Getting user location on opening map in mapbox

Question

Hey guys how do i get the user location in mapbox as soons as the component with mapbox map is rendered.

I have seen in their documentation they have provided an option like

this.map.addControl(
      new mapboxgl.GeolocateControl({
        positionOptions: {
          enableHighAccuracy: true,
        },
        trackUserLocation: true,
      }),

    );

which does that, after clcking on the location symbol it shows my current location, but is there any way i could do it intially ? without clicking on location button the map should show the user location

Answer 1

You should use the map.flyTo() method coupled with map.on('load') from mapbox.

map.on('load', function () {
    map.flyTo({
       center: [
          -74.5 + (Math.random() - 0.5) * 10, // Example data
          40 + (Math.random() - 0.5) * 10 // Example data
       ],
       essential: true // this animation is considered essential with respect to prefers-reduced-motion
    });
}

As you notice you need the coordinates of the user in order to use the flyTo function.

You have two alernatives to get them:

1. User has authorized browser location -> use the browser location

if (navigator.geolocation) {
  navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(function(position) {
    coordinates = [position.coords.latitude, position.coords.longitude];
  });
}

2. User hasn't authorized browser location -> use an IP geolocation API

You could use an IP geolocation api like Abstract to get your visitors location:

$.getJSON("https://ipgeolocation.abstractapi.com/v1/?api_key=**********", function(data) {
       console.log(data.longitude);
       console.log(data.latitude);
       coordinates = [data.longitude,data.latitude]
   })

You could then load the map.on('load') function written above and pas the coordinates for the "center" key.