Map a Search

[beerinator]

This is a very beta feature at the moment, but it seems to work ok for many searches. Right now I have it restricted to only when you search for via one field on the location lookup page (ie: search location name and nothing else).

When you search you will either see a link under the "High Scores" block or you won't depending on whether you have used one of the specific search types. The link says something like this: "View this Search on a Map (beta)" and if you click that it will actually load maps.google and it will attempt to send over what you were searching for so it can map those locations.

This works best for chains by searching for name, like this:
http://beermapping.com/location-lookup/?locname=flying+saucer

The resulting link when searching for "flying saucer" is this (ugly link):
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&q=http%3A%2F%2Fbeermapping.com%2Fsearch%2F%3Flocname%3Dflying_saucer

This is pretty fun and I hope to get the kinks worked out and get it out of "beta" soon. If I can find some time...

[BahHumBrew]

Nice.  Works well for the searches I tried.  It's a good way to map states that don't have a great number of locations. Thanks.

Edit: FYI, when you get back to it.  Just noticed a couple of glitches.  I noticed that even if you limit your search to one location type, all the location types are still passed to google.  Also, Hawaii has some sort of error that prevents it from plotting. 

[beerinator]

I noticed that even if you limit your search to one location type, all the location types are still passed to google.

This isn't quite a glitch, it just doesn't pass those url parameters. It only passes 1 at the moment (location name or state or city or zip).

The Hawaii thing is a glitch however and I'll see if I can fix it in the next few minutes.

edit: Hawaii seems to be working now, it was a bad character in a location name.

[kp]

I don't like it. Or at least not as much as the BeerMapping maps.

When you do a search, you get a list of results. If you click one of the proximity links by one of the results, you get another search results screen. This new screen has a link for [Create a custom map of these locations]. I like the map that this link provides. Why not just use this same link on all search results screens and not just the proximity one?

[beerinator]

I don't like it. Or at least not as much as the BeerMapping maps.

When you do a search, you get a list of results. If you click one of the proximity links by one of the results, you get another search results screen. This new screen has a link for [Create a custom map of these locations]. I like the map that this link provides. Why not just use this same link on all search results screens and not just the proximity one?

Because this only took about 45 minutes of work. To build out another type of map or convert the proximity map to display search stuff (and not just a radius search) would have required a bit more time and energy on my end. I certainly don't like it as much either, but it's cool to be able to see groupings like chains to see them all at once.