MasterZap | # 1 | 2011-05-14, 17:51 | Report

Added in extras/testing the app "ZapLoc"' a location-based-services aggregator. Looking for testers.... this is early stage, but I think we've at least gotten to the part where it installs properly.

Q: What is ZapLoc

Lots of people (including myself) are frustrated about the fact that there are multiple competing location services. Notably, I myself utilize Gowalla, FourSquare and Facebook Places and for my VERY close friends (my family) I keep me exact location updated on Google Latitude at all times.

The problem is if you arrive at some spot, and want to check in there, you have several services to check into, leading to check-in fatigue. Especially on Maemo, where the amount of clients have been low (they do exist, though) especially for Gowalla, which seems to not be used so much in the US, but is the most popular one on this side of the pond.

So for a while I've been tinkering with a little app that allows me to check in to more than one of them - at once. And I had really made it for myself, but decided now to make it available after it evolved into something - almost - useable.

Q: What services does it support?

For now, it is the aformentioned Gowalla, FourSquare, Facebook Places and Google Latitude. Hopefully soon you will also be able to check in to locations on Google, but that API isn't public yet.

Q: So what does it do?

It aggregates the aformentioned geolocation services, allowing you to consolidate spots from the different services that reffer to the same *place* to a "ZapLoc".

When you have created a "ZapLoc" from your service(s) spots, you can either check in with one (and a half) click to them all, or, if you are REALLY lazy... it can check you in automatically when you arrive there.

Q: So it can check me in AUTOMATICALLY?

Yes. But the settings for this are all OFF by default. You will have to turn it all on explicitly, if you want this to happen:

• You will have to make sure that the background update daemon is turned on (and set to REMAIN on after you close the main ZapLoc GUI)
• You have to create a "ZapLoc" out of a combination of Gowalla/Facebook/FourSquare spots
• You have to explicitly turn on "Auto-Check-In" for that ZapLoc
• ...et voilá!

Q: I start it and see nothing. This is stupid!

To make use of it, you must attach it to at least one of the services. Also note that as of now Google Latitude has no "spots" of any kind, so if you ONLY use it with Latitude, this is only a boring zero-feature map-app that happens to keep your Latitude location updated. The action is when you connect it to any of the other services that have locations you can "check in" to.

Q: I did that. I still see nothing. This IS stupid!

Notice there will be (after you properly authorized your services, if you havn't, you can do that with the setup-icon - the cogwheel) icons down the bottom with services. Notice how the default is the ZapLoc service?

Well, you hav'n't created any ZapLoc's yet!

Click on any of FourSquare, Gowalla or Facebook, and you will see spots.

Click on any of those spots, to get info, and the ability to create a "ZapLoc" out of them.

Once you've done that, you will see that spot on the ZapLoc display mode. Think of it as "location favourites on steroids".


Q: Won't having the GPS daemon running all the time kill my battery?

Well, you set up a "GPS poll interval" in settings. The software will start the GPS at this interval, try to figure out a location (falling back to cell tower location if no GPS can be found after a while), looks at the location, and then sleeps the GPS again (to conserve battery).

Now, for Latitude, it will send this update immediately IF your location has changed (more than 100m in the curren version and not settable). So it won't waste time sending the same position again and again and again.

However - since latitude calls your position "stale" when it hasn't moved for some hours, you have the option of updating it even though it HASN'T changed every few hours.


For the other services, every time it takes a GPS sample, it checks what the closest "ZapLoc" is. Note that this database is local to your phone (and private to you) so this no time, and doesn't require a network connection.

Only if it

• Finds a spot within the range defined in that spot
• If that spot is an "AutoCheck" spot
• If you aren't already checked in to that spot
• ...and you have been on the SAME SPOT for that last N number of GPS samples (settable in the configu how many N are)
• THEN and only then are you automatically checked in, with the Auto-check-in message attached to that spot, posting to facebook/twitter/etc as you have set to that spot .... which you would probably keep off to keep your friends sane

Also please note that checking in to a facebook place by definition creates a little notice on facebook. There is technically no way to check into a facebook place without this happening. So even if you have "facebook" unchecked in your ZapLoc with Auto-checkin enabled, there WILL be a facebook places notice (tho they are very small) when you check in....

...so set up your ZapLoc's accordingly!

Q: I still think this is stupid.

Well, then I can't help you. Install Solitaire instead


Q: But I need SCREENSHOTS!!!

Okay, THAT we can do...

When you first start the program, you need to attach it to (at least one of - but ideally more than one) the service(s):


Once you've done this, you can see, for example, GoWalla spots of an area:


But this can be quite a mess! And what if the place you want to check in to exists in multiple services? Like here is an example of the same spot in facebook, foursquare, gowalla (This is 3 screenshots side by side, you can't actually display it like this in the software, btw):



Now if we want to avoid checking in to these three separately (and note how sloppily placed they are?), we can click one of them and tell it to turn them into a "ZapLoc". We get a dialog to consolidate them:



We can also defin the settings for the auto-checkins, if we want them to happen:


...and we now have created a "ZapLoc" of the spot (you can choose to use the icon from Gowalla, Foursquare or Facebook if you don't like the "ZapLoc" one):


Since the location was off, we can adjust it:


After creating a few "ZapLoc" spots of our favourite hangouts, our map is much clearer (and loads instantly).

Isn't this much nicer to look at than the mess above?



Now we can check in to the spot manually if we want (if we are close enought, that is)



And if we want to turn on the background daemon, that lets us do this AUTOMATICALLY any time we are at that spot for some length of time, well, hit the "Setup":


Not how the DEFAULTS is to only run the daemon while the APP IS ACTIVE. You will yourself actively have to turn on the mode to start the daemon at boot and keep it running, like so:



That's about it.


BTW: ZapLoc's are stored locally on your device (in a file named consolidated.db ) and is never sent anywhere to anyone. We are Not tracking You. Coz we don't Care. And if we Wanted to we would Friend you on Gowalla/Facebook/Foursquare instead



KNOWN ISSUES IN THE CURRENT VERSION

1. You have to explicitly turn on background updates yourself. This is by design, so I don't get people complain that my software did something they didn't know about. YOU are now the one turning on "auto-"anything
2. There is an issue that if the authorization step (OAuth) fails with any of the services, well, the app will hang forever waiting for a callback reply from the service's website. I'll fix that soon.
3. Gowalla authorization tokens are supposed to be RENEWED every two weeks. My program doesn't do that correctly yet, so after two weeks, Gowalla will STOP WORKING. To fix that you actually have to un-authorize the app completely for GoWalla and then re-authorize. Sorry about this - I will try to fix that ASAP.

/Z

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Last edited by MasterZap; 2011-05-20 at 11:29. Reason: App now in extras/testing

ny-hardcore | # 2 | 2011-05-14, 20:43 | Report

No icon for me

i installed authorised with lattitude and its updating my position in the background..
set it to load at boot, check position change every 10min and at least every hour..
seems to work...

one question, what does it do when there is no gps signal?

Reflektorfalke | # 3 | 2011-05-14, 20:51 | Report

Installed successfully! Looks quite nice

EDIT:
As icon there is only the default blue one.

When authorizing Facebook the progress indicator after Facebook confirmation seemed to run forever, but after closing and restarting I was successfully authorized (Without entering my credentials).

Location and map are shown, but searching for a place gives me an error

MasterZap | # 4 | 2011-05-14, 21:07 | Report

It is poorly tested, but in THEORY, it should try for a few seconds to get GPS, but if not it will settle for a cell tower location, and then sleep the gps.

For more info on this you can start the daemon manually in verbose mode,

First make sure the background daemon is dead:

python /opt/zaploc/zaploc-daemon.py -t

then start it in verbose mode

python /opt/zaploc/zaploc-daemon.py -v

It'll spew crap at ya

/Z

MasterZap | # 5 | 2011-05-14, 21:22 | Report

...and if some guru can figure out why I don't get no icon, I'd be Teh Happy


/Z

Saturn | # 6 | 2011-05-15, 01:14 | Report

Had a quick look and looks ok.
It would be proper if the icons were placed under:
/usr/share/icons/hicolor/..

The icon doesn't appear after a reboot?

BTW, is there a special reason for providing the compiled versions of the code only?

MasterZap | # 7 | 2011-05-15, 08:27 | Report

THANK YOU. Gosh I'm so blind! I've been staring at that path for hours, and my eyes (knowing what I'm supposed to read) read it right. Of course, the computer - reading what is actually THERE - disagrees

By gosh I think it works now!!!


'tis a choice I made. It may change. We'll see.....

/Z

Saturn | # 8 | 2011-05-15, 10:39 | Report

It's your choice and you have every right to do as you feel.
Notice though the licence you have already attached in the code. You might need to change it depending on your final decision..

gazza_d | # 9 | 2011-05-15, 11:19 | Report

installed this early this morning, and wih google latitude at least it seems to be working well.

maybe a coincidence, but my battery and cpu usage seems to be quite a bit better as wel, compared with running the old script hourly via alermd and cron.

MasterZap | # 10 | 2011-05-15, 11:36 | Report

Right. Honestly, this was partially a *test* to see if distributing object-only even *worked*. There are some modules I need to keep closed for back-end reasons. There will be prominent credits etc. in the (as of yet nonexistent) documentation for any outside source I used. For example I had *excellent* help by Aketzu, and yes, my daemon is was originally based on his code (see the "Latitude" thread) although very little of that is left in the final version.

/Z