With GDPR hanging over our heads like the Sword of Damocles, many Weavers are looking for a way to escape the grasp of that rapacious corporate giant, Google. One place to begin is with online maps. Although Google Maps are free of charge, there is a certain cost associated with using the mapping services. The cost of privacy and loss of control over what we see on the map. In the end, Google is an advertising company and it uses our IP address, geographic search results and location information for marketing purposes. It also chooses which data are relevant to you rather than displaying on the map what is actually around you.

As an alternative to Google Maps, there is Open Street Map [OSM].
More and more major organizations are choosing OSM for their maps. In February 2012, Foursquare switched to the OpenStreetMap powered Mapbox platform. In March 2013, Wikipedia started using OSM as well. Craigslist uses it for apartment searches and even Apple has used OSM data in its maps… Other popular platforms using OSM powered maps are Github, Pinterest, Roadtrippers and Strava, to name but a few.

I spent the past week looking for ways to implement OSM into RapidWeaver and then, just this morning, Instacks' OpenStreetMap stack flattered into my mailbox. I felt quite sure that there was once an OpenStreetMap stack, but it seems to have disappeared. But the Instacks' stack takes OSM to the next level…

OpenStreetMap arrives with links to 28 map-tile-servers [MTS], plus 'Custom/Mapbox' and Mapbox was just the service that I'd been assessing. You can add up to ten unique makers to a map and each marker may be linked to a URL, making store location a breeze.
What are 'map-tile-servers'? I hear you ask.
MTS are providers that offer overlay options for OSM. The overlays contain different options such as geological structure, place-names in different languages, points of interest, etc.

Two of the included MTS, Thunderforrest and Mapbox, require either an API, or an account. Both are absolutely painless and free of charge. The map below uses a tile overlay from Mapbox that, alongside street names and places of interest, also displays geographical date such as elevation lines.

Stack settings
Tile Server – 28 options plus Custom/Mapbox
Optional API Key
GPS Coordinates
Zoom – default 15
Height – Lg . Desk, Desk, Tablet, Phone
Marker 1 [through 10]
[GPS] Position, Marker Text, Marker Link, Marker Colour (choice of 8 colours – custom image sadly missing)

Do you wish to gradually free yourself from the fangs of the ravenous giant mentioned above? Then OpenStreetMap is a good place to start! The default maps (German server) are great, but there are also many, many options to choose from for the map display.

I, for one, shall be switching to OpenStreetMap on my next site!

The EU Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that comes into effect on May 25, 2018 has caused many Weavers to fall into a state of panic.
When you go online, your IP at the very least, is broadcast to the world and can potentially be [mis]used to identify you. The EU ePrivacy directive of 2012 which stipulates that websites accessible in the EU must display a 'cookie' warning is no longer sufficient to appease the prevalent phishing paranoia. The regulations are getting stricter…

Currently. one of the biggest questions is how can a RapidWeaver user safely, easily and compliantly display content based on user consent?

Take for example some analytics tracking code or a Google map. How can this type of content be configured to load only if a user clicks a button and explicitly opts-in or opts-out?
At present it is almost impossible to do this without some really complicating coding. Although some solutions claim to offer a fix, a quick look in the browser console reveals a horror-show of invasive scripting and tracking cookies continuing to download in the background, irregardless of consent having being granted or not. This is simply not good enough for GDPR compliance!

Stacks4Stacks has a new solution available – CookieManager, a free stack that will quarantine portions of your page until your visitor has given her/his consent to allow cookies.
When you drop CookieManager into a Stacks page, it will initially display a container for True and False content i.e. stacks that may be displayed if the visitor has consented to cookies, or alternate stacks that are displayed if the visitor has declined. So, for instance, you could add a Google Map to the True container and an image of the map to the false container; if your 'Accept' button is clicked the interactive map will be loaded from Google Maps; if 'Decline' is clicked, your non-interactive map is displayed and no information is passed on to Google.

CookieManager's second state allows you to add buttons to modify, accept, or decline user cookies. Multiple instances of CookieManager can be used on the same page, allowing the discriminative display of varying content.

Whilst CookieManager isn't the be all and end all solution to the pending GPDR regulations, the free stack goes a long way to making your website more compliant with the new laws that affect us all and will allow many Weavers to sleep better at night.