V4.1.x Demo - Location By Zip Modification - US AND Canadian

[TheTechGuru +]

When a user comes to your site and searches by city, chances are they are going to see either multiple entries per city, misspelled information, or just all around bad data. This can instantly make the buyer/user feel as though the site lacks professionalism. Im attempting to offset that with a modification that is both easy to install and user friendly.

NOTE: This modification now works with most major countries, more info on the demo.


This Modification will allow you to better control the information your user submits while they are signing up for your site. Will Virtually Stop users from entering bad, misspelled, and incorrect information once it is finished.

A Small Demo with limited features is now up if anyone wants to check it out.

(US, UK and Canadian Versions are Integrated in this Demo, they also work separately)

Works on all versions of 68Classifieds

Demo:

Location By Zip Code Demo by TheTechGuru

Feel Free to leave comments in the comments section under the demo if you would like to, let me know if you have countries that you would like to see it work with.

[freeze2 +]

I think you are on to something here. I quite regularly go in and manually correct some of the mispelled cities etc.

I am from Canada and while trying the demo, it didn't recognize any of our local postal codes. I'm not sure how you are going to be able to keep on top of all the new postal codes coming out.

Is it possible to have the cities start to show dynamically as the user begins to input their city? I have seen this on other forms and works very nicely.

[TheTechGuru +]

Yes, on my dev version, the cities dynamically show up as the postal code is input, if the postal code is assigned to more than 1 city.

Im just making sure to test it fairly well before adding it.

As far as the new postal code issue, I am working on a feature that will allow the users to "suggest" the new information if it is not already in the database, at which time the modification will revert to 68C's original signup functionality (Just the postal code and location portion will revert so no data is lost and the revert itself will come with new functionality like capitalization of cities, proper format, etc)

A notification will go into a admin type of page, where you will be able to see who suggested new postal codes and area, if you check it manually and its good info, you will be able to add it to the database with a click of a button, the users information who suggested it will then be updated as a final check to make sure their data is indeed correct.

Im still working it all out, but it shouldnt take to long. I will release the first version with just the ability to revert if the postal code is not found, and the second version will have the ability and admin functions as stated above.

The demo version is missing some data, can you tell me which postal codes you tried, so I can check and see if they are in the database? Thanks


BTW Soon the province itself will be based of the actual postal code, so if a postal code isnt found - at the very least, the province - zip - and country will be filled out, the only thing that will need to be done is enter the city and format it correctly automatically. I am going to try and account for as much as I can, but in the end, if the mod cuts down misspellings and bad information by 70% I would be happy.

[TheTechGuru +]

I still have a few tweaks, namely making sure that state/province names are spelled out instead of shortened (should be done in an hour or so, not sure yet)

[TheTechGuru +]

Now works for the US + Canada + UK, still testing, may stop working intermittently, thats just me making a change or two live.

[freeze2 +]

Ok, I tried inputting a 6 digit postal code and it wouldn't work....BUT, by copying and pasting my postal code from Notepad, it did work...interesting.

[TheTechGuru +]

Its probably just because I am adjusting for UK postal codes, I am changing some of the checks in the modification.

Im gonna get it functional with all three countries in the demo, then continue with the rest of it on my dev machine so I dont fudge it up while people are trying to test it.

Which demo did you try, give me an example postal code with similar behavior so I can duplicate it if you dont mind.


Edit:

I was able to duplicate what you were experiencing, one of the values to check the postal code was off, which caused them to work while pasting but not when typing each character in 1 at a time. I am in the US so you can imagine I was just copying and pasting Canadian Postal Codes to test, and didnt think to type them in individualy. Good Catch, thanks for taking the time to let me know.

Alright, US and Canadian Codes should be all set to go, still adding the checks for the UK as I ran into a data difference, shouldn't be but another hour or so for UK.

[TheTechGuru +]

For the few who are keeping tabs of my progress, I expect the demos move from beta to some sort of candidate for release in the next 24 to 48 hours.

The progress is moving a little faster than I thought, using api's due to the fact that the information will supplement any database in a much bigger aspect than I previously thought.

[EnergyFreak +]

This will certainly be an interesting mod, I have a question and I would like to know if it would be possible to do it with this mod. I want to keep my site local, therefore it will be in only one province/state. The country would become the state, the state would become the region and the city would stay the same. Now my question is, is it possible to make the city associate itself with the region? Because some cities belong to some regions here in Quebec. For example Sherbrooke is part of "Mont�r�gie" region and I would like for the region to be detected just like it would if it would of been a state when entering the postal code. Is this at all possible?

[TheTechGuru +]

Not completely sure yet. The way it looks, I can get you results for Postal Code, City, Province, Country.

Quick Question, I know nothing about specifics of Canada, Is St.-Paul a region?

I searched for J0E 1B0|Waterloo|Quebec|Canada, which is the normal result. The only other piece of data attached that I can see is St.-Paul. If that is a region , then maybe. If it is possible, it will take a little bit of work.

Edit: I am also seeing "Rouville"

Just so we are clear, your basically treating QC as a country right? The QC Regions as States, Cities stay the same?

BTW, I was able to translate the results. Its fr_CA (French Canadian) right? not just fr_FR (French)?

Edit: Actually I think it is possible, Im getting data named as counties, I have a feeling those are regions. It would take a few changes, and you can limit the signups just by having a drop down with the regions in the form. We will have to talk after to modification is finished.