= Location

== Introduction

Location is a plugin that will allow you to create relatively robust list of locations (stores, churches, etc.). This 
uses the Directory extension by Loren Johnson as a starting point but makes a number of different decisions. First it 
uses Geokit (http://geokit.rubyforge.org) to handle the heavy lifting. Second, the JavaScript is completely rewritten to 
use version 2 of the Google Maps API and to make some additional API changes (this is still TODO)

== Geokit Modifications

I've made a few modifications to GeoKit to get it to work inside the extension and to maintain certain Radiant 
paradigms. 

* Geokit is included as a library to the extension rather than as a plugin
* All references to the configuration values have been changed to use Radiant::Config

== Finding Results in space

To process search requests for locations you must create a Location Page. use <r:location> to find and return locations.


The parameters you can use to "find" locations are:

=== start point

The start point is some point in space relative to which we will find locations. This allows a user to say "Find 
location near Main Street and First Street, My Town, BC, Canada". 

When a start value is specified (using either *address* or *lat*&*lng*), then it will be always be used to calculate a 
distance to each returned location. If a distance is requested, we will return all the locations with that distance of 
the start point.

==== *address* 

If supplied, this will be an address that will be geocoded using the configured geocode providers. Once a latitude & 
longitude are calculated, they form the start point for the request.

==== *lat* & *lng* 

If both parameters are supplied, they are used as the start point. They always take precedence over *address*. 

=== *distance*

When specified, all the locations within this distance of the start point are returned. If no distance is specified, 
_all_ locations are returned

=== *units*

The units are used for calculating distance from a location to the start point. The default value is "km"

=== *count*

The number of results to return. Defaults to returning ALL results

=== *offset*

The number of the first result to return. This allows you to build pagination into your code