How can I get a users location in a KRL rule?

Question

How can I get a users location in a KRL rule?

• What is the method?
• What is the advantage or disadvantage of using that method?

Answer 1

Here is a simple example

rule locations is active {
     select using ".*" setting ()
     pre {
       whereareyou = location:region();
       msg = << 
         #{whereareyou}    
       >>;
     }
     notify("I think you live in", msg) with sticky = true;
 }

And here is the docs. http://docs.kynetx.com/docs/Location

The issue you will find is that sometimes the ip does not really represent the real location of the user because the user could be using a proxy. Also with most ISP's the ip is registered to a location a the and ISP's hub not the direct location of where the IP is being used at any given moment.

With the advent of html 5 and location apis in the browser it may be posable in the future to get a more exact location but that has not been implemented in KRL as of yet.

Answer 2

HTM5 Browser location is available now, but requires some javascript to make it happen. This is a slightly old app that uses the Browser Location APIs. This could probably be updated to not use a form, but here it is for reference:

ruleset a8x47 {
  meta {
    name "WikiNearMe"
    description <<
      Shows Wikipedia content near the user.
    >>
    author "TubTeam"
    logging off
  }

  dispatch {
    domain "wikipedia.org"
  }

  global {
    datasource placearticles:JSON <- "http://ws.geonames.org/findNearbyWikipediaJSON";
  }

  rule getlocation is active {
    select when pageview "/wiki/" setting ()
    pre { 
      form = <<
        <div id="my_div">
          <form id="nearmeform" onsubmit="return false" style="display:none;">
            <input type="text" name="lat" id="nearmelat"/>
            <input type="text" name="lon" id="nearmelon"/>
            <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
          </form>
          <div id="nearmelinks" style="text-align:left;">
            <h2>Nearby Links</h2>
          </div>
        </div>
      >>;
    }
    // notify("Hello World", "This is a sample rule.");
    emit <<

    navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position){
      $K("#nearmelat").val(position.coords.latitude);
      $K("#nearmelon").val(position.coords.longitude);
      $K("#nearmeform").submit();
      //alert("lat: " + position.coords.latitude + " lon: " + position.coords.longitude);
    });
    >>
    {
    append("#siteNotice", form);
    watch("#nearmeform", "submit");
    }
  }
  rule shownearby is active {
    select when web submit "#nearmeform"
    foreach datasource:placearticles({"lat":page:param("lat"), "lng":page:param("lon"), "style":"full", "formatted":"true"}).pick("$..geonames") setting (item)
    pre {
     title = item.pick("$..title");
     link = item.pick("$..wikipediaUrl");
    }
    append("#nearmelinks", "<a href='http://#{link}'>#{title}</a><br/>");
  }
}