Restricting geocoding to a country - google-maps-api-3

I have seen that it is possible with the "static" to limit the scope of the search to a certain area (with components restrictions), I have also seen that in release 3.exp (will be 3.14) of the JavaScript API, a new class google.maps.GeocoderComponentRestrictions has appeared. I have not seen anywhere how this class is supposed to be used though.
Does anyone have more information about this?

It looks like this was answered over at Google Maps Geocoding API, feature from the API missing in their JS api (?), with formatting like:
geocoder.geocode(
{ 'address': address, 'componentRestrictions':{'country':'GB'}},
function(results, status){
...
});
The GeocoderComponentRestrictions parameters get passed with the componentRestrictions key.

Related

GMB - Removal of LocationState object in Business Information API

Google deprecated the old GMB API v4.9 account.locations.get endpoint, and replaced it with Business Information API v1 locations.get.
Code change that affects me is:
Removal of LocationState object. The existing fields have been moved into Metadata.
The new Metadata object does not return the attributes LocationState object contained before. The ones I'm interested in are:
isVerified
isPublished
isSuspended
isDisabled
isDisconnected
etc...
My question is:
How could I get this data without using deprecated endpoints?
Try Verification API getVoiceOfMerchantState
isVerified (verify),
isPublished (hasVoiceOfMerchant=true AND hasBusinessAuthority=true),
isSuspended (complyWithGuidelines),
isDuplicate (resolveOwnershipConflict).
isDisabled & isDisconnected have no equivalent in new API
As far as I can see, based on the link you have sent it is written:
Endpoint URL:
Endpoints for all business information, attributes, categories, chains and locations search are accessible at https://mybusinessbusinessinformation.googleapis.com/v1/ instead of https://mybusiness.googleapis.com/v4/
The path name for locations endpoints has changed from
accounts/accountId/locations/locationId to locations/locationId
Maybe it was better if you could provide the request uri in the previous version so we could help you more precisely. Anyhow, what I tested in the google playground is as follows:
open [https://developers.google.com/oauthplayground]
after setting your clientId and Authorisation stuff, in the Request URI write
https://mybusinessbusinessinformation.googleapis.com/v1/locations/XXXXX?readMask=storeCode,metadata,profile,serviceArea,labels,adWordsLocationExtensions
instead of XXXXX, write your locationId
you can write different readMask fields, The possible fields for readMask are:
play with different fields to check if you have your desired one or not readMask="storeCode,regularHours,name,languageCode,title,phoneNumbers,categories,storefrontAddress,websiteUri,regularHours,specialHours,serviceArea,labels,adWordsLocationExtensions,latlng,openInfo,metadata,profile,relationshipData,moreHours";
If above does not help you, in the link below I see that all metadata attribute of a location might be:
Click [here] (https://developers.google.com/my-business/reference/businessinformation/rest/v1/accounts.locations#Location.Metadata)

How to reliably get county from Google Autocomplete/Details

If I use Google Place Autocomplete for "Alpha Loft Elm" I get an address that includes only level 1 (state) in the administrative areas. But if I autocomplete for the same place using the returned formatted_address, "844 Elm St, Manchester, NH 03101, United States", I get level 2 (county) as well, with a different place-id.
I see the same behavior for other places as well. I see the same behavior from the Place Details API, when I give it the place-id returned in each case.
I need the county, and need to support autocomplete by place name.
The only workaround I've found for this is to use Place Search (textsearch) on the returned formatted_address, then use Place Details on the placeId returned for the address to get the county.
Is there a better approach?
(Also posted as a bug report on gmaps-api-issues.)
So far I am not aware of any other solution then after using Autocomplete to get the accurate address and place_id to use something like the following code to retrieve the "political" structure behind that address.
if (place.place_id) {
var service = new google.maps.places.PlacesService(map);
service.getDetails({placeId: place.place_id}, function (PlaceResult, PlacesServiceStatus) {
console.log(PlaceResult);
});
}

Meteor realtime game - match two players according to their score?

I want to build a realtime quiz game which randomly matches two players (according to their winning rate if they are logged in). I've read through the book Discover Meteor and have a basic understanding of the framework, but I just have no idea of how to implement the matching part. Anyone know how to do that?
if you want to match users who have scores close to each other, you can do something like this : mongodb - Find document with closest integer value
The Meteor code for those Mongo queries is very similar, but there are some subtle differences that are kind of tricky. In Meteor, it would look something like this :
SP // "selected player" = the User you want to match someone up with
var score = SP.score; // selected player's score
var queryLow = {score: {$lte:score},_id:{$ne:SP._id}};
var queryHigh = {score:{$gte:score},_id:{$ne:SP._id}};
// "L" is the player with the closest lower score
var L=Players.findOne(queryLow,{sort:{score:-1},limit:1});
// "H" is the player with the closest higher score
var H=Players.findOne(queryHigh,{sort:{score:1},limit:1});
so, now you have references to the players with scores right above and right below the 'selected player'. In terms of making it random, perhaps start with a simple algorithm like "match me with the next available player who's score is closest" , then if it's too predictable and boring you can throw some randomness into the algorithm.
you can view the above Meteor code working live here http://meteorpad.com/pad/4umMP4iY8AkB9ct2d/ClosestScore
and you can Fork it and mess about with the queries to see how it works.
good luck! Meteor is great, I really like it.
If you add the package peppelg:random-opponent-matcher to your application, you can match together opponents like this:
On the server, you need to have an instance of RandomOpponentMatcher like this:
new RandomOpponentMatcher('my-matcher', {name: 'fifo'}, function(user1, user2){
// Create the match/game they should play.
})
The function you pass to RandomOpponentMatcher will get called when two users been matched to play against each other. In it, you'll probably want to create the match the users should play against each other (this package does only match opponents together, it does not contain any functionality for playing games/matches).
On the client, you need to create an instance of RandomOpponentMatcher as well, but you only pass the name to it (the same name as you used on the server):
myMatcher = new RandomOpponentMatcher('my-matcher')
Then when the users is logged in and which to be matched with a random opponent, all you need to do is to call the add method. For example:
<template name="myTemplate">
<button class="clickMatchesWithOpponent">Match me with someone!</button>
</template>
Template.myTemplate.events({
'click .clickMatchesWithOpponent': function(event, template){
myMatcher.add()
}
})
When two different logged in users has clicked on the button, the function you passed to RandomOpponentMatcher on the server will get called.
One implementation might be as follows:
A user somehow triggers a 'looking for game' event that sets an attribute on user.profile.lookingForGame to true. The event then makes a call to a server side Meteor method which queries for all other online users looking for games.
From there you it really depends on how you want to handle users once they 'match'.
To determine all online users, try using the User Status package:
https://github.com/mizzao/meteor-user-status
Once added, any online user will have an attribute in the profile object of 'online'. You can use this to query for all online users.

Store Locator API + Geolocation

I am trying to create a Store Locator with the Google API, very similar to the one in the Google examples here:
http://storelocator.googlecode.com/git/examples/panel.html
However I've hit a wall trying to get the Store Locator API to get the user's position through Geolocation, so when I click on Get Direction in the infowindow I get directions to the user position; instead of having to type my address in the: Where are you? Panel box.
In the documentation what I have seen is that geolocation is a boolean in the View Option that is set to True by default. But this does not solve my problem.
Does anyone have any idea on how to do this?
seems that the googlecode page you said is no longer exist. So I can't give any further insight about what you want to make.
However, by your description, Luckily I made similar site few months ago. It is on Grocery Store Near Me .
The concept of Geolocation is an HTML5 (actually W3C) Geolocation API which is now already embed in most modern browser. It is an API which you can obtain user's location (latitude, longitude, altitude, and accuracy).
you can call it with simply
navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(success, error, geo_options);
Success and error is a callback function in which you can define.
In my case, the function looks like these
function success(position) {
var latitude = position.coords.latitude;
var longitude = position.coords.longitude;
// use the lat and long to call function to fetch an API through AJAX
fetchStoreData(latitude, longitude);
}
In the Store Locator schema (like mine in Grocery Store Near Me), Geolocation is used to obtains user lat and long. The lat and long, then send to server via AJAX to get data about nearby store location.
The server serve an API in which accept lat and long as parameter, then fetch the store data (either using database, or other external API like foursquare), then you can display it either on list, or on a maps.

Can I find out if a coordinate is inside a city?

Let's say I have a LatLng object, is there any way of checking if it represents a possible location within a city? How can I get the limits of a city?
I'm using Google Map V3.
Have you tried reverse geocoding?
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/services.html#ReverseGeocoding
You could check the formatted address to see if the city matches what you're looking for. I'm not sure how accurate this will be for your application, but it's an option.
function codeLatLng() {
var geocoder = new google.maps.Geocoder(),
latlng = new google.maps.LatLng(40.730885, -73.997383);
geocoder.geocode({ 'latLng': latlng }, function (results, status) {
if (status == google.maps.GeocoderStatus.OK) {
if (results[1]) {
console.log(results[1]);
console.log(results[1].formatted_address);
}
} else {
alert("Geocoder failed due to: " + status);
}
});
}
City limits and other municipalities are constantly re-drawn. There are certain services that exist to help you find them, but I'm not positive that Google keeps a record of city limits inside their data for the Google maps. Here's a discussion in google groups about it. A snippet from that site:
Depending where you are in the world, city limits and other
administrative boundaries are CONSTANTLY being changed, and it's even
sometimes difficult for local governments to keep their data current
because of annexations and other changes. Also, 'city' might be
something relative small or the size of Shanghai. Also, different
countries can also have sometimes conflicting definitions what
administrative unit is the actual definition - a good example is
China. Probably your best approach is to get your data from a local
government or a data supplier and build your own.
You can use Reverse Geocoding in the Google Geocoder API and check the locality entries and perhaps sublocality entries of results returned. http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/#Types
Note that this probably won't work so well if you have addresses all over the world and want to know "What city is this LatLng in?" On the other hand, it will probably work reasonably well if you want to know "Is this LatLng within Chicago?" There are areas of the world where the data is fairly complete and sensible, and areas where it is incomplete and/or organized in ways you might not expect. (Apparently, the UK uses "county" and "state" very differently from the USA, for example. Even if I'm wrong about that, you get the idea.)

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