit” button can tuck it behind the keyboard.
Field zoom is another great reason to
Mobile browsers that don’t have field zoom also run into issues with left- and right-aligned input field labels. Anyone using such a form on Google’s Android OS (below) faces the problem of disappearing labels. The screen simply does not have enough room for both the input field and its corresponding label. Top-aligned labels avoid this issue.
Input Formats
Some mobile Web browsers recognize url brings up a virtual alphanumeric keyboard with “.”, “/”, and “.com” keys. Specifying an input of the type email brings up a virtual alphanumeric keyboard with “.” and “@” keys. Specifying an input of the type number brings up a virtual numeric keyboard.
These input-specific keyboards make entering the particular type of data required by each input field much easier. Even browsers without virtual keyboards benefit from the use of number, because users would not have to switch to number mode to enter numeric data.
Password-Masking
Most password input fields in forms instantly obscure all characters that a user enters to keep sensitive information hidden from prying eyes. Automatic masking of passwords may provide
Many mobile devices address this issue by displaying the most recent character the user has entered, and then obscuring that character as a bullet only after a brief delay. This technique has made its way onto the desktop, as illustrated in this
Pop-Up Menu Controls
Drop-down select menus are one of the hardest input types to use. First, you have to click on the menu to open it. Then, you have to maneuver through a potentially long list of small targets. Once you find the value you want, you need position your cursor on the right target and select it. To top it off, many implementations of drop-down menus on the Web require you to keep your cursor on the menu while navigating the list, or else the menu closes!
Even dexterous users often miss them and need to start over. Couple this interactive challenge with the small screens of mobile devices and the need for a different solution for select menus becomes quite obvious.
For drop-down select menus on Web forms, Apple’s iPhone presents users with a pop-up menu control. This control displays the options in the menu in a contained list that can be scrolled at various speeds though drag, nudge and flick gestures. The large touch targets also make it easy to select the right value once you’ve found it.
Similarly, Google’s Android provides a larger touch target for select menu options. When the user taps a drop-down select menu on an Android device, a scrollable list of menu options appears in a dialog window over the Web page.
Compound Menu Controls
Pop-up menu controls can be applied to compound inputs as well. So, instead of requiring three separate input fields for the month, day and year of a requested date, one date field can bring up a set of pop-up menus that allow people to scroll through three lists at once to find the right date. This approach can be applied to other kinds of compound inputs as well, such as height in feet and inches.
Google’s Android has a compound input field solution, though it makes use of visible interface elements to move through a list instead of relying on gesture-based scrolling alone.
Native Input Controls
In addition to having compound menu controls, most mobile operating systems have several other custom input controls available to application developers. Sliders, split buttons, rating widgets and scrubbers are just a few of the components worth considering in place of standard form controls to make inputting easier for users.
Orientation
Because people like to hold mobile devices both horizontally and vertically in their hands, mobile forms should adjust accordingly to take advantage of the changing screen space. The compose email form on Google’s Android does just that.
When held vertically, the screen shows three input fields with several action buttons. In the horizontal position, the email body input takes over the screen, and one action button is shown on the right. This layout maximizes the screen space available for the message content.
Voice Input
Google’s
What’s Next?
Mobile is growing
About the Author
Luke Wroblewski is an internationally recognized
Smashing Magazine readers can get a special 20% off discount on Luke’s latest book:
(al)
© Luke Wroblewski for
Post tags:
Since its emergence, the digital photography market has gradually supplanted the traditional one. APN and digital SLR cameras entered our lives, and some people announced the death of silver-based images. This is not all lie, and yet old-fashioned images have been particularly popular in the past few years. All we do seem to do now is try to recreate the atmosphere of those bygone times anyway. Blurry, distorted and over-saturated images are not just a fad anymore. People have became familiar with the style and even consider it a full-fledged photographic genre.
And this is where toy cameras play a role. These devices, made entirely of plastic, including often the lens itself, are not only toys. Sure, they cost next to nothing and have no controls to speak of, but this is what people like about them: they create unpredictable pictures, with equally unpredictable vintage effects. Once you understand this, the rest is a beautiful game. Take them anywhere, anytime, and photograph whatever you like.
Since its emergence, the digital photography market has gradually supplanted the traditional one. APN and digital SLR cameras entered our lives, and some people announced the death of silver-based images. This is not all lie, and yet old-fashioned images have been particularly popular in the past few years. All we do seem to do now is try to recreate the atmosphere of those bygone times anyway. Blurry, distorted and over-saturated images are not just a fad anymore. People have became familiar with the style and even consider it a full-fledged photographic genre.
And this is where toy cameras play a role. These devices, made entirely of plastic, including often the lens itself, are not only toys. Sure, they cost next to nothing and have no controls to speak of, but this is what people like about them: they create unpredictable pictures, with equally unpredictable vintage effects. Once you understand this, the rest is a beautiful game. Take them anywhere, anytime, and photograph whatever you like.
Photo credit: Pirouetting, by
How does this apply to modern design? Now that vintage websites are so trendy, why not look to this type of image for inspiration? You probably don’t want to go through the trouble of taking up silver-based photography because that would mean buying, developing and scanning film, maybe even making prints. That takes time and is expensive.
What you can do, though, is use the magic of Photoshop to make your ultra-sharp, high-definition images look like they were taken with one of these cameras. Below are a list of the most famous toy cameras and some tutorials that can be used to recreate their famous effects. Most of them are part of the Lomography movement, but you might also want to consider some other options in trying to recreate that authentic look. You also may be interested in our previous article “
[Offtopic: by the way, have you already visited
Famous Toy Cameras
Toy cameras are cheap, low quality and yet functional. As such, the deformations in the photos they produce are pronounced, and not all images are guaranteed to be perfectly exposed. Still, there are just so many of them these days that picking a few is hard. The ones presented here have paved the way for the success of the others. You may know them but not the stories behind them?
Diana
Let’s start where it all began. Picture yourself in Hong Kong in the early ’60s, when a factory starts producing the Diana. This inexpensive plastic-body camera was at the time usually given away as a novelty gift. Occasionally, it would be used by actual photographers who took advantage of the various effects it produced. And many effects there were. Because of the poor quality of materials used, the Diana camera was disposed to light leaks, leading to film damage, an effect typically fixed by sealing the seams with light-proof tape. Handy, huh?
But the plastic body wasn’t the most interesting part: it was the lens, also made out of plastic. Not only did it enhance the already low contrast created by the light infiltration, but it also made for odd color rendering, chromatic aberration and blurry images. As if this weren’t enough, the image circle only marginally covered the diagonal of the film frame, which is why Diana images have heaving vignetting.
Photo credit:
As photographers started to deliberately exploit these characteristics, production grew through the ’70s and opened the way for other toy camera manufacturers.
Photo credit:
Lomo LC-A
This is where things get a bit tricky, so pay attention. It’s now the beginning of the ’90s, and for a few years the Russian factory Lomo PLC has been producing the Lomo LC-A camera, which basically has all of the characteristics of a toy camera (vignetting in particular). But production was stopped, and the camera was all but forgotten until two Austrian students found one at a flea market in 1991 and decided to exploit its marketing potential. They convinced the director of the Lomo PLC factory to relaunch production and negotiated an exclusive contract for distribution with their brand-new company: Lomography AG.
Photo credit:
And here begins the Lomography movement. If the term is familiar to you, you probably know at least two things about it. First, it promotes casual snapshot photography. Second, it is associated with over-saturated and high-contrast images. To confuse things, this second characteristic has nothing to do with the LC-A camera itself or with any other cameras for that matter. It is actually the result of the way the film is processed, which would usually be cross-processing. But Lomography is a movement, not a technique, and it was certainly the first to promote camera imperfections as an aesthetic. The success of the LC-A camera helped spread this aesthetic.
Photo credit:
Holga
With the success of this movement, Lomography AG became interested in other low-cost cameras, such as the Holga, which had been produced in China for a decade. Even though it was made by a different manufacturer, the Holga was considered the successor of the Diana. Inspired by its predecessor, the Holga was designed as an inexpensive mass-market camera. And like the Diana, it is not of the best quality and has the same flaws.
Photo credit:
But the Holga became popular and was even exported to the West over time, mostly for photo-reporting, for which its low profile was appreciated. Its problems were no longer problems, and now it is not surprising to hear of Holga photos winning awards. Because it is entirely manual, one can create effects, such as double exposure and panoramas, by not winding the film.
Photo credit:
ActionSampler, SuperSampler, Oktomat
These three cameras don’t have many differences. They all take multiple shots in a set period of time, thus creating micro-images that look like short animated movies. The Actionsampler and Supersampler have four lenses each, while the Oktomat has eight, fitting eight frames into the standard 35mm.
Photo credit:
To make them a bit more fun, what you see through the viewfinder is not exactly what you get.
Photo credit:
Lomo Fisheye 2
As the name suggests, the Lomo Fisheye camera has a fish-eye lens. It was the first 35mm compact camera to offer such a wide angle (170°), and unlike the other toy cameras covered here, it gave surprisingly good results for the price. The second edition came with several enhancements, such a viewfinder that covered the same angle as the lens (it was blocked off before).
Photo credit:
The effect created, often seen in sport images, can serve many other purposes. But the user should be aware of two major characteristics: strong deformation and light leaks.
Photo credit:
Photoshop Tutorials And Resources
Now, let’s put all this into practice. Even if you are familiar with these effects, have ever actually tried to replicate them? There are a lot of different effects, and you can combine them to create unique images.
Faking the Holga Camera and Fisheye Lens
This tutorial shows you how to fake Holga photographs in a few simple steps.
Another tutorial on faking Holga photographs.
This shows you how to create a fish-eye effect for a picture taken with a regular lens. This one is a video and it addresses two important points: the lens circle border is not supposed to be so sharp when taking a fish-eye photograph, and one often deals with light infiltration.
Another fish-eye tutorial. It doesn’t show how to distort the image, so you will have to add this step yourself, but it adds a nice final touch to the image by using a picture of the inside of a fish-eye lens.
Recreating Low-Quality Camera Flaws
A very simple tutorial on recreating the vignetting effect.
What if you’re already happy with the contrast and color saturation of your image and just want to recreate the effect of a soft-focus camera lens or diffusion filter? In this tutorial, you’ll learn a fast and easy way to add a more traditional soft-focus lens effect to images.
Here is a nice Photoshop plug-in to fake barrel distortion and chromatic aberrations. Adding these effects to your pictures will make them look even more authentic.
Light Leaks Effect,
Of course, this article wouldn’t be complete without a great tutorial on light leak effects. Here is an awesome one, divided into two parts, each covering a different effect: a white-blur light and a colored bar leak.
Working on Colors and Light Exposure
This tutorial is fairly quick and easy. It shows you how to get that great x-pro Lomo look by tweaking color. You’ll be exploring a new method of vignetting, and you’ll be widening and blurring the image a little.
With so many possible permutations of film stock and processing techniques, there is no single, identifiable look to cross-processed images. The most common combination is C-41 as E-6, in which slide chemistry is used to process color negative film; and mimicking it in Photoshop is a quick job. Image contrast is usually high, with blown-out highlights, while shadows tend towards dense shades of blue. Reds tend to be magenta, lips almost purple and highlights normally have a yellow-green tinge.
Another cros-processing tutorial.
Age your images a give them a vintage effect.
Using Textures and Double Exposure
Did you know that Flickr has a Through the Viewfinder group? The idea is that you shoot through the viewfinder of an old camera using your modern digital or film camera and create an interesting framing effect. Here is a tutorial on how to create this effect.
Yes, there is also a Flickr group called “Noise and Dust Through the Viewfinder.”
Here is a quick and easy tutorial for those who want to learn the art of taking a photo and turning it into an old-fashioned vintage picture.
Another tutorial (this one a video).
Download a filmstrip template and use it to create negatives of your pictures.
When you take a double-exposed photograph, the results are usually a bit unpredictable. With Photoshop you have much more control over the result.
While the most common way to create a double exposure is by using a different blending mode on the top layer and adjusting its opacity, this method accurately simulates how a camera takes a double exposure.
Other Ideas
No tutorials are needed to create these effects. They are included here merely to give you more ideas. You’ll still need to work on your pictures to get that vintage look. Then, just put them together and enjoy.
Draw inspiration from the Oktomat and Actionsampler cameras. You’ll get either four or eight images in the same frame, each of them having been shot after an interval of only a few seconds.
Photo credit: Look!, by
The Supersampler effect is quite similar to the Actionsampler: four images in the same frame, but spaced differently. And remember that you can arrange layers both horizontally and vertically.
Photo credit: moving clocks run slow, by
Panorama images don’t necessarily have to be perfectly arranged. Here is an example of what else can be done.
Photo credit:
Another inspiring panorama.
Photo credit:
The panorama view can be combined with a filmstrip effect. It simulates a double-exposure panorama taken on a manual camera.
Photo credit:
Want More?
Polaroid
If cheapness is a defining characteristic of toy cameras, it surely isn’t for Polaroids. The Polaroid camera itself is not expensive, but because Fuji is now the only company that produces the film for it, getting affordable ones has become difficult. But this may change in the next few months thanks to
Going back a bit, the world’s first commercial instant camera was the “Land” camera, unveiled in 1947. Since then, Polaroid has become synonymous with instant photography, because most of the cameras have been created by the Polaroid Corporation. Nowadays, the cameras are used by photographers mainly to preview their work before actually shooting. But as toy cameras, they are fun to play with and can make for nice effects.
Photo credit:
Polaroid and Transfer Effect
This is a simple tutorial on how to get that retro Polaroid coloring in your photos.
This Photoshop tutorial shows you how to create a cool old photo transfer edge effect using a piece of stock photography, an alpha channel and the burn and dodge tools.
Showcase of Beautiful Pictures
Considering that Flickr has a group for almost every subject, it is no surprise that there is
Photo credit: have I told you lately, by
Photo credit:
Photo credit: 000038, by
Photo credit: 54330027, by
Photo credit: Ipanema Beach – Brazil, by
Photo credit: Hélicoïdal, by
Photo credit: Purgatoire, by
Photo credit: untitled, by
Photo credit: untitled, by
Photo credit: .., by
Photo credit: spree1, by
Photo credit: Love me two times, by
Photo credit: exit, by
Photo credit: untitled, by
Photo credit: Akhirnya buat lomba juga -__-, by
Photo credit: Cosy Clausterphobia, by
Photo credit: svema_test1, by
Photo credit: untitled, by
Photo credit:
Photo credit: La Bòfia – Redscale, by
Photo credit:
Photo credit:
Photo credit: Holga Tennis, by
Photo credit:
Photo credit:
Further Resources
This Photoshop action makes images look as though they are aged prints, shot on a toy or antique camera. Also included are two actions that create borders similar to those seen on photos from many antique and toy cameras.
FILE presents here a selection of images submitted for its Toy Camera Contest. This collection gives an idea of the challenge facing the judges to find three winners. The range and quality of the submitted images are impressive.
This project is home to photos taken with toy cameras. Most are plastic: Holga, Diana, Dorie, Debonair, Lubitel, Banner, Snappy and Yunon. Distortion, blur and imperfection are some of the characteristics that endear these cameras to enthusiasts.
Gathered here are a few Lomography fish-eye shots. Some were taken with Lomography cameras such as the Diana and the LC-A+ with a fish-eye lens adapter attached.
Lomographic Society International Website.
(al)
© Jessica Bordeau for
Post tags:
I thought I could not be out-geeked. With a background in radio, and having dabbled in the demo scene on the Commodore 64 and hung out on
Then I went to my first
Pulling out your phone, find your location and getting directions to the nearest bar is easy, but a lot of work has gone into making that possible. The good news is that because of that effort, mere geo-mortals like you and me can now create geographically aware products using a few lines of code. So, let's give the geo-community a big hand.
I thought I could not be out-geeked. With a background in radio, and having dabbled in the demo scene on the Commodore 64 and hung out on
Then I went to my first
Pulling out your phone, find your location and getting directions to the nearest bar is easy, but a lot of work has gone into making that possible. The good news is that because of that effort, mere geo-mortals like you and me can now create geographically aware products using a few lines of code. So, let’s give the geo-community a big hand.
By the way, what was the last time you visited our sister site
Why Geo Matters
First of all, why is it important to consider physical location on this planet (at this moment) when we develop Web products? There are a few answers to this.
The first answer is mobility. The days of people sitting in front of desktop machines at home are over. Sales of mobile devices, laptops and netbooks have overtaken those of bulky stationary computers in the last few years. The power of processors now allows us to use smaller, more mobile hardware to perform the same tasks. So, if people use their hardware on the go, we should bring our systems to them. Which brings us to the second—very important—point: relevance.
Giving the user content that is relevant to the physical space they are in at the moment makes a lot of sense. We are creatures of habit. While we love the reach of the Internet, we also want to be able to find things in our local area easily: people to meet, cafes to frequent, interesting buildings and museums to learn about. The advertising industry—especially of the adult and dating variety—realized this years ago. I am sure you have come across one of the following before:
I am sure these ads are more successful than the ones that show only user names. That the photos and names are the same for every location doesn’t seem to be a problem (but yes, I noticed it). So how does it all work?
Getting The User’s Location Via IP
Every computer on a network has a number that identifies it: its
To find out where a certain phone number is from, you use a phone book. To find out where an IP is from, you can use the
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://j.maxmind.com/app/geoip.js"></script><script>var info = document.getElementById('info');var lat = geoip_latitude();var lon = geoip_longitude();var city = geoip_city();var out = '<h3>Information from your IP</h3>'+'<ul>'+'<li>Latitude: ' + lat + '</li>'+'<li>Longitude: ' + lon + '</li>'+'<li>City: ' + city + '</li>'+'<li>Region: ' + geoip_region() + '</li>'+'<li>Region Name: ' + geoip_region_name() + '</li>'+'<li>Postal Code: ' + geoip_postal_code() + '</li>'+'<li>Country Code: ' + geoip_country_code() + '</li>'+'<li>Country Name: ' + geoip_country_name() + '</li>'+'</ul>'info.innerHTML = out;</script>This gives you some information on the user (
So, for a solution like the one highlighted above, I would show up as being in a totally different part of the world (which might be useful for watching Internet TV in the UK while I am in the US). IP geo-location, then, is an approximation, not a dead-on science.
Getting The User’s Location Via The W3C Geo API
Guessing geographical location via IP is possible, but it can also be pretty creepy. Being able to take advantage of your location is useful, but security-conscious users and people who are generally suspicious of the Internet are not happy with the idea of their movements being monitored by a computer. This makes sense: if I can monitor your whereabouts day and night, I would know where and when to rob your house without you being there.
There are a lot of solutions to the challenge of having good-quality geo-location and maintaining privacy. Google Gears
The problem with all of these services is that they require the user to either install a plug-in or visit a Web service to update their location. This is not fun; browsers should do the work for you.
We now have a
Firefox 3.5 and above
Once the user allows you to get their location, you get much more detailed latitude and longitude values. Using the API is very easy:
// if the browser supports the w3c geo apiif(navigator.geolocation){// get the current positionnavigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(// if this was successful, get the latitude and longitudefunction(position){var lat = position.coords.latitude;var lon = position.coords.longitude;},// if there was an errorfunction(error){alert('ouch');});}Converting Latitude And Longitude Back Into A Name
Having more information is nice, but we have lost the name of the city and all the other nice data that came with the Maxmind database. Because the location has changed, we cannot just grab that old data; we have to find a way to convert latitude and longitude coordinates into a name. This process is called “
One freely available but lesser-known reverse geo-coder that works worldwide comes from a surprising source: Flickr. The
select * from flickr.places where lat=37.416115 and lon=-122.0245671
Using the YQL Web service, you can
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8">function getPlaceFromFlickr(lat,lon,callback){// the YQL statementvar yql = 'select * from flickr.places where lat='+lat+' and lon='+lon;// assembling the YQL webservice APIvar url = 'http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q='+encodeURIComponent(yql)+'&format=json&diagnostics='+'false&callback='+callback;// create a new script node and add it to the documentvar s = document.createElement('script');s.setAttribute('src',url);document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(s);};// callback in case there is a place foundfunction output(o){if(typeof(o.query.results.places.place) != 'undefined'){alert(o.query.results.places.place.name);}}// call the function with my current lat/longetPlaceFromFlickr(37.416115,-122.02456,'output');</script>Combine that with the other services, and we get a
The Trouble With Latitude And Longitude
While latitude and longitude coordinates are a good way to describe a location on Earth, it is also ambiguous. The coordinates could represent either the centre of a city or a point of interest (such as a museum or a pub) in that spot.
WOEID to the Rescue
To work around the problem, Yahoo and Flickr (and soon will
select * from flickr.photos.search where woe_id in (select place.woeid from flickr.places where lat=37.416115 and lon=-122.02456)
Using this and
This has also been wrapped in a
<script>function photos(o){var container = document.getElementById('photos');container.innerHTML = o.results;}</script><script src="http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=select%20*%20from%20flickr.photolist%20where%20location%3D%22paris%2Cfr%22%20and%20text%3D%22%22%20and%20amount%3D10&format=xml&env=store%3A%2F%2Fdatatables.org%2Falltableswithkeys&callback=photos">You can also
Why Not Search For The Location’s Name?
The main question about implementations such as the one above is why couldn’t we just do a search on Flickr for the city, instead of doing all the complex geo-lookups? The reason is false positives. Take Paris, for example: if you want to show photos of Paris on a travel website, you don’t want Paris Hilton to show up in there. Same goes for Jack London. You may also want to show photos of London, England, not London, Ontario. Geographic data is full of these kinds of gotchas, and the term for finding the right one is “disambiguation.” See the
Turning Text Into Geo-Data
Finding a visitor’s geographic location is all well and good, but it doesn’t mean much if you can’t link it to information for that area. This is where it gets tricky. For Flickr (and soon Twitter), this is easy, because both services are able to attach geographical locations to the content you put in them. This is not so for most of the information on the Web, though, and this is when we resort to clever algorithms, machine-learning, pattern-matching and all the other think-tank stuff that computers and the scientists in front of them do.
Say you want to identify the geographical locations that a particular text or Web page talks about. Yahoo offers a service for that called appid, send a text as documentContent, define the type of the text as documentType and define the type of data you want back as outputType. All of this needs to be sent as a POST to http://wherein.yahooapis.com/v1/document:
<form action="http://wherein.yahooapis.com/v1/document" method="post"><textarea id="text" name="documentContent">Hi there, I am Chris.I live in London, I am currently in Sunnyvale and will soon be inAtlanta and Las Vegas.</textarea><div><input type="submit" name="sub" value="get locations"></div><input type="hidden" name="appid" value="{YOUR_APP_ID}"><input type="hidden" name="documentType" value="text/plain"><input type="hidden" name="outputType" value="xml"></form>You can
While developers who have played around with Web services won’t find Placemaker hard to use, the service can be daunting for the average developer. That is why I built
However, because there is also a YQL solution for using PlaceMaker in JavaScript, we can do the same with a few lines of client-side code to enhance an HTML document. Check out the following example:
To use this, you need three things: a text with geographical locations in them in an element with an ID, a Google Maps API key (
<script src="http://github.com/codepo8/geotoys/raw/master/addmap.js"></script><script>addmap.config.mapkey = 'COPY YOUR API KEY HERE';addmap.analyse('content');</script>This makes it incredibly easy to give your visitors a sense of what part of the world a text is related to.
Adding Maps To Your Documents
Online maps have been around for a while now (and Google Maps was instrumental in the rise of AJAX), and many providers out there allow you to add maps to your documents. Google is probably the leader, but Yahoo also has maps, as does Microsoft and many more. There is even a fully open map service called
If you want interactive maps, probably the easiest thing to use is
Probably the simplest way to show a map that supports markers and paths in your document without having to dive into JavaScript is the src URI of the image. For example, in the script example above, this would be:
http://maps.google.com/maps/api/staticmap?sensor=false&size=200x200&maptype=roadmap&key=YOUR_MAP_KEY&markers=color:blue|label:1|37.4447,-122.161&markers=color:blue|label:2|37.3385,-121.886&markers=color:blue|label:3|37.3716,-122.038&markers=color:blue|label:4|37.7792,-122.42
You can define the size and type of the map. If all you provide is the location of markers, the API will automatically find the right zoom level and area to ensure that all markers are visible. Google’s website even offers a detailed
Geo Is A Space To Watch
I hope this has given you some insight into all of the things you can do to bring the earth to your product and to put your product on the map. Geo-location and geo-aware services are already huge, and they’ll be even more important this year. There will be more services—some mobile providers are ready to roll out new hardware and software—and now you can be a part of it.
What the geo-world needs now is a designer’s eye, and this is where you can help the geo-geeks create apps that matter, that look great and that make a difference in our visitors’ lives. For inspiration, check out
(al)
© Christian Heilmann for
Post tags: