Geocomplete

Google Places Autocomplete and Geocoding Plugin

This is a wrapper around the Geocomplete jQuery plugin with updated docs for Meteor usage.

Demo: http://geocomplete.meteor.com (source)

Geocomplete is a plugin that wraps the Google Maps API's Geocoding and Places Autocomplete services. You simply provide an input and it lets you search for locations with a nice autocomplete dropdown. The results that are returned are geographically biased to the user's location (rough user location is determined by their IP). Optionally, you can add a container to show an interactive map and/or a form that will be populated with the address details.

Usage

This package depends on dburles:google-maps to access the Google Maps API (it will be installed automatically).

Call the GoogleMaps.load() method and pass in a settings object that contains your API key and any optional libraries you want to load. (Geocomplete requires the Places library)

// client
Meteor.startup(function() {
  GoogleMaps.load({
    key: 'YOUR API KEY',
    libraries: 'places'  // also accepts an array if you need more than one
  });
});

You could also choose to only load the API on specific routes with Iron Router.

Router.onBeforeAction(function() {
  GoogleMaps.load({
    key: 'YOUR API KEY',
    libraries: 'places'
  });
  this.next();
}, { only: ['someRoute', 'anotherRoute'] });

To convert an input field into an autocompleting location search field, simply reactively call the Geocomplete plugin when your template is rendered and the Google Maps API is loaded:

Template.myTemplate.onRendered(function() {
  this.autorun(function () {
    if (GoogleMaps.loaded()) {
      $("input").geocomplete();
    }
  });
});

Examples

Basic uses:

Simple - Single input with an event logger.
Map - Adding a map.
Location - Adding a default location.
Form - Populate form fields.
Attribute - Using custom attributes to populate data.
Multiple results - Handling multiple results from the geocoder.
Draggable - A draggable marker to redefine the position.

Note: Per Google policy, if you use the plugin without showing a map you must display the "powered by Google" logo under the text field. This is already taken care of for you in this plugin. No extra steps needed.

Trigger Request

To trigger a geocoding request from outside the field (eg. when clicking the "find" button), simply trigger the "geocode" event on the element.

Template.myTemplate.onRendered(function() {
  this.autorun(function () {
    if (GoogleMaps.loaded()) {
      $("input").geocomplete();
    }
  });
});

Template.myTemplate.events({
  'click button': function() {
    // Trigger geocoding request.
    $("input").trigger("geocode");
  }
})

Adding a Map Preview

To link the geocode results with an interactive map, you can pass the map option to the plugin.

$("#my_input").geocomplete({
  map: "#my_map"
});

The map option can be a selector, a jQuery object, or a DOM element.

Populate Form Data

You can pass details as an option to specify a container that will be populated when a geocoding request was successful.

By default the plugin analyses the name attribute of the containers child nodes and replaces the content. You can override the detailsAttribute to use another attribute such as data-geo.

If the element is an input, the value will be replaced otherwise the plugin overrides the current text.

If you have multiple geocomplete fields on a page, use detailsScope option scope your 'details' container.

Note: Some address components such as "country" return an additional short_name. You can access them by simply adding _short at the end of the type.

Simple Example:

<form>
  Latitude:   <input name="lat" type="text" value="">
  Longitude:  <input name="lng" type="text" value="">
  Address:    <input name="formatted_address" type="text" value="">
</form>

$("input").geocomplete({ details: "form" });

Advanced Example:

<div class="details">
  Latitude:     <span data-geo="lat" />
  Longitude:    <span data-geo="lng" />
  Address:      <span data-geo="formatted_address" />
  Country Code: <span data-geo="country_short" />
</div>

$("input").geocomplete({
  details: ".details",
  detailsAttribute: "data-geo"
});

List of Options

The following options might be passed to the plugin call. If you omit them, they fall back to the default.

Example:

$("#my_input").geocomplete({
  map: "#my_map",
  mapOptions: {
    zoom: 10
  },
  markerOptions: {
    draggable: true
  },
  details: "#my_form"
});

map - can be a selector, a jQuery object, or a DOM element. Default is false which shows no map.
details - The container that should be populated with data. Defaults to false which ignores the setting.
detailsScope - Allows you to scope the 'details' container and have multiple geocomplete fields on one page. Must be a parent of the input. Default is 'null'
location - Location to initialize the map on. Might be an address string or an array with [latitude, longitude] or a google.maps.LatLngobject. Default is false which shows a blank map.
bounds - Whether to snap geocode search to map bounds. Default: true if false search globally. Alternatively pass a custom LatLngBounds object
detailsAttribute - The attribute's name to use as an indicator. Default: "name"
mapOptions - Options to pass to the google.maps.Map constructor. See the full list here.
mapOptions.zoom - The inital zoom level. Default: 14
mapOptions.scrollwheel - Whether to enable the scrollwheel to zoom the map. Default: false
mapOptions.mapTypeId - The map type. Default: "roadmap"
markerOptions - The options to pass to the google.maps.Marker constructor. See the full list here.
markerOptions.draggable - If the marker is draggable. Default: false. Set to true to enable dragging.
markerOptions.disabled - Do not show marker. Default: false. Set to true to disable marker.
maxZoom - The maximum zoom level to zoom in after a geocoding response. Default: 16
componentRestrictions - Option for Google Places Autocomplete to restrict results by country. See the docs
types - An array containing one or more of the supported types for the places request. Default: ['geocode'] See the full list here. Note that an autocomplete field only supports the types in Table 3.
blur - Defaults to false. When enabled it will trigger the geocoding request whenever the geofield is blured. (See jQuery .blur())

Events

You can subscribe to events of the geocode plugin by using the default jQuery syntax:

$("input")
  .geocomplete()
  .bind("geocode:result", function(event, result){
    console.log(result);
  });

The following events are supported:

"geocode:result" - Geocode was successful. Passes the original result as described here.
"geocode:error" - Fired when the geocode returns an error. Passes the current status as listed here.
"geocode:multiple" - Fired immediately after the "result" event if multiple results were found. Passes an array of all results.
"geocode:dragged" - Fired when the marker's position was modified manually. Passes the updated location.
"geocode:click" - Fired when 'click' event occurs on the map. Passes the location where the click had place.

Methods and Properties

You can access all properties and methods of the plugin from outside. Simply add a string as the first argument to the .geocomplete method after you initialized the plugin.

Example:

// Initialize the plugin.
$("input").geocomplete({ map: ".map_canvas" });

// Call the find method with the parameter "NYC".
$("input").geocomplete("find", "NYC");

// Get the map and set a new zoom level.
var map = $("input").geocomplete("map");
map.setZoom(3);

Address and Places Specific Component Types

The following types are supported by the geocoder and will be passed to the provided form or container:

street_address route intersection political country administrative_area_level_1 administrative_area_level_2 administrative_area_level_3 colloquial_area locality sublocality neighborhood premise subpremise postal_code natural_feature airport park point_of_interest post_box street_number floor room lat lng viewport location formatted_address location_type bounds

For more information about address components visit http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/#Types

Additionally the following details are passed when the Places API was requested:

id url website vicinity reference rating international_phone_number icon formatted_phone_number

More information can be found here: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/places#place_details_responses

About

Developed by Martin Kleppe at Ubilabs.

spencern/meteor-geocomplete