Countries, Provinces, States, etc...

I've always wondered why someone hasn't had the bright idea of using ones zip or postal code to prepopulate their place of origin fields in their profile automatically. That would be the coolest new addition. Heck, you could even tie it to the world map making all new members automatically placed within it.

The current drop down menu does not allow you to choose a State if you are from the US. Maybe we could get that added at the very least?

actually that function does exist, with a few different spectrums geoIP would be the first one i would look at, however, if you consider the size of that database, and the processing capabilty you would have to have for that specific feature to work, you would realize that its not a small database table.

gmaps and geoIP offer solutions to exactly what you are saying, i think geoIP charges a small monthly fee based on the number inquiries you would use from your site for the data to be returned. but essentially, that type of database would require a powerful dedicated machine just to process those queries.

Regards,

DosDawg

Thank you. I appreciate your input. I was pretty sure the idea had already been thought of elsewhere, I just hadn't seen any application designed for Dolphin yet. My site currently has around 1700 members. The expansion I'm planning after I move to a Boonex solution (Dolphin) will enable me to increase my membership approx 4 fold over the next year. That's still not an extremely large site and I don't think the database would be too unmanageable.

Maybe it would be a good idea for someone to build a mod for? I would certainly buy it.

its not so much the database for your 5k or 10k members, that would necessarily strain a solid machine, its if you had just say 1k per hour hitting the site and doing geoIP requests, you are talking about some decent processing capabilities. dolphin is a finiky ol girl and dont like to share resources much, you gotta get her tuned in order to get performance. take a look at maxmind and their solutions, as its integratable into your site. im sure they would help you get that running. i think its like 25/month for 250k inquiries.

the database i am referring to is the postal codes database, because it holds way more data than just the postal code itself.

Regards,
DosDawg

 A mod does already exist for something like this, where it utilizes the Google Geocoding basied upon IP (not zip code) in it's search functions and so on for any site.  You can find it here on Unity, form Kolimarfey. 

Since Dolphin is used to help people find others, a states pull down menu would be very helpful - even essentual - for USA users. The City field is not sufficient as most states have many of the same city names. Example: Cleveland, OH, Cleveland, TN.

The zip code field is about useless as well as most cities have dozens of them. Some large buildings even have their own.

The pull down menu would dramatically improve search if it used a pull down menu with standardized state names. Otherwise a person looking for Tennessee useres might miss the person who registered as TN or Tenn (in an add on City field).

Much, much thanks in advance.

You can put the U.S. States in your predefined values and call it from there if you want.  I kept forgetting to transfer that over hand have to retype those 50 codes every time I wiped a beta.  I finally got a clue and restore the pre values table now.   While there are many duplicate city names in the U.S., no individual State would ever have two cities with the same name.

Thanks for clearing that up, Caltrade!

I owe you a serving of your favorite beverage.

Cheers