Connection-Geography JS

A means to visually represent the distribution of LinkedIn connections.

Background

Back in 2014-2015, I wrote a web app that used LinkedIn's public API to represent the distribution of LinkedIn connections geographically, with the denisty of connections in each area. The app made use of vanilla JavaScript, Google Maps JavaScript API, and the LinkedIn PHP API. It worked and, while I still had various plans to improve on it, it accomplished the goal.

Unforunately, in February 2015 LinkedIn announced they would be eliminating some of their APIs for general use. There was an option to request permissions which was made but never responded to. In the end, I decided to abandon the project, for the time being.

However, still wanting this kind of functionality but not having one, I decided to try and resurrect the project, somehow...

Current Setup/Requirments

As of writing, script is still in development. In order to use it requires:

• LinkedIn account
• Google Maps API key (with Maps and Places API enabled)
• Firefox + UserScript agent (currently using ViolentMonkey)
• Override the Content Security Policy to allow Google Maps + script source (see: GoogleMapsEverywhereCsp)

Progress

Currently running with some fake/dummy data:

Plan of Action

• Drop all the ancient PHP code
• Get the project working with more recent version of Google Maps API
• Workout how to get the LinkedIn connection/people data
• Workout how to get Google Maps loading in LinkedIn DOM despite CSP
  • Requires CSP override (see: GoogleMapsEverywhereCsp)
• Rework project to run in page with dummy data
• Complete MVP without dummy data
• Rework project to be single UserScript/Plugin, re-using some snippets of the old HTML & JavaScript
  • May need to rework into Plugin due to CSP issues
• Clean up TODO's
• Refactor and modernize ancient 2014 code.
• Rework the project using actual library vs. vanilla JavaScript
• Remove inline CSS (in most places)
• Convert CSS to more flexible SASS
• Detail the setup of this script + dependencies
• Work on missing features
  • All TODO's must be addressed before working on more features or it will become too messy