Track actual bus locations

[j-ro]

Not sure if WMATA publishes this data, and would involve different pin styles in the mapkit plugin, but would be cool if we could track actual buses on the roads.

[ITSoFRISCHial]

They do in fact! An example URL request would look like this: http://api.wmata.com/Bus.svc/json/jBusPositions?routeId=10A&includingVariations=true&lat=0&lon=0&radius=0&api_key={key}

The response body looks like this: { "BusPositions": [{ "DateTime": "2013-03-01T15:37:04", "Deviation": "-2.07", "DirectionNum": "1", "DirectionText": "SOUTH", "Lat": 38.792793, "Lon": -77.049606, "RouteID": "10A", "TripEndTime": "2013-03-01T15:35:00", "TripHeadsign": "HUNTING POINT", "TripID": "20383_11", "TripStartTime": "2013-03-01T14:53:00", "VehicleID": "2173" }] }

[j-ro]

Very cool! Now I have to figure out how to extend the Cordova MapKit plugin to do other types of annotations besides pins (like, say, a little bus icon) and we'd be in business!

[ITSoFRISCHial]

Never used Cordova before but when I get a chance I'll dive into your code to see how I can help.

[j-ro]

Cool! I'm assuming what you'll want to extend is this file:

https://github.com/j-ro/WheresTheBusDC/blob/master/WheresTheBusDC/Plugins/MapKit.m

And maybe MapKit.h, too. Objective-C is not my strong suit...

But basically what we'd need is a function similar to the one that's there to create pins, which allows me to build a pin array like this:

pins.push(
            {
                lat: [latitude of my pin],
                lon: [latitude of my pin],
                title: [title of my pin when tapped],
                pinColor: "green", [<-- maybe this is replaced by a link to an image? or some variable that refers to an objective-C image that we assign, like a little bus icon?]
                selected: false, [<-- choose whether or not the pin drops and immediately selects, I always say false]
                index: i [<-- I don't use this...]
            }
        );

And then drop the pins on the map like this:

window.plugins.mapKit.addMapPins(pins);

And clear them like this:

window.plugins.mapKit.clearMapPins();

So, if we have a version that was addMapIcons and clearMapIcons that dealt with these icons, that would do it I think!

[j-ro]

The above code is all javascript, BTW -- probably obvious, but worth clarifying. So the plugin takes those javascript functions/data and turns them into objective-C somehow and displays them on the native map.