Every couple of months, we have a Research Week. It's kind of like the well-known Google 20% time but instead of doing it one day a week, we gather up our time and do a week of maps-based hacking. It's totally cross-discipline so we usually gather a couple of developers, a couple of UX and visual designers, a QA and build something cool. In past Research Weeks, I've built or helped build the Alien Easter Egg, Maps Labs and CoverMap.Me. I also built a maps-based JSBin fork called JotApp.

When my partner-in-crime Max started working on the latest version of his jQuery plugin (formerly called jOvi, now called jHERE), I wanted to build a new playground where people could play and build their own maps mashups and hacks really easily. My first thought was to rework the fork of JSBin again and maybe add in a slightly nicer default theme. I wanted users to be able to save to Gists so, seeing as there is already an SQLite and a MySQL adapter, I wrote a Gist adapter which appeared to the application as if it were a database but actually saved to anonymous Gists. The problem was that it was a bit too… heavy.

Don't get me wrong, JSBin is a fantastic project. It just does a lot more than I needed. I didn't need the MySQL adapter, the alternate themes, the localstorage or the user registration. Also, it's a bit too weighty for my phone. When someone tweets a link to a JSBin or a JSFiddle, I usually check it out on my phone and it's not the best experience. Seeing as HERE maps work on mobile, I wanted my playground to work, too. Rather than spend a couple of hours cutting out all the bits I didn't want from JSBin, I decided to spend a couple of hours building my own version from scratch. So, this past Sunday afternoon, that's exactly what I did:

jHERE Playground

It's written in NodeJS on top of express and works nicely on desktop, iPad and mobile.

The project is open-sourced on GitHub (naturally) and can be modified to be a general JS-playground for anything. If you fancy a simple, self-hosted JS hackspace, just change the default HTML, CSS and JS and it's ready to go.

This is a collection of code snippets for various common tasks you might need to accomplish with the App.net API. Most of these are focused on creating or reading geo-tagged posts. They require a developer account on app.net and at least one of an App ID, App Code, App Access Token or User Access Token. The calls here are implemented using jQuery but that's just to make it easier to copy-paste into the console to test them out (so long as you fill in the blanks).

An important thing to bear in mind is the possibility for confusion between a 'stream' and 'streams'. By default, a 'stream' is a discrete chunk of the 20 latest posts served at a number of endpoints. This is the open, public, global stream:

https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/posts/stream/global

On the other hand, 'streams' are long-poll connections that serve up any matching posts as soon as they are created. The connection stays open while there is something there to receive the response. Streams are available under:

https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/streams

Totally not confusing. Not at all.

---

Creating a user access token

Required for any user-specific data retrieval. The only tricky thing you'll need to think about here is the scope you require.

scope=stream email write_post follow messages export

should cover most requirements.

Requires

• client_id

Visit this URL:

https://alpha.app.net/oauth/authenticate
    ?client_id=[your client ID]
    &response_type=token
    &redirect_uri=http://localhost/
    &scope=stream email write_post follow messages export

---

Using a user access token to create a post (with annotations)

Requires

• User Access Token
• text to post

The text is essential if you don't mark a post as 'machine_only'. The annotations here are optional. Annotations don't appear in the global stream unless the requesting client asks for them.

$.ajax({
  contentType: 'application/json',
  data: JSON.stringify({
    "annotations": [{
      "type": "net.app.core.geolocation",
      "value": {
        "latitude": 52.5,
        "longitude": 13.3,
        "altitude": 0,
        "horizontal_accuracy": 100,
        "vertical_accuracy": 100
      }
    }],
    "text": "Don't mind me, just checking something out."
  }),
  dataType: 'json',
  success: function(data) {
    console.log("Text+annotation message posted");
  },
  error: function() {
    console.log("Text+annotation message failed");
  },
  processData: false,
  type: 'POST',
  url: 'https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/posts?access_token={USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}'
});

---

Using a user access token to post a machine_only post (with annotations)

Requires

• User Access Token

In this example, we're creating a post that won't show up in user's timelines and adding the 'well-known annotation' for geolocation.

$.ajax({
  contentType: 'application/json',
  data: JSON.stringify({
    "annotations": [{
      "type": "net.app.core.geolocation",
      "value": {
        "latitude": 52.5,
        "longitude": 13.3,
        "altitude": 0,
        "horizontal_accuracy": 100,
        "vertical_accuracy": 100
      }
    }],
    machine_only: true
  }),
  dataType: 'json',
  success: function(data) {
    console.log("Non-text message posted");
  },
  error: function() {
    console.log("Non-text message failed");
  },
  processData: false,
  type: 'POST',
  url: 'https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/posts?access_token={USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}'
});

---

Retrieve the global stream, including geo-annotated posts if there are any

Requires

• User Access Token

This is a very basic call to retrieve the global stream but it also instructs the endpoint to return us all annotations and include machine-only posts.

var data = {
  "include_machine": 1,
  "include_annotations": 1,
  "access_token": "{USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}"
};

$.ajax({
    contentType: 'application/json',
    dataType: 'json',
    success: function(data) {
      console.log(data);
    },
    error: function(error, data) {
      console.log(error, data);
    },
    type: 'GET',
    url: 'https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/posts/stream/global',
    data: data
});

---

Creating an App Access Token

This is necessary for many of the streams operations. It is not used for individual user actions, only for application-wide actions.

• App.net API wiki on App Access Tokens

Requires

• client_id
• client_secret

client_credentials is one of the four types of grant_type specified in the OAuth 2.0 specification. I had difficulty getting this to work when using a data object:

var data = {
    "client_id": "{CLIENT_ID}",
    "client_secret":"{CLIENT_SECRET}",
    "grant_type": "client_credentials"
};

The client_credentials kept throwing an error. Instead, sending this as a string worked fine:

$.ajax({
  contentType: 'application/json',
  data: 'client_id={CLIENT_ID}&client_secret={CLIENT_SECRET}&grant_type=client_credentials',
  dataType: 'json',
  success: function(data) {
    console.log(data);
  },
  error: function(error, data) {
    console.log(error, data);
  },
  processData: false,
  type: 'POST',
  url: 'https://alpha.app.net/oauth/access_token'
});

One other thing to note is that this bit should be done server-side. This will throw a bunch of "…not allowed by Access-Control-Allow-Origin…" errors if you do it via jQuery.

Returns

{
    "access_token": "{APP_ACCESS_TOKEN}"
    }

---

Creating a streams format

Now you have your app access token, you can use it to tell the service what kind of data you want back. The streams offered in the API have two quite powerful aspects. Firstly, filters allow you to run many kinds of queries on the data before it is streamed to you so you don't need to recieve and process it all. Secondly, the decoupling of filters from streams means you can specify the data structure and requirements you want once then just access that custom endpoint to get the data you want back any time.

Requires

• App access token

This first example just creates an unfiltered stream endpoint

$.ajax({
  contentType: 'application/json',
  data: JSON.stringify({"object_types": ["post"], "type": "long_poll", "id": "1"}),
  dataType: 'json',
  success: function(data) {
    console.log(data);
  },
  error: function(error, responseText, response) {
    console.log(error, responseText, response);
  },
  processData: false,
  type: 'POST',
  url: 'https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/streams?access_token={APP_ACCESS_TOKEN}'
});

Returns

{
    "data": {
        "endpoint": "https://stream-channel.app.net/channel/1/{LONG_RANDOM_ENDPOINT_URL}",
        "id": "77",
        "object_types": [
            "post"
        ],
        "type": "long_poll"
    },
    "meta": {
        "code": 200
    }
}

---

Using Filters to create a stream of geotagged posts

We'll specify some requirements for our filter now so that it only returns back a subset of posts. The rules we're specfying here are:

At least one item in the "/data/annotations/*/type" field
must "match"
the value "net.app.core.geolocation"

Requires

• User access token

The field is specified in 'JSON Pointer' format. Within the response, there is a 'data' object and a 'meta' object. The data contains an 'annotations' object which contains an array of annotations, each of which has a type. This is represented as /data/annotations/*/type.

$.ajax({
  contentType: 'application/json',
  data: JSON.stringify({"match_policy": "include_any", "clauses": [{"object_type": "post", "operator": "matches", "value": "net.app.core.geolocation", "field": "/data/annotations/*/type"}], "name": "Geotagged posts"}),
  dataType: 'json',
  success: function(data) {
    console.log(data);
  },
  error: function(error, responseText, response) {
    console.log(error, responseText, response);
  },
  processData: false,
  type: 'POST',
  url: 'https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/filters?access_token={USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}'
});

Returns

The filter rules you just specified, the id of the filter (remember that for later) and the details of the application used to make the request.

{
"clauses": [
    {
        "field": "/data/annotations/*/type",
        "object_type": "post",
        "operator": "matches",
        "value": "net.app.core.geolocation"
    }
],
"id": "527",
"match_policy": "include_any",
"name": "Geotagged posts",
"owner": {
    "avatar_image": {
        "height": 200,
        "url": "https://d2rfichhc2fb9n.cloudfront.net/image/4/Pr63PjEwJ1fr5Q4KeL3392BMgSnIAYlHxv8OkWwzx75V8quNfpaFp4VPpKnDRxdXtYYPtIutrDVdU9NbJn7hKApQL84T5sfB1D9bWTgtizMWInignv0WyPPfM2DpqSThQgvkB68vbPzjZ8VeKM02M2GySZ4",
        "width": 200
    },
    "canonical_url": "https://alpha.app.net/thingsinjars",
    "counts": {
        "followers": 30,
        "following": 65,
        "posts": 96,
        "stars": 0
    },
    "cover_image": {
        "height": 230,
        "url": "https://d2rfichhc2fb9n.cloudfront.net/image/4/UWZ6k9xD8_8LzEVUi_Uz6C-Vn-I8uPGEBtKb9jSVoFNijTwyEm1mJYpWq6JvnA6Jd4gzW76vFnbSWvM3jadhc1QxUl9qS4NTKiv3gJmr1zY_UpFWvX3qhOIyKrBPZckf2MrinqWay3H0h9rfqY0Gp9-liEg",
        "width": 960
    },
    "created_at": "2012-08-12T17:23:44Z",
    "description": {
        "entities": {
            "hashtags": [],
            "links": [],
            "mentions": []
        },
        "html": "<span itemscope="https://app.net/schemas/Post">Nokia Maps Technologies Evangelist; CreativeJS team member; the tech side of museum140; builder of The Elementals; misuser of semi-colons;rn</span>",
        "text": "Nokia Maps Technologies Evangelist; CreativeJS team member; the tech side of museum140; builder of The Elementals; misuser of semi-colons;rn"
    },
    "id": "3191",
    "locale": "en_GB",
    "name": "Simon Madine",
    "timezone": "Europe/Berlin",
    "type": "human",
    "username": "thingsinjars"
}
}

---

Listening to the geotagged post stream

This wil return a link to a long-lasting connection to the app.net stream that will only return posts with the geolocation annotation.

Requires

• filter_id from the previous call

Note: the filter_id was returned as id in the previous response.

$.ajax({
  contentType: 'application/json',
  data: JSON.stringify({"object_types": ["post"], "type": "long_poll", "filter_id": "527"}),
  dataType: 'json',
  success: function(data) {
    console.log(data);
  },
  error: function(error, responseText, response) {
    console.log(error, responseText, response);
  },
  processData: false,
  type: 'POST',
  url: 'https://alpha-api.app.net/stream/0/streams?access_token={APP_ACCESS_TOKEN}'
});

Returns

The same kind of response as the 'Creating a streams format' example except the data coming down on the stream is filtered.

https://stream-channel.app.net/channel/1/{LONG_RANDOM_ENDPOINT_URL}

Open that URL up in your browser (seeing as we're testing) and, in a different tab, create a geo-tagged machine-only post (see above). Your post will appear almost instantly after you've submitted it.

Inspired by the simplicity of implementing a proximity search using MongoDB, I found myself keen to try out another technology.

It just so happened that I was presented with a fun little problem the other day. Given a latitude and longitude, how do I quickly determine what the time is? Continuing the recent trend, I wanted to solve this problem with Node.JS.

Unsurprisingly, there's a lot of information out there about timezones. Whenever I've worked with timezones in the past, I've always gotten a little bit lost so this time, I decided to actually read a bit and find out what was supposed to happen. In essence, if you're doing this sort of task. you do not want to have to figure out the actual time yourself. Nope. It's quite similar to one of my top web dev rules:

Never host your own video.

(Really, never deal with video yourself. Pay someone else to host it, transcode it and serve it up. It'll will always work out cheaper.)

What you want to do when working with timezones is tie into someone else's database. There are just too many rules around international boundaries, summer time, leap years, leap seconds, countries that have jumped over the international date line (more than once!), islands whose timezone is 30 minutes off the adjacent ones...

To solve this problem, it needs to be split into two: the first part is to determine which timezone the coordinate is in, the second is the harder problem of figuring out what time it is in that timezone. Fortunately, there are other people who are already doing this. Buried near the back of the bottom drawer in very operating system is some version of the tz database. You can spend hours reading up about it, its controversies and history on Wikipedia if you like. More relevantly, however, is what it can do for us in this case. Given an IANA timezone name – "America/New_York", "Asia/Tokyo" – you can retrieve the current time from the system's tz database. I don't know how it works. I don't need to know. It works.

Node

Even better for reaching a solution to this problem, there's a node module that will abstract the problem of loading and querying the database. If you use the zoneinfo module, you can create a new timezone-aware Date object, pass the timezone name to it and it will do the hard work. awsm. The module wasn't perfect, however. It loaded the system database synchronously using fs.readFileSync which is I/O blocking and therefore a Bad Thing. Boo.

10 minutes later and Max had wrangled it into using the asynchronous, non-blocking fs.ReadFile. Hooray!

Now all I needed to do was figure out how to do the first half of the problem: map a coordinate to a timezone name.

Nearest-Neighbour vs Point-in-Polygon

There are probably more ways to solve this problem but these were the two routes that jumped to mind. The tricky thing is that the latitude and longitude provided could be arbitrarily accurate. A simple lookup table just wouldn't work. Of course, the core of the problem was that we needed to figure out the answer fast.

Nearest Neighbour

1. Create a data file containing a spread of points across the globe, determine (using any slow solution) the timezone at that point.
2. Load the data into an easily searchable in-memory data-structure (such as a k-d tree)
3. Given a coordinate, find the nearest existing data point and return its value.

Point in Polygon

1. Create a data file specifying the geometry of all timezones.
2. Given a coordinate, loop over each polygon and determine whether this coordinate is positioned inside or outside the polygon.
3. Return the first containing polygon

This second algorithm could be improved by using a coarse binary search to quickly reduce the number of possible polygons that contain this point before step 2.

Despite some kind of qualification in mathematic-y computer-y stuff, algorithm analysis isn't my strong point. To be fair, I spent the first three years of my degree trying to get a record deal and the fourth trying to be a stand-up comedian so we may have covered complexity analysis at some point and I just didn't notice. What I do know, however, is that k-d trees are fast for searching. Super fast. They can be a bit slower to create initially but the point to bear in mind is that you only load it once while you search for data lots. On the other hand, while it's a quick task to load the geometry of a small number of polygons into memory, determining which polygon a given point is in can be slow, particularly if the polygons are complex.

Given this vague intuition, I settled on the first option.

If I wanted to create a spread of coordinates and their known timezones from scratch, it might have been an annoyingly slow process but, the Internet being what it is, someone already did the hard work. This gist contains the latitude and longitude for every city in the world and what IANA timezone it is in. Score! A quick regex later and it looks like this:

module.exports = [
  {"latitude": 42.50729, "longitude": 1.53414, "timezone": "Europe/Andorra"},
  {"latitude": 42.50779, "longitude": 1.52109, "timezone": "Europe/Andorra"},
  {"latitude": 25.56473, "longitude": 55.55517, "timezone": "Asia/Dubai"},
  {"latitude": 25.78953, "longitude": 55.9432, "timezone": "Asia/Dubai"},
  {"latitude": 25.33132, "longitude": 56.34199, "timezone": "Asia/Dubai"},
  etc…

(See the original on GitHub)

All that's left is to load that into a k-d tree and we've got a fully-searchable, fast nearest neighbour lookup.

Source

The source for this node module is, of course, available on GitHub and the module itself is available for install via npm using:

npm install coordinate-tz

When combined with the zoneinfo module (or, even better, this async fork of the module), you can get a fast, accurate current time lookup for any latitude and longitude.

Not a bad little challenge for a Monday evening.