Map & search Venues / use as a Directory Service?

[Jason]

I used Events a ways back, and recall there being a venue post type? Let me know if this would be possible ( I can code, but appreciate letting me know if I’d be bending things too far):

1) Rename Venue to “Practitioner”

2) Give “Practitioner ability to upload their own info, photo etc.

3) Show Practitioners on the map – have a map view where someone can search for a practitioner in their city/state/country / x miles of postal code.

The rest, I know works. Here is the use case.

The company certifies Practitioners who offer services. BTW these are like psychologists this is not for escorts or anything dodgy!

So one use is — I want to find someone a Practitioner to book an appointment for therapy.

The second use is — Practitioners host workshops and other events – so obviously the Events Community plugin comes into play here.

The main business also has events — and I was going to recommend Tribe for that anyway – but there is this directory thing happening and I’ve worked with some directory plugins / themes but compared to Tribe, they are not coded, documented, or supported as well as your product.

So – can it be done? Turn The Events Calendar into a Directory Listing + Events feature for this business?

Thanks for the 411… I hope I can use Tribe as the backbone for this & if you know of any examples kind of doing this, I’d love to see their setups.

PS – if Ameet Mehta rings a bell, I’m the one who put him & XLR8R onto you all… I hope that was a good thing 🙂

Jason

[Nico]

Hey Jason,

Thanks for reaching out to us and for recommending our products 🙂

Let’s jump into your questions:

1) Yes, Venues can be renamed.
2) You’ll need a bit of customization over Community Events, but I think it’s possible.
3) Events Calendar PRO comes with a Map View you can take advantage of here. Search will need customization but, you can search Events by location so if you can hook in Venues to the search most of the work should be done for you.

Maybe it’s better to customize Organizers (another built-in post type) instead of Venues, as the later represent “places” and maybe you’ll need those for the business events.

So – can it be done? Turn The Events Calendar into a Directory Listing + Events feature for this business?

Yeap, I think it’s quite possible. Of course it will need an extensive customization layer on top of our plugins. You can take a look at our showcase, maybe something there sparks an idea for your client’s site.

Please let me know if you have further doubts and I’ll be glad to help you with those,
Hope our products fit for this,
Best,
Nico

[Jason]

Nico:

Can you clarify around:

“if you can hook in Venues to the search most of the work should be done for you.”

Can hooking Venues / other custom post types into the search + into what displays the pins on the Maps — can these things be done with filters & hooks?

Or would this level of modification only be possible by touching core files ( in which case, the issue is resolved as not possible / bad idea!).

As a follow up question – would it also be possible to add in other graphics (eg instead of the red pin that shows up on the google map) — again possible via CSS, filters/hooks / template overrides not touching the core.

Thanks!

[Nico]

Hey Jason,

Thanks for your follow up!

First of all, please bear in mind you are going down a “heavy” customization path, and it will for sure require coding on your side. Don’t expect this to be solved by adding a couple of lines on your functions file! Also note that we can help you getting there, but the work load would be on your side.

“if you can hook in Venues to the search most of the work should be done for you.”

I mean the map functionality is already there! So you won’t have to code that from scratch. Surely you’ll have to override the templates and the ajax call that returns the events -or venues- for the map.

As you say core file editing is not a good idea! I think this customization would require template and js files overrides, for other things hooks & filters may come in handy, but no core modification.

would it also be possible to add in other graphics (eg instead of the red pin that shows up on the google map) — again possible via CSS, filters/hooks / template overrides not touching the core.

Map Markers (pins) can be defined by js when adding those to the map (gmaps tutorial). You’ll need to deregister the js file that adds them (tribe-events-ajax-maps.js) and provide a customized one instead that defines the custom markers.

Hope this helps you get a more defined idea of what the customization process implies.
Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions and I’ll be happy to answer those,
Best,
Nico

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