Zmanim Calendar Generator TODO List

Sunrise CalendarI slightly updated the Zmanim Calendar Generator to add some user input validation.
Looking at the logs, I noticed that someone generated a calendar with the longitude and latitude of Lakewood, NJ (the default), with just the location label changed to Minneapolis, MN. I don’t know if the user was just testing, or just assumed that I picked up the geocoding information by parsing the location name. This led to the addition of a JavaScript confirm when the location name is changed.
Items on the TODO list are:

  • Use JavaScript to convert the longitude and latitude when the format is changed from decimal to degrees, minutes and seconds
  • Provide links to locate longitude and latitude information
  • Add support for the generation of a standard (not full as is the default now) calendar with a much smaller set of zmanim
  • Implement the generation of PDF calendars
  • Possibly use the Google Maps API to allow the selection of longitude and latitude information

The code for the PDF generation is already in the API but has not been updated in a while and does not work properly. This will also have to be updated for the standard calendar mentioned above.
The way I envision interacting with Google Maps would be to allow the user to center their location in the map, and have those coordinates used for the zmanim calendar. This would have been relatively trivial if they provided geocoding information, by just allowing the user to enter their location as it can be done at Google Maps, but they currently do not provide geocoding information. I haven’t touched their API yet, and although it does not look too complex, it will probably take a while.

2 thoughts on “Zmanim Calendar Generator TODO List”

  1. J,
    It is not integrated into WordPress at all. The Zmanim are generated by a Java program (available on the site). There is an HTML form on the WordPress Zmanim Calendar Generator page, but that just submits it to as Java program for the generation of the Zmanim. To integrate it with WordPress, the Java Zmanim API code would have to be ported to PHP. The Java code is under the GPL, so anyone who wants to take up a porting project would be more than welcome.

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