This is a more coherent write-up of my last three days of troubleshooting and process notes.

I’ve been using the Location and GMap modules on my employer’s site since we went to Drupal a couple of years ago. We’ve had some issues with mixed content (SSL) errors, so I’ve been thinking about alternatives. For the maps themselves, it seems like Virtual Earth (Bing) maps will do SSL free of charge. There’s no module to just swap out Bing for Gmap, at least not for Drupal 6. I tried Mapstraction, but had a lot of trouble getting it to render properly.

Then I tried OpenLayers, and on first testing, that worked pretty well. But there were a lot of moving pieces, so for my own faulty memory and the edification of the internets, here’s how it works. This covers using Location as an aspect of the node (?) and not a Location CCK field.

IMPORTANT NOTE: so far, everything I’ve done has been on our staging server, not on the live site. I may update the article once I’ve changed the live site.

Step 0: BACK UP EVERYTHING. Database, views, theme files. I created a Views Data Export view to export the node data as an extra level of paranoia.

Set up OpenLayers

Install OpenLayers, OpenLayers Geocoder, and OpenLayers Proximity. To get some features working, the dev version of OpenLayers Geocoder is required!

Create a new OpenLayers map preset, starting by cloning the default preset.

• adjust the size to match your site design
• center the map and set the zoom to match if know your data falls into a specific area
• enable Pop Up and Zoom to Layer
• pick the specific maps to use; if necessary, add API keys under Layers/API Keys.

Go to Settings to set your new preset as the default, and if you’re keeping the OpenLayers JavaScript locally to update the location.

Update the Content Type

Go to Manage fields in the content type and add an OpenLayers WKT field, with the OpenLayers Geocoder as the input type. Then add text fields for any aspect of the address you might want to display on the page or use in a view. I used Address, City, State, County and Zip. Also, if you’re using the phone or fax fields in Location, create text fields for them as well.

Configure the OpenLayers WKT field:

• Check Enabled under Zoom to Layer and change the default zoom; you may need to come back and tweak it later.
• Under Autocompletion, check Enable next to your address text fields, and Override if you want to be able to edit the fields. Add the correct replacement pattern in the Content field. As far as I can tell, there’s no way to get just the number and street name: “101 Main Street”; [street_address] gives the whole thing, including country.
• Uncheck Path and Polygon under Feature Types.

Add the addresses to your nodes. This can be very tedious, especially since both maps will try to load at once. Marvel at the autocompletion of your text fields. (Seriously, the “county” autocompletion about blew my mind.) Edit the text fields as desired; this doesn’t change the map!

It may be possible to modify the database directly, or to use some combination of Views Data Export/Node Import, to skip the tedious bit. I haven’t tried it.

If you have a custom template for this node type, update it to remove the Location and Gmap info and to add the new map and address info. (A tip for creating a link to directions at Bing Maps.) Check your CSS to see if it needs any updates.

Create a View

This tutorial is actually pretty good; the super-short version:

• create a view
• add an OpenLayers Data display
• go out of Views and create a new OpenLayers preset that includes your view’s data as a layer
• go back to Views and add a display with the OpenLayers Map style
• set the Map preset to the one you just created

If you want the text of your popup to be more than a single field (etc), create a Custom text field where you can combine multiple node parts/fields. (Issue on OpenLayers queue.)

Take a look at the view and check your CSS for any class or id name changes.

This tutorial explains how to add a proximity filter, so people can search by zip code or city and state. Go down to “Add the Proximity Filter” — I’m not using the Proximity:Distance field, because I think it looks confusing when no location is set in the filter.

In my case, I added several more views: an attachment with the list of nodes, a table of node data, and two different lists of nodes filtered by specific qualities. I also had to update a template file for the attachment. YMMV.

Remove Location/Gmap

BACK UP EVERYTHING. Again.

Initially, I just changed the content type, setting the minimum and maximum number of locations to 0. That worked, but I think it would work just as well to disable the Location and Gmap modules without the intermediary step. Since I may have nodes with locations or GMap macros, I’m not (yet) uninstalling the modules, only disabling.

Remove the old views, theme files and CSS.