Using the Meeting List
| Using the Basic Search | Using the Advanced Search |
The meeting list is designed to be simple and natural. The idea is to find meetings near a location. You can specify various criteria for your meeting search, and you can easily make printouts of the meeting information.
Starting A Search
Figure 1: The Basic Search Screen
Upon first arriving at the search page, you are presented with the screen shown in Figure 1 (NOTE: The appearance of your list may be different, but the basic components will behave in the same way as mentioned here). This screen has two "tabs" that will affect the options at your disposal.
First, we'll cover the search you'll use the most often; the Basic Search.
The Basic Search
Figure 2: The Basic Search Screen in Map Mode
The Basic Search has two "modes": Text and Map. In the Text Mode (Figure 1), you enter text in the box, and that is used to find the meeting. This text can be a location, such as a town or an address. It can also be a meeting name or the name of a meeting format code (we'll cover those a bit later).
In the Map Mode (Figure 2), you are presented with a map that can be scrolled or zoomed. You click in this map to select a general area in which you want to find a meeting. It is possible to get very specific in the location that you select, as you can zoom in and pan the map around. It is a fairly standard Google Map (If you follow this link, you can see the Google Maps Manual), so you have a great deal of flexibility.
You switch between the two modes by clicking on the link under the Text Entry Box (when in Text Mode), or above the Map (when in Map Mode). You have to use one or the other.
In Map Mode, you have a choice as to how the search results can be displayed. This is accomplished by using the small popup menu under the Map (Labeled "Show Results as a Map/a List"). They can either be displayed as a large map, with meeting locations indicated by markers, or as a list, with meetings displayed as lines in a table.
In Text Mode, if you enter a location, you should select the checkbox under the Text Entry Box (Labeled "This is a Location or Address"). This tells the search to resolve the text into a geographic location, and the search results will automatically be returned as a map. If the text cannot be resolved into an address, then the search results will be returned as a list.
When resolving a geographic location, the search automatically selects a search radius to give a selection of meetings in the range of ten or so, without filtering (looking for only certain types of meetings -we'll cover that later).
An Example of Using the Basic Search
Figure 3: Typing in the Name of a Town As a Location
For the purposes of our demonstration, we'll look for meetings in the vicinity of a town on Long Island, New York, called "Commack." This is a pretty typical United States suburban town, with a few meetings available nearby. Let's begin by entering the town name into the Text Box (Figure 3), and checking the "This is a Location or Address" checkbox.
When you click on the "Go" button, the search is done, and a couple of seconds later, you are presented with a large map. The center of the map will have a black marker, surrounded by a gray circle. Within that circle will be some blue and/or red markers. These represent meetings. Blue markers represent only one meeting at a location, and a red marker represents multiple meetings; either all at one location, or at locations too close together to show as separate markers.
Once the large map is displayed, you can drag the center marker around to different parts of the map, or click in other parts of the map. You can "grab" the map, and pan it around to reveal different places. It is a completely interactive Google Map. When you drag the center marker, or click in another place on the map, the search changes to that new location, and the map is panned to make the new location the center. The search is then re-executed, and the meetings around the new location are revealed.
Figure 4: The Results of Searching For Meetings in the Vicinity of Commack, NY
Figure 5: Clicking on the Center Marker Gives Information About the Search.
Making Sense of the Search Results Displayed As A Map
Every meeting has its geographic location encoded in the database, so it is possible to show you where they are on the map. They are represented by small blue or red markers. You click on markers to get more information about the meeting or the search. Clicking on the central marker (it will be black or green -Figure 5), will pop up a window that will allow you to widen or narrow the search radius, as well as to show the meetings as a textual list, instead of a map. Our example has chosen a search radius of 5 miles. Since this is a radius, as opposed to a diameter, that means that the circle is ten miles wide. The search shows meetings within five miles of the center of the circle. This radius is automatically chosen by the search, and is designed to deliver around 10 meetings (in reality, it may be more, or it may be less, but it's a good guess). You can change it after the fact by clicking on the center marker, then changing the "Search for meetings within" popup menu (Figure 6). After you choose a new radius, the map will update to reflect the new choice (Figure 7).
Figure 6: Selecting a Smaller Search Radius From the Center Marker
Figure 7: The Results of Selecting A Smaller Search Radius
Clicking on a Meeting Marker link will present you with an information window, containing the basic information about the meeting (or meetings) represented by that marker. Figure 8 shows the information window displayed for a blue (single meeting) marker. Figure 9 shows what you get when you click on a red (multiple meeting) marker. Multiple meetings are arranged by day of week and time of day. Meetings that gather on the same day are shown on the same tab, with the arlier meetings being displayed first. Figure 12 Shows an example of a multiple meeting info window for a meeting place with extensive meetings. Figure 11 shows what you get when you click on the "More Details" link in the meeting info window.
Figure 8: Clicking on a Blue Marker Gives You Details for One Meeting
Figure 9: Clicking A Red Marker Will Show Results for Multiple Meetings
Figure 10: The Meetings Are Displayed By Day of Week
Figure 11: Clicking on "More Details" Brings Up A Detailed Description of the Meeting
Figure 12: An Example of An Extensive Multiple Meeting Marker
Getting Search Results As A List
If the search cannot be expressed as centered on a location, or if you choose "a List" in the popup menu under the Basic Search Map, the results of a search will be presented in a list (Figure 13).
Figure 13: The Search Results, Displayed As A List
There are a number of links on the list page that you can select. Only 30 (a number that can be changed by the server administrator) meetings are shown on a page. If there are more meetings, then the list may span several pages. There is a row of numbers along the top of the page, just under the report of how many meetings were found. Each of these numbers represents one page full of results. The currently selected page cannot be clicked, but the other pages can. The double-arrow (>>) is an indicator that there are more pages between the last one shown and the one just before that. It is a way to keep the number of displayed pages manageable. Clicking on this link will move the selection by a number of pages. If you move far enough away from the start, another set of double arrows appears (<<), between the first page and the first one in the list. The first and last pages are always displayed. The page selection links are also displayed at the bottom of the list. These are exactly the same as the ones on the top.
The report at the top of the list tells you exactly how many meetings were found, in total, and which portion of the search results you are viewing.
On the very right of the list, each meeting will have a small "globe" icon. The column is called "GPS." This is a link to a small file that you can download. This file can be uploaded to most GPS navigator units (Like Garmin or Magellan devices). It will allow you to upload exact directions to the meeting, so you can then easily get to the meeting.
Each meeting name is a clickable link. Clicking on a meeting name will bring up a window with details about that meeting, including a local map (Figure 14).
Figure 14: Meeting Details Page
Figure 15: A Single Meeting, Displayed As A Single Page
The name of the meeting is a clickable link. Following this link takes you to a single page, containing ONLY the meeting details (Figure 15). This allows the link to be saved and sent to others. If they follow the link, they will get to that meeting.
Just below the fully interactive Google Map, is a GPS download icon. This will give you the same file that you would get from the list.
As mentioned, the Google Map is a fully interactive map, so you can pan around, zoom in, or switch to satellite view (useful for envisioning the exact location of the meeting, and, in some cases, the marker may be placed at exactly the entrance you would use to enter the facility).
Using the List View
When the search results are displayed in a list, you can select multiple pages (Figures 16, 17 and 18).
In the standard version of the meeting list, the default list sort (Figure 16) is by weekday, which sorts first , by the day of week (Sunday - Saturday), then, alphabetically, by the name of the town, then by the time of day. The reason the text in the previous sentence was bolded, was because we use time sort to sort by time of day. The most useful information is by weekday, then by locality.
Figure 16: The Default Sort is By Weekday, Which Sorts Weekday First, Then By Town Name, Then By Time Of Day
Time Sort is executed by clicking on the "Time" link above the list. This causes the list results to be sorted first by weekday (Sunday-Saturday), then by the time of day during a given weekday (Figure 17). It's very similar to Weekday Sort, except that meetings that gather on the same weekday are arranged by their start time, as opposed to the town in which they are located.
Figure 17: You Can Sort A List By Time (Weekday First, Then Time Of Day)
The little triangle next to the link indicates which sort is active, and the direction of the sort. If the triangle points up, then the sort is from least to most (Sunday morning to Saturday night, in the case of Time Sort). If it points down, then the sort is reversed (Saturday night to Sunday morning). You change the sort by clicking on the link again.
You can sort by town, which orders the list alphabetically, by the name of the town (Figure 18). This sorts by the town name first, then by weekday, then by time of day.
Figure 18: You Can Sort A List By Town (Alphabetical -Town Name First, Then Weekday, Then Time Of Day)
Printing Search Results
Printing search results is quite easy. In List View, you simply print the page. The list prints exactly as displayed (Figure 19). When in Meeting Detail Mode, only the Details Window shows up in the print (Figure 20).
Figure 19: When You Print A List, It prints Out Exactly As Displayed.
Figure 20: When You Print Meeting Details, Only the Details Page Shows Up In the Print.
Summary
As you can see, using the Basic Search is likely to give you all the information that you need to find a meeting near you. However, there may be cases where you will want to have a bit more control over the selectin of criteria for the search, in which case, you would click on the "Advanced Search" tab (Covered in the next page).