Just thinking how this might function as a plugin:
- I think you’d want the plugin using a geocoding service to turn the value of the location field into coordinates (and then storing that in another custom user field) which can then be used for all the good stuff
- That’d be nice and simple because it wouldn’t require any changes to the existing location field, but users might be too vague and just put ‘London’, rather than ‘London, UK’ and the geocoding service might mistakenly think a user is in London, Ontario
- However, if there was a map displayed on the user profile, the user could check they’ve been specific enough
- The alternative is to replace the Location field with a map which a user can drop a pin on
- Or, I guess, there could be a mixture of both, add a map to the user preferences which updates the Location field based on where the pin is dropped (using a reverse geocoding service) and have the map update if the Location field is updated
But however it happens, having each user’s location stored as a co-ordinate, rather than just a name, I think is the key to creating the good stuff like maps, or displaying users within 10 miles of me, or so on.