This blog article in an update to a previous post Geospatial Apache Solr searching in Drupal 7 using the Search API module (Ubuntu version). In this article, I will outline a step by step guide on how to integrate Drupal 7 with the Search API modules to implement GeoSpatial searching in a View. I used a clean Ubuntu server (12.04 LTS) installation on a VirtualBox virtual machine.

Initial package installation

# update system packages
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y

# install ssh server
apt-get install openssh-server -y

# install apache + php
apt-get install php5 php5-cli php5-curl php5-common php5-gd php5-mysql php-pear -y

# install mysql server
apt-get install mysql-server -y

# install tomcat/java
apt-get install tomcat7 tomcat7-admin openjdk-7-jdk -y

# install git
apt-get install git

# install drush via pear
pear channel-discover pear.drush.org
pear install drush/drush
pear upgrade-all

Setting up MySQL

# add mysql db and user
mysql -p --execute="create database drupal7"
mysql -p --execute="GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON drupal7.* TO 'drupal7'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'lapurd'"

Creating the Apache vhost

# create directory
mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts/drupal7
cd /var/www/vhosts/drupal7

# download drupal via drush
drush dl drupal-7
mv drupal-7.15 html

# create a new git repo
git init
git add .
git commit -am "initial commit"

# install drupal via drush
cd html
drush site-install minimal --db-url=mysql://drupal7:lapurd@localhost/drupal7 --account-mail=drupal@ericlondon.com --account-pass=lapurd

Apache Configuration

# add apache vhost
# new file: /etc/apache2/sites-available/drupal7
<VirtualHost *:80>
	ServerAdmin webmaster@drupal7.dev

	ServerName drupal7.dev

	DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/html
	<Directory /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/html>
		AllowOverride All
	</Directory>

	ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/drupal7-error.log

	# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit, alert, emerg.
	LogLevel warn

	CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/drupal7-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

# enable apache vhost
cd /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
rm 000-default
ln -s ../sites-available/drupal7 000-drupal7

# enable apache mod_rewrite
a2enmod rewrite

# restart apache
apache2ctl restart

Drupal modules setup

cd /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/html

# core modules
drush en field_ui number options taxonomy list -y

# admin menu
drush dl admin_menu -y
drush en admin_menu -y

# views dependency
drush dl ctools -y
drush en ctools -y

# views
drush dl views -y
drush en views views_ui -y

# entity, search api dependency
drush dl entity -y
drush en entity -y

# facetapi, search api dependency
drush dl facetapi -y
drush en facetapi -y

# search api
drush dl search_api -y
drush en search_api search_api_views search_api_facetapi -y

# search_api_solr
mkdir sites/all/libraries
cd sites/all/libraries
wget http://solr-php-client.googlecode.com/files/SolrPhpClient.r60.2011-05-04.tgz
tar -xzf SolrPhpClient.r60.2011-05-04.tgz
cd ../../..
drush dl search_api_solr -y
drush en search_api_solr -y

# geofield module
drush dl geofield -y
drush en geofield -y

Tomcat & Solr setup

# edit file: /etc/tomcat7/tomcat-users.xml
diff tomcat-users.xml tomcat-users.xml.bak.orig 
29,33c29,35
< 
<   <role rolename="admin"/>
<   <role rolename="manager"/>
<   <user username="eric" password="lapurd" roles="admin,manager"/>
< 
---
> <!--
>   <role rolename="tomcat"/>
>   <role rolename="role1"/>
>   <user username="tomcat" password="tomcat" roles="tomcat"/>
>   <user username="both" password="tomcat" roles="tomcat,role1"/>
>   <user username="role1" password="tomcat" roles="role1"/>
> -->

# Download Solr & copy files
mkdir ~/downloads
cd ~/downloads
wget http://archive.apache.org/dist/lucene/solr/3.5.0/apache-solr-3.5.0.tgz
tar -xzf apache-solr-3.5.0.tgz
cp ~/downloads/apache-solr-3.5.0/dist/apache-solr-3.5.0.war /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/solr.war
cp -r ~/downloads/apache-solr-3.5.0/example/solr/ /var/lib/tomcat7/solr/

# new file: /etc/tomcat7/Catalina/localhost
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Context docBase="/var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/solr.war" debug="0" privileged="true" allowLinking="true" crossContext="true">
<Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="/var/lib/tomcat7/solr" override="true" />
</Context>

# edit file: /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/solr/WEB-INF/web.xml
Uncomment & change this line:
    <env-entry-value>/put/your/solr/home/here</env-entry-value>
to:
    <env-entry-value>/var/lib/tomcat7/solr</env-entry-value>

# copy files from search_api_solr module to tomcat directory
cp sites/all/modules/search_api_solr/schema.xml /var/lib/tomcat7/solr/conf/
cp sites/all/modules/search_api_solr/solrconfig.xml /var/lib/tomcat7/solr/conf/

# reset tomcat permissions
chown -R tomcat7.tomcat7 /var/lib/tomcat7/solr

# restart tomcat
service tomcat7 restart

# NOTE: admin interface URL
http://localhost:8080/solr/admin/

Drupal configuration

Add content type
- URL: /admin/structure/types/add
  - Name: Place (for example)
  - Save content type

Manage fields on new content type
- URL: /admin/structure/types/manage/place/fields
  - Add new field
    - Label: Geo
    - Machine name: field_geo
    - Field Type: Geofield
    - Widget: Latitude / Longitude
  - Save

Add Solr Server
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api
- Add Server
  - Enter Server Name
  - Service class: choose Solr service
    - Enter Solr host (localhost), port (8080), path (/solr)
  - Save settings

Add solr index
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api/add_index
  - Index name: GeoSolr
  - Item type: Node
  - Server: 
- Create index

Select fields to index
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api/index/geosolr/fields
  - Add related fields
    - Choose "Geo", Add fields
    - Choose "The main body text", Add fields
  - Node ID, Integer
  - Title, Fulltext
  - Geo » LatLong Pair » String
  - The main body text » Text
- Save Changes

Added content
- URL: /node/add/place
  - Added coordinates manually using: http://gmaps-samples.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/geocoder/singlegeocode.html/

Index content
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api/index/geosolr/status

NOTE: Execute direct Solr query to verify data and fields:
http://localhost:8080/solr/select/?q=&fl=*

Solr configuration changes per GeoSpatial

# changes to schema.xml:
root@ubuntu:/var/lib/tomcat7/solr/conf# diff schema.xml schema.xml.bak.orig 
288,291d287
<     <fieldType name="point" class="solr.PointType" dimension="2" subFieldSuffix="_d"/>
<     <fieldType name="location" class="solr.LatLonType" subFieldSuffix="_coordinate"/>
<     <fieldtype name="geohash" class="solr.GeoHashField"/>
< 
296,299d291
< 
<    <field name="ss_field_geo:latlon" type="location" indexed="true" stored="true"/>
<    <dynamicField name="*_coordinate"  type="tdouble" indexed="true"  stored="false"/>
<

# restart tomcat
service tomcat7 restart

# direct solr query to verify geospatial results (using coordinates from Nashua, NH)
http://localhost:8080/solr/select/?q=&fl=*&fq={!geofilt%20sfield=ss_field_geo:latlon%20pt=42.933692,-72.278141%20d=100}

Add new Drupal view

- URL: /admin/structure/views/add
  - view name: GeoSearch
  - show GeoSolr sorted by Unsorted
  - Create a page
    - path: geosearch
  - save and continue
  - Format: Unformatted list
  - Show: Fields
    - Indexed Node: Node ID (Node ID)
    - Indexed Node: Geo (Geo)
    - Indexed Node: Title (Title)
    - The main body text: Text (indexed) (Text (indexed))
  - Save

Lastly, I added a new module "geosearch" and added a hook_search_api_solr_query_alter() function to add the coordinates. It's up to you how you want to integrate the GeoSpatial integration with your Views and site.

function geosearch_search_api_solr_query_alter(array &$call_args, SearchApiQueryInterface $query) {

  $lat = 42.933692;
  $lng = -72.278141;
  $distance = 100;

  $call_args['params']['fq'][] = "{!geofilt sfield=ss_field_geo:latlon pt={$lat},{$lng} d={$distance}}";

}

In this tutorial, I'll share my notes and code I've used to setup geospatial Apache Solr searching in Drupal 7 using the Search API module. For this tutorial I created a minimal Ubuntu server virtual machine. All the commands should be executed as a user with permission to modify files, or prefixed with "sudo".

The first thing I do with a fresh virtual machine is check for package upgrades.

$ apt-get update
$ apt-get upgrade

I find it cumbersome to type in a virtual machine window, so I'll install open-ssh and ssh from my Mac. If you plan to do so, you'll need to find your virtual machine's IP address using ifconfig. For this tutorial I added local DNS (/etc/hosts) to point "drupal7.vm" to my VM's IP.

$ apt-get install openssh-server

Install the LAMP stack. The following packages will install Apache httpd as a dependency.

$ apt-get install php5 php5-cli php5-common php5-curl php5-gd php5-mysql php-pear mysql-server

At this point, browsing to your VM/server's IP address will give you the standard Apache welcome message:
It works!
This is the default web page for this server.
The web server software is running but no content has been added, yet.

Install version control.

$ apt-get install git-core

Create a mysql database for Drupal 7.

$ mysql -u youruser -p
mysql> create database drupal7;
mysql> grant all privileges on drupal7.* to 'drupal7'@'localhost' identified by 'somepassword';
mysql> exit

Install drush via Pear.

$ pear upgrade-all
$ pear channel-discover pear.drush.org
$ pear install drush/drush

Verifying drush is installed.

$ which drush
/usr/bin/drush
$ drush --version
drush version 4.5

Create an Apache vhost directory

$ mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts

Download drupal via drush

$ cd /var/www/vhosts
$ drush dl drupal
# rename folder (as necessary)
$ mv drupal-7.10 drupal7

Integrate drupal file system with git

$ cd drupal7
$ git init
$ git add .
$ git commit -am "initial commit of drupal7"

Install drupal via drush

$ drush site-install standard --db-url=mysql://dbuser:pass@localhost/dbname

Add Apache2 vhost

$ cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
# create new file, called "drupal7" with contents:
<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName drupal7.vm
  DocumentRoot /var/www/vhosts/drupal7
  ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/drupal7-error_log
  CustomLog /var/log/apache2/drupal7-access_log combined
  <Directory /var/www/vhosts/drupal7>
    AllowOverride All
  </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

# create symlink
$ cd ../sites-enabled
$ ln -s ../sites-available/drupal7 001-drupal7.conf

# enable apache2 mod_rewrite module
$ a2enmod rewrite

# restart apache2
$ /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

At this point, browsing to your VM/server's hostname should show a Drupal installation.

Part 2, Tomcat/Solr

Installing java jdk and tomcat6

$ apt-get install openjdk-6-jdk tomcat6 tomcat6-admin tomcat6-common tomcat6-user

Browsing to your VM/server's hostname on port 8080 (ex: http://drupal7.vm:8080) will show the generic Tomcat welcome message:
It works !
If you're seeing this page via a web browser, it means you've setup Tomcat successfully. Congratulations!

Installing Solr in Tomcat

$ mkdir ~/downloads
$ cd ~/downloads
# Download the latest stable version of Apache Solr from:
url: http://www.apache.org/dyn/closer.cgi/lucene/solr/
# example:
$ wget http://www.motorlogy.com/apache//lucene/solr/3.5.0/apache-solr-3.5.0.tgz
$ tar -xzf apache-solr-3.5.0.tgz

Copy/rename java war file into Tomcat webapps directory

$ cp ~/downloads/apache-solr-3.5.0/dist/apache-solr-3.5.0.war /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr.war

Note: copying the java war file into the Tomcat webapps folder will create this directory automatically:

/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr

Copy solr files

$ cp -r ~/downloads/apache-solr-3.5.0/example/solr/ /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/

Create Catalina config file to link war file to solr directory

$ cd /etc/tomcat6/Catalina/localhost
# create new file: "solr.xml", with the contents:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Context docBase="/var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr.war" debug="0" privileged="true" allowLinking="true" crossContext="true">
<Environment name="solr/home" type="java.lang.String" value="/var/lib/tomcat6/solr" override="true" />
</Context>

Setup Tomcat admin user(s)

# edit file: /etc/tomcat6/tomcat-users.xml, ensure similar contents exist:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<tomcat-users>
<role rolename="admin"/>
<role rolename="manager"/>
<user username="eric" password="supersecretpassword" roles="admin,manager"/>
</tomcat-users>

Update webapps WEB-INF/web.xml file

# edit file: /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/solr/WEB-INF/web.xml, update "solr/home" section to reflect solr path:
<env-entry>
  <env-entry-name>solr/home</env-entry-name>
  <env-entry-value>/var/lib/tomcat6/solr</env-entry-value>
  <env-entry-type>java.lang.String</env-entry-type>
</env-entry>

Download search api drupal modules that contain solr xml configuration files, and copy into solr conf directory

$ mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/sites/all/modules/contrib
$ cd /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/sites/all/modules/contrib
$ drush dl search_api search_api_solr
$ cp /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/sites/all/modules/contrib/search_api_solr/solrconfig.xml /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf/
$ cp /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/sites/all/modules/contrib/search_api_solr/schema.xml /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf/

Reset tomcat permissions, and restart tomcat

$ cd /var/lib
$ chown -R tomcat6.tomcat6 tomcat6
$ /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

You should now be able to browse to the solr admin java page.
Example: http://drupal7.vm:8080/solr/admin/


If things aren't working well at this point, check the Tomcat logs and look for SEVERE log entries

/var/log/tomcat6/catalina.out

In addition, the solr java module should be listed in the Tomcat Web Application Manager
Ex URL: http://drupal7.vm:8080/manager/html

Part 3, Drupal code

Getting the solr-php-client library from code.google.com

$ mkdir -p /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/sites/all/libraries
$ cd /var/www/vhosts/drupal7/sites/all/libraries

# URL: http://code.google.com/p/solr-php-client/downloads/list
# File: SolrPhpClient.r60.2011-05-04.tgz
$ wget http://solr-php-client.googlecode.com/files/SolrPhpClient.r60.2011-05-04.tgz
$ tar -xzf SolrPhpClient.r60.2011-05-04.tgz

Downloading and installing contrib drupal modules

$ cd /var/www/vhosts/drupal7
$ drush dl entity views ctools facetapi
$ drush en search_api search_api_views search_api_solr search_api_facetapi entity views views_ui ctools facetapi

(Optionally) I install devel, admin_menu, and disable overlay/toolbar

$ drush dl devel admin_menu
$ drush en devel admin_menu
$ drush dis overlay toolbar

Add the tomcat/solr server to Search API configuration.
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api
- click on "+ Add Server"
- server name: Solr 3.5.0
- Service class: Solr service
- Solr host: localhost
- Solr port: 8080
- Solr path: /solr
- click Create Server

You should receive some confirmation messages:
The server was successfully created.
The Solr server could be reached (latency: # ms).
If not, ensure tomcat/solr is reachable at the url you specified and the tomcat service is running.

At this point Solr is ready to send/receive data and index content, but there is nothing to index. For this tutorial, I decided to build off of user profiles and store latitude and longitude using the geolocation field module.

$ drush dl geolocation
$ drush en geolocation

Adding some user profile fields:
- URL: /admin/config/people/accounts/fields
- First Name | field_name_first | Text
- Last Name | field_name_last | Text
- Geolocation | field_geolocation | Geolocation | Latitude/Longitude

I then added a bunch of users with latitude/longitude coordinates.
- URL: /admin/people/create
- note: I used Google Geocoding API to fetch the coordinates: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/geocoding/

Adding the search api index.
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api
- click "+ Add index"
- Index name: People
- Item type: User
- Server: Solr 3.5.0
- click: Create Index

On the next admin page, you can select which fields to index. For this tutorial, I chose: User ID, Name, Email, URL, First Name, and Last Name. Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, the geolocation lat/lng fields are not exposed to the Entity API. I assume this is a temporary problem, and there are numerous patches in the geolocation issue queue.
@see (for example):
Property Info callback for Entity API - http://drupal.org/node/1366642
Fix for Search API not picking up the entity to index it's fields - http://drupal.org/node/1320564

I copied code directly from the issues queue, made some modifications, and created a custom module to expose the geolocation field data to the entity api module. In addition, I added a new property "lat_lon" that concatenates lat and lng together with a comma. @see: http://wiki.apache.org/solr/SpatialSearch

<?php
/**
 * Implements hook_field_info_alter()
 */
function MYMODULE_field_info_alter(&$info) {
  if (isset($info['geolocation_latlng'])) {
    $info['geolocation_latlng']['property_type'] = 'geolocation';
    $info['geolocation_latlng']['property_callbacks'] = array('geolocation_property_info_callback');
  }
}

function geolocation_property_info_callback(&$info, $entity_type, $field, $instance, $field_type) {
  $name = $field['field_name'];
  $property = &$info[$entity_type]['bundles'][$instance['bundle']]['properties'][$name];

  $property['type'] = ($field['cardinality'] != 1) ? 'list<geolocation>' : 'geolocation';
  $property['getter callback'] = 'entity_metadata_field_verbatim_get';
  $property['setter callback'] = 'entity_metadata_field_verbatim_set';
  $property['auto creation'] = 'geolocation_default_values';
  $property['property info'] = geolocation_data_property_info();

  unset($property['query callback']);
}

function geolocation_default_values() {

  return array(
    'lat' => '',
    'lng' => '',
    'lat_sin' => '',
    'last_name' => '',
    'lat_cos' => '',
    'lat_rad' => '',
    'lat_lon' => '',
  );

}

function geolocation_data_property_info($name = NULL) {

  // Build an array of basic property information for the geolocation field.
  $properties = array(
    'lat' => array(
      'label' => t('Latitude'),
    ),
    'lng' => array(
      'label' => t('Longitude'),
    ),
    'lat_sin' => array(
      'label' => t('Sine of Latitude'),
    ),
    'lat_cos' => array(
      'label' => t('Cosine of Latitude'),
    ),
    'lat_rad' => array(
      'label' => t('Radian Latitude'),
    ),
    'lat_lon' => array(
      'label' => t('Latitude,Longitude'),
    ),
  );

  // Add the default values for each of the address field properties.
  foreach ($properties as $key => &$value) {
    
    switch ($key) {
    
      case 'lat_lon':
        $value += array(
          'description' => !empty($name) ? t('!label of field %name', array('!label' => $value['label'], '%name' => $name)) : '',
          'type' => 'text',
          'getter callback' => '_MYMODULE_geolocation_entity_property_verbatim_get',
          'setter callback' => '_MYMODULE_geolocation_entity_property_verbatim_set',
        );
        break;
    
      default:
        $value += array(
          'description' => !empty($name) ? t('!label of field %name', array('!label' => $value['label'], '%name' => $name)) : '',
          'type' => 'text',
          'getter callback' => 'entity_property_verbatim_get',
          'setter callback' => 'entity_property_verbatim_set',
        );
        break;
    
    }

 }

 return $properties;
}


function _MYMODULE_geolocation_entity_property_verbatim_get($data, array $options, $name, $type, $info) {
  if (is_array($data) && isset($data['lat']) && isset($data['lng'])) {
    return $data['lat'] . ',' . $data['lng'];
  }
  return '';
}

function _MYMODULE_geolocation_entity_property_verbatim_set(&$data, $name, $value, $langcode, $type, $info) {
  // TODO
  return;
}
?>

I added this code to a custom module, renamed function calls (as necessary), and enabled. Update the solr index to add the new fields to the index.
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api/index/people/fields
- Expand "Add Related Fields"
- Choose Geolocation, click Add fields
The above will expose the following fields now available to the index:
- Geolocation » Latitude
- Geolocation » Longitude
- Geolocation » Sine of Latitude
- Geolocation » Cosine of Latitude
- Geolocation » Radian Latitude
- Geolocation » Latitude,Longitude
Enable "Geolocation » Latitude,Longitude" and save changes.

Index the content.
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api/index/people/status
- Click: Index now
- note: if you had already indexed the content, you'll probably need to clear it first
In my environment, I got the following confirmation message:
Successfully indexed 7 items.

I find it to be very helpful to verify the xml response from Solr directly after making changes to the index/schema.
The following URL structure will query solr for all results and return all fields:

Ex URL: http://drupal7.vm:8080/solr/select/?q=&fl=*

A sample XML document response.

<doc>
  <str name="f_ss_search_api_language"/>
  <str name="f_ss_url">http://drupal7.vm/user/3</str>
  <str name="id">people-3</str>
  <str name="index_id">people</str>
  <long name="is_uid">3</long>
  <str name="item_id">3</str>
  <arr name="spell">
    <str>nashua</str>
    <str>nashua@example.com</str>
    <str>nashua</str>
    <str>nashua</str>
    <str>42.933692,-72.278141</str>
  </arr>
  <str name="ss_search_api_id">3</str>
  <str name="ss_search_api_language"/>
  <str name="ss_url">http://drupal7.vm/user/3</str>
  <arr name="t_field_geolocation:lat_lon">
    <str>42.933692,-72.278141</str>
  </arr>
  <arr name="t_field_name_first">
    <str>nashua</str>
  </arr>
  <arr name="t_field_name_last">
    <str>nashua</str>
  </arr>
  <arr name="t_mail">
    <str>nashua@example.com</str>
  </arr>
  <arr name="t_name">
    <str>nashua</str>
  </arr>
</doc>

Take note the field name in the following XML, it is used in the next file edit.

<arr name="t_field_geolocation:lat_lon">
  <str>42.933692,-72.278141</str>
</arr>

Update the solr schema.xml configuration and add the geospatial fieldType and field data.

# Edit file: /var/lib/tomcat6/solr/conf/schema.xml
# Just prior to the closing "</types>" tag, I inserted: (around line 287)
    <fieldType name="point" class="solr.PointType" dimension="2" subFieldSuffix="_d"/>
    <fieldType name="location" class="solr.LatLonType" subFieldSuffix="_coordinate"/>
    <fieldtype name="geohash" class="solr.GeoHashField"/>

# And, just after the opening "<fields>" tag, I inserted: 
    <field name="t_field_geolocation:lat_lon" type="location" indexed="true" stored="true"/>
    <dynamicField name="*_coordinate"  type="tdouble" indexed="true"  stored="false"/>

Restart Tomcat

$ /etc/init.d/tomcat6 restart

Since the schema and solr data types have been updated, the content will have to be re-indexed.
- URL: /admin/config/search/search_api/index/people/status
- click: Clear index
- click: Index now

Returning to the solr query above will now show updated xml: (note: no longer an array)

<str name="t_field_geolocation:lat_lon">42.933692,-72.278141</str>

Verify the native solr geospatial searching is working using the following query syntax:
URL: http://drupal7.vm:8080/solr/select/?q=&fl=*&fq={!geofilt sfield=t_field_geolocation:lat_lon pt=42.933692,-72.278141 d=100}
By putting a distance parameter of 100 (kilometers) and Nashua NH coordinates, I get 2 results: Nashua and Portsmouth, awesome.

Create a solr integrated view.
- URL: /admin/structure/views/add
- View name: People
- Show: People
- Create a Page [checked]
- Path: people
- Continue & edit
Note: at this point, you have full reign over view configuration. For this tutorial, I set the format to Grid, and added some fields:
- Geolocation: Latitude,Longitude (indexed)
- Indexed User: Email
- Indexed User: First Name
- Indexed User: Last Name
- Indexed User: Name
Save the view when edits are complete.

Browsing to the view will show something like this:
Ex URL: http://drupal7.vm.people


The next chunk of custom code modifies the solr query executed and adds geospatial filtering.
@see: hook_search_api_solr_query_alter(array &$call_args, SearchApiQueryInterface $query)

<?php
function MYMODULE_search_api_solr_query_alter(array &$call_args, SearchApiQueryInterface $query) {

  $lat = 42.933692;
  $lng = -72.278141;
  $distance = 100;

  $call_args['params']['fq'][] = "{!geofilt sfield=t_field_geolocation:lat_lon pt={$lat},{$lng} d={$distance}}";

}
?>

The above code will limit the view's results using the hardcoded coordinates.


Clearly, it works but there are loose ends to tie..
- automatically fetch a user's coordinates to store in the geolocation field
- add a search form to the people view page to allow the user to search for a location (instead of hard coded coordinates, blah)
- translate the user's location search input to coordinates using an API

Hopefully, I can find more time to elaborate on this tutorial in the near future! Cheers.

Recently I was working on a project that had a view with an exposed filter for country (via location module) and the dropdown list by default showed the entire country list, which was very large. I decided to write a code snippet that would reduce the select options to show only the countries that have been assigned to the nodes.

In my sandbox, I create a simple node type for "person" that used the location module to capture the user's country. I then created a view to show the people's names and countries, and added an exposed filter for country.



Clicking on the exposed filter showed all of the available countries, which was a very large list.



I added the following code to my module to alter the exposed filter form and reduce the country list. (Please note, an alternative approach would be to modify the views object, I wanted to show how this could be accomplished in hook_form_alter())

<?php
/**
 * Implements hook_form_alter()
 */
function MYMODULE_form_alter(&$form, $form_state, $form_id) {

  // define variables
  $view_name = 'people_places';
  $filer_name = 'country';

  // modify country drop down
  if ($form_id == 'views_exposed_form' && is_object($form_state['view']) && $form_state['view']->name==$view_name && is_array($form[$filer_name])) {
         
    // define SQL to fetch nodes that have countries
    $sql = "
      select distinct
        l.country
      from
        {node} n
      join
        {location_instance} li on li.nid = n.nid and li.vid = n.vid
      join
        {location} l on l.lid = li.lid
      where
       n.status = 1 and n.type = 'person'
    ";
   
    // fetch results
    $resource = db_query($sql, $tid);
    $countries = array();
    while($row = db_fetch_object($resource)) {
      $countries[] = $row->country;
    }
   
    // filter country list
    foreach($form[$filer_name]['#options'] as $key => $value) {
     
      // allow "All"
      if ($key == 'All') {
        continue;
      }
     
      elseif (!in_array($key, $countries)) {
        unset($form[$filer_name]['#options'][$key]);
      }
     
    }
   
  }
}
?>

Now the view only shows countries that match the resulting nodes.

In this tutorial I'll show how you can programmatically and dynamically remove a column from your view. In my example, I chose to hide an email column from unauthenticated users, but you could apply this code to do pretty much anything.

To get things started, I defined a content type of "Profile" to contain some user details (using the Content Profile module) and used the Devel module's generate users and nodes functionality to create some sample data. I then created a view to show the data:



Here is my page view display:



Now you can add the hook_views_pre_build() function in your module. Since the $view object is large, I recommend using krumo() (which comes with the Devel module) to browse through the $view object's properties.

<?php
function MYMODULE_views_pre_build(&$view) {

  // check for your view name (in my example: people)
  if ($view->name=='people') {
    krumo($view);
  }

}
?>

The above code will neatly format the $view object in a hierarchical display. You can click to expand each class property.



As you can see, the $view object has a lot of data in it. At this point, you'll need to get acquainted with the structure of the handler object of the view ($view->display['default']->handler) and determine what to modify. To remove the email column for unauthenticated users, you can add the following code:

<?php
function MYMODULE_views_pre_build(&$view) {

  // check for your view name (in my example: people)
  if ($view->name=='people') {
   
    // check if the user is anon
    if (in_array('anonymous user',$GLOBALS['user']->roles)) {

      // remove view hander properties for email column
      unset(
        $view->display['default']->handler->options['fields']['mail'],
        $view->display['default']->handler->options['style_options']['columns']['mail'],
        $view->display['default']->handler->options['style_options']['info']['mail']
      );

    }

  }

}
?>

When I logout, my view no longer shows the email column:

In this blog entry I'll show how you can create a Google map showing where your users are located using CCK, Content Profile, Views, GMap, and Location modules. Once you've downloaded and extracted those modules, enable the following modules (and set permissions accordingly):

Content
Location
Location CCK
Content Profile
GMap
GMap Location
Views
Views UI

Next you'll need to configure these new modules. On the GMap settings page (admin/settings/gmap) you'll need to add your API Key and enable the setting to Use AutoZoom. On the Location settings page (admin/settings/location) enable the checkbox to use a Google Map to set latitude and longitude and enable JIT geocoding. On the geocoding settings page (admin/settings/location/geocoding), you'll have to enable Google Maps for the desired countries.

The Content Profile module creates a new content type called "Profile". You'll need to add a new field to this content type for the user's location (admin/content/node-type/profile/fields). Enter a label for the node type (Location), enter a field name (field_location), choose "Location" for the field type, and choose "Location Field" for the widget.



On the next screen edit the Locative information sections (Collection and Display) to your liking, and save the field settings. For my example, I enabled Street location, Additional, City, State, Postal code, Country, and Coordinate Chooser.

Now if you create your profile node (node/add/profile) you can enter your location information and save the new node. If all is working at this point, if you return to the profile node edit screen and scroll down to the location information, you should now see a marker on map for your location and the geocoded information will be shown.



Now you can add a new view (admin/build/views/add) to show the user's profile locations. Enter a name for your view, choose node for the view type, and click the next button. Add a new filter for "Node: Published" is true and "Node: Type" is one of "Profile". Add a new relationship for Content: Location (field_location). Add fields for "Location: Latitude" (using the Location relationship), "Location: Longitude" (using the Location relationship), and any additional fields you'd like to display in the GMap marker (title, parts of the address, etc). For the Style of the view choose "GMap". For the GMap style settings, select "Choose latitude and longitude fields" for the Data Source and ensure the Latitude and Longitude fields as set.





Lastly, I added a page view so I could see the results in action..



ps> special thanks to everyone at CommonPlaces for their great technical discussions about these modules!