Despite being an old nag, I promise not to write about this subject after this anymore. In fact I somewhat closed the matter with the publication of the second version of SDN World annex Le petit monde de Freddy. That was the case until Valery Silaev came into my life. Before you start thinking in double entendre(s), let me explain.
I knew Valery only from his well-grounded comments on my web logs and of course from his forum posts. Besides that, we never had contact. So I was rather surprised when he contacted me via e-mail the other day with a couple of suggestions for improvement of the SDN World application. I must admit that I was a bit reluctant at first. Not only I didn’t have much time for it – I had spent too many time on it already- but the response was still not that good. So why should I spend additional time?
Valery came with the idea to divide the effort: he will focus on revamping the front end and I concentrate on the back end. Before I even could find some arguments not to do this, he already posted me a version. I was really overwhelmed by the speed and quality of the work done. I couldn’t afford to be a spoilsport and couldn’t resist to collaborate on this wonderful thing. After a couple of days of intensive mailing, we got the FINAL application on line.
- Markers are loaded and applied via GeoRss again. This time the data is provided by a php script that does a live conversion of this MySQL table.
- Registration is submitted via XmlHttpRequest, so the user stays on the same page after submitting the data. Everything is stored in a MySQL table.
- Geocoding is now done via the Yahoo REST service. It acts sometimes a bit strange (don’t worry, we capture this), but returns more accurate data. If you feel that your current location isn’t 100% exact, pls contact me and I will regenerate the location with the new version.
- Error handling is improved with more user-friendly error messaging.
- The user list now has “flag” icons.
- It is possible to re-load users list / markers without a full page reload.
- It is possible to navigate in several map areas with a single click (areas were majority of users registered: US West/East, Europe, India, Korea & Japan)
- It is possible to lookup entered address on map before registration.
- Flexible layout applied, checked on 1024×768 and 1200×1024
- All this functionality tested with Firefox 1.5 and IE 6 on Windows XP.
This is yet another example how SDN brings people together and can collaborate without hearing/speaking toe each other. The result is a real fine application. But you don’t have to believe me, have a look at the new SDN world yourself and don’t be a killjoy by not submitting your data.
Update: check also the new statistics.
And for the never meet face to face collaboration team, that’s a thing that I love from the SDN…I also have contacted many people like Craig, Kathirvel, Marilyn, Thomas, John, Rich…I have never meet them, but have share a couple of interesting mails -;)
SDN shows us that there is no bounds when it comes to improve the community.
Greetings,
Blag.
wonderful work, and after trying everything to get my entry in, I finally managed. I missed on checking umlauts in my city (Düsseldorf) writing it Duesseldorf, I was finally accepted 🙂
Thanx
Ute
Thanks for adding your data. All depends on Yahoo being able to understand things or not. It is rather flexible (sometimes a bit too much), but it fails sometimes.
Glad you managed.
Eddy
regards,
anton
It’s really great! Thanks for your effort!
SDN should make this link available in a more visible place, so more people could register.
Regards,
Peter
great work. Actual you can virtually split yourself around several location on the globe. 🙂
My legs are in Antartica. So I’m getting pretty cold feet, down here. 😉 Maybe try integrating with http://www.43places.com/ ?
Where do you want to go today?
Tim
That wasn’t a good idea.
The idea is that you put your actual location on the map, meaning the same as registered at SDN and visible in your BC.
Therefore I will need to delete your two other entries.
Pls don’t give me more work in deleting bogus entries.
Eddy
well the problem is I could update this on my own after yahoo failed with my data several times on the first try, so then I felt I needed to experiment.
Sorry for the double comment, slow access from antarctica. 🙂
T.
It is better to mail (see my BC) me first when one has troubles with the application before experimenting. That saves me from trouble afterwards.
I will help you as quickly as possible. Grumpy men don’t bit 😉
Eddy
great work. Actual you can virtually split yourself around several location on the globe. 🙂
My legs are in Antartica. So I’m getting pretty cold feet, down here. 😉 Maybe try integrating with http://www.43places.com/ ?
Where do you want to go today?
Tim
Absolutely Great Work…
No words to describe it…
Keep up your Great work..
Cheers
Kathirvel
it looks really polished, now 🙂
One suggestion. What about disabling the form buttons while the xmlhttprequest is in progress (button.disabled = true)? This prevents people from double posting.
greets
Thomas
Thanks for the suggestion.
Double entries are already captured at the back end though.
Eddy
Button itself is not disabled, but form cann’t be submited second time while xmlhttprequest is in progress: right before calling xmlhttprequest.send(), there is a code
form.onsubmit=function(){return false;}
so repeative submits are disabled.
form.onsubmit hadnler restored later when xmlhttprequest processing ends.
Valery
nice work! Congratulation
As you can see the number of users is growing.
Best regards
Renald
1st) I didn’t get to register for my city Mogí Guaçu, state of São Paulo – Brazil.
2nd) I am three register and it would like to exclude two of them.
3rd) as I can change my location already registered.
Respectfully,
Juliano Henrique Diniz
I’ve added your Brazilian data and deleted the other 3.
Eddy
amazing job! way to go!
Ran.
I have doubt on this, How to edit or change information?
Thanks
J
If you need some info changed, you only need to notify me.
Eddy
This is Jennifer, SDN editor. I’d like to include a link to the SDN World app in the “Editor’s Pick” section of the homepage, but unless a user already knows what it is the app won’t make a lot of sense. Could you add a sentence or two to the top of landing page that describes what it is? Something simple like “Worldwide Distribution of SDN Members” is fine.
Thanks! And let me know if you’re able to do this.
-Jennifer
I’ve added the text in the existent About box, otherwise it would influence the layout too much with some problems for the people with smaller screen resolution. Don’t hesitate to contact me if additional action is needed.
Btw, you’re always welcome to put yourself on the map too 😉
Eddy
I try to add small bar on top of page with this text and reduce size of content.
Btw, could SDN team design dedicated logo image for this page? Current one looks not so perfect…
Valery
how do i change the name(say for eg. spelling) once added in this?
Good work done…Sincere thanks and congrats.
There needs to be a mention of the whole purpose etc stating what is this all about?
thank you…
aby
Just mail me (see my BC) if something needs to be changed.
It all started with this challenge
We are the world
Continued with
Le petit monde de Freddy
and this web log.
Meanwhile, as Marilyn says, it’s an excellent way to see yourself and other participants on the map and meet your fellow SDN members via this way.
Eddy
Hey, anyone from Greece, Macedonia, Slovakia, Ukrain, Egypt, Algeria, Paraguay, Uruguay… 😉
Valery
He/she seems to be from US.
Valery
The SDN World Map is excellent but i tried to registry me in my country Colombia, but it was not possible because my country doesn´t have post code. I have to submit my information in USA. I would like to appear how SDN Member in Colombia and to be able to know others member from Colombia. Can i change the submited information?
Thanks.
Postal codes are only needed for the US. Countries outside the US only need to provide the city name.
Anyway, I’ve updated your data.
Eddy
You shouldn’t use your company URL, but the SDN BC URL which you can find at https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/updateprofile
Eddy
send me an e-mail (see my BC) with all details and I ‘ll see whet I can do.
Eddy
I have send a mail please check it.
Didn’t get any e-mail yet
Eddy
Full name : Sudha Subbaiyan
Business card URL : http://www.sdn.sap.com:80/irj/servlet/prt/portal/prtroot/com.sap.sdn.businesscard.sdnbusinesscard?u=bjf8npftzwcqfy%2bmph65%2bq%3d%3d
International City : Bangalore
Country : India
Thanks.
Is was able to add you without any problem.
Eddy