Here is a sample of the CSS that was used to customize the Volunteer Region crouton. Utilizing the recent feature released with crouton 2.1.0, you can fully customize the colors. I thought this might be useful to assist in making it easy to reuse. (Note: this may become incompatible very quickly)
Study on Statewide Meeting Schedules
Service bodies tend to not necessarily follow boundaries that make sense to someone who does not understand it’s organizational makeup. By using the Tomato server, it’s entirely possible to create a schedule that follows geopolitical boundaries without much effort. For this study, I decided to use the 50 states of the United States. This study could have easily been other such designations, perhaps provinces in Canada. I’m also going to make use of the recent feature released in bread 1.6.x (see the blog post on “Reusable Templates w/Bread 1.6.x“)
Reusable Templates with Bread 1.6.x
Creating a map of meetings using Google MyMaps
With Google MyMaps you can create a map of NA meetings as well as embed that map on your site. This however unlike the Flexible Map plugin blogpost is not updated dynamically. This will add pinpoints of each meeting location which are clickable and display basic info about the meeting. I have used this to generate some nice images that I’ve used on various NA sites.
We’ll start by getting the kml data we want from the semantic interface of your local BMLT server. First select KML as your returned data.
Prototype of A Virtual Area
This has come up a few times in some discussions. I have responded to a few posts, but I thought it might be better served to snapshot some thoughts while they were fresh. Virtual meetings are location independent. There might be a place a web server is hosted or an area/country code resides, but that is not really the same as a meeting with a physical location or an address.
There are elements to a virtual meeting that do matter, which are the language(s) that are spoken and the medium that the meeting is delivered over. Although the root server code base does have elements of location, they do not necessarily have to be used.
Embedding a map of meetings on WordPress using Flexible Map plugin
With the Flexible Map WordPress plugin you can embed a map of your meetings in real time. This will add pinpoints of each meeting location which are clickable and display basic info about the meeting. One of the ways I’ve found this useful is I can easily tell when a meetings geocode is way out of wack.
We’ll start by adding and then activating the Flexible Map plugin. Then go to Settings -> Flexible Map and enter your Google API key as shown.
Making a Weebly BMLT Satellite
Watch the video!
Making a Weebly BMLT Satellite from Little Green Viper on Vimeo.
Javascript Satellites & bmlt.js
The latest release of the root server (v2.10.3), has some exciting new features. It introduces a new response endpoint called JSONP, or JSON w/padding. Typically making a JSON request/response requires that both the client and the server are on the same exact domain. This is a by design security feature of most modern browsers to prevent XSS (Cross Site Scripting Attacks).
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[UPDATED] Google Maps, API Keys and Geolocation Issues
NOTE: As of Root Server version 2.12.0, meetings cannot be saved without a Google Maps API Key.
Das Pröblem:
As most of you have probably already found out, Google now enforces HTTPS and API keys in their Maps.
This results in:
1) the dreaded “Oops! Something went wrong!” display:
NOTE: In the Root Server, this results in the map display shown as “all blue,” with no map displayed. Also, the “Set Longitude and Latitude to Address” button will not work.
2) and/or the “Unable to Determine Your Location” display:
This happens if you try to use a location-tracking feature, like the “Find Meetings Near Me” button in the Satellite.
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The Missing Link -Sandwich
UPDATE: Sandwich is End-of-Life now and replaced by Tomato.
SAY WHUT?
Earlier this year, a mysterious chap who goes by the tag “radius314” created a BMLT spinoff project, called “Sandwich.”
Sandwich is a BMLT Root Server “aggregator.”
That means that it can take multiple Root Servers, and present them as if they were one single, unified Server.
THIS IS AWESOME
You can say that again.