GeoMereLaal

GeoMereLaal plugin is all you need to create Location-Aware rails application based on W3C Geolocaton API.

Quick Audio Intro: Thanks to Ruby5 Podcast

Install

You can either install it as a plugin or as a gem

Install as plugin

rails plugin install git://github.com/kristianmandrup/geo_mere_laal.git

Install as gem

gem install geo_mere_laal

in Rails Gemfile, insert:

gem 'geo_mere_laal'

Then from CLI (console/terminal):

$ bundle install

What's Location-Awareness?

W3C proposed an API in which internet browsers can have capability to retrieve geo-location of the user via multiple sources (Wifi, LBS, IP, browser cookies) and share it with web apps so that apps can serve content based on user's location.

Who supports it?

<tr>
<td>Safari</td>
<td>Support is <a title="Geolocation API support in Safari" href="http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/14114/print">coming soon</a> in the IPhone’s Safari browser.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Internet Explorer</td>
<td>An experimental support available from IE8.</td>
</tr>            

Web Browser	Geolocation API support
Mozilla Firefox	supported in Firefox 3.5 and later versions.
Chrome	Supports thru Google Gears Geolocation API
Opera	Supported in nightly builds – download from this page

How do I use it?

Step 1 : Install

 script/plugin install git://github.com/parolkar/geo_mere_laal.git 

Step 2 : Create form (as you always did but with new helpers)

Note: You may want to generate Address model this way script/generate model Address street:string locality:string city:string state:string country:string zip:string lat:string lng:string

   

<% form_tag('#') do  -%>
   <%= label :address,"street","Street" -%>
   <%= street_field :address, "street" %>    
	
   <%= label :address,"locality","Locality" -%>
   <%= locality_field :address, "locality" %>  

   <%= label :address,"city","City" -%>
   <%= city_field :address, "city" %>  

   <%= label :address,"state","State" -%> 
   <%= state_field :address, "state" %>      

   <%= label :address,"country","Country Name" -%>
   <%= country_name_field :address, "country" %>

   <%= label :address,"zip","Postal Code" -%>
   <%= postal_code_field :address, "zip" %>
    
<% end %>

Step 3: ...... there is no step 3 ;-)

The rendered form will auto fill the content with user's geolocation

Output

Copyright (c) 2009 Abhishek Parolkar, released under the MIT license