tactical trader

The global Trader Locator gives you the chance to get together with other traders in your area. It provides you with a great opportunity to meet up with other like minded people to share ideas and experiences.

The Trader Locator makes use of the excellent Google Maps service to display the locations of guests and members visiting Tactical Trader from around the world. In addition detailed maps and satellite imagery are available for the UK and Europe, the USA, Canada and Japan, with more countries being added in the future.

• System requirements

• Navigating the map

• Location markers

• Trader Locator options

• Methods used to locate traders

• Known issues

System requirements

The Google Maps service used by the Trader Locator relies on features found in the latest generation of browsers. The following browsers are known to be compatible with the Trader Locator:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer (version 6.0 or newer)

• Mozilla Firefox (version 1.0.6 or newer)

• Opera (version 8.0 or newer)

• Safari (version 1.2 or newer)

It is essential that the Javascript and Images settings are enabled. Each browser has different methods of changing these settings, so please consult your browser’s help documentation if you need assistance changing any of these settings.

Navigating the map

You can use your mouse (click and drag the map to pan), the arrow keys on your keyboard, or the directional arrows shown in the top-left corner of the map to pan left, right, up and down to see areas that are hidden off-screen. You can zoom in and zoom out using the plus and minus keys on your keyboard or clicking the buttons shown in the top-left corner of the map.

The buttons shown in the top-right corner of the map allow you to decide on one of three available map types: a standard map; a satellite image map; or a hybrid map where the satellite images are overlaid with standard map details such as place and street names.

Location markers

When you first open the Trader Locator page the locations of all guests currently visiting the site and all members who have allowed their location to be shown will be displayed on the map using location markers.

Two different types of marker are shown on the map: shows the location of guests and members and shows your current location.

Moving the mouse pointer over a location marker will reveal the number of guests, members logged in and members logged out at the location.

Clicking on a location marker opens an information window containing:

• The approximate distance of this location from you.

• The number of guests currently visiting from this location.

• A list of all members from this location, including their login name, the city and country where they live (if available) and the method used to locate the member.

• Clicking on a member’s login name will open their profile page.

The information window can be closed either by clicking on the ‘x’ in the corner of the window, or by clicking on a different location marker.

Trader Locator options

You can reduce the number of trader locations shown on the map using the Trader Locator options. The available options are:

• Distance from your location
  Use this option to only display the location of traders who are within a certain distance from your current location.

• Show guests
  Use this option to show the locations of guests currently visiting the site.

• Show logged in members
  Use this option to show the locations of members who are currently logged into the site.

• Show logged out members
  Use this option to show the locations of members who are not currently logged into the site.

When you make changes to the Trader Locator options click the ‘Update’ button to see the changes on the map.

Methods used to locate traders

Geolocation is the process of identifying a global location using information such as IP and postal addresses. The Trader Locator uses five geolocation methods to determine where location markers should be shown on the map, with each method attempted until a location is found. If it is not possible to determine the location of a guest or member then they will not be shown on the map.

It is also possible to prevent your location from being shown to other members by setting the ‘Show Personal Information’ setting in your profile to ‘no’ (note: this will also prevent your real name, age, gender, trading background and location from being shown in your member profile page).

To ensure your location is shown as accurately as possible please enter as much address information as possible in your profile. At no time will your full address be revealed to other members and although it would be possible to provide street-level location accuracy, this is not done to protect your privacy.

Post code geolocation

This is the most accurate method of geolocation and is used for registered members who have entered a post code in their profile. Post code geolocation is currently available for the UK, USA and Puerto Rico (which is part of the US Postal Service), with plans to add post codes for more countries in the future.

Full address geolocation

Full address geolocation uses a combination of city, county/state, post code and country information to locate a member. The more address information a member has provided, the more accurate this method of geolocation will be. The full address geolocation service is provided by Google and covers the USA and much of Europe.

City geolocation

Registered members who have entered a city in their profile can be located using city geolocation services provided by ZeeMaps. City geolocation is available for all countries and covers a huge range of cities and towns.

Country geolocation

Registered members who have entered a city in their profile and have not been located by post code or city will be located in the centre of their country, which could be less accurate than IP address geolocation.

IP address geolocation

The accuracy of this method of geolocation will vary as it is possible the location of your ISP will be shown on the map, rather than your actual location. IP address geolocation services are provided by Hostip.info, a free service that you can support by updating your own IP address information on their website.

IP address geolocation is always used for guests visiting the website (as no other information is available) and it will also be used to locate members who have not entered any address information in their profile.

Known issues

The Google Maps service used by the Trader Locator is still in the ‘beta’ phase of development. This means that Google are still working on the service, working out problems and adding features, and listening to feedback from users on ways to improve the service. As the Google Maps service evolves we will update the Trader Locator to take advantage of any new features that become available.

There is currently only one known issue with the Trader Locator that you should be aware of:

• Geolocation errors
  As described in the methods used to locate traders section above, we use third party databases to perform geolocation. It is possible that the information returned from these databases is incorrect and you may see markers drawn in the wrong location on the map. If you spot an obvious mistake on the map please contact us with details and we will update our geolocation data.