Google Blogoscoped

Forum

Google Maps

Philip Glenn de Catalina [PersonRank 1]

Tuesday, February 8, 2005
19 years ago

Check out the new google maps at google labs

Rich Hodge [PersonRank 6]

19 years ago #

maps.google.com is fantastic! I wish they would let you choose an alternate route based on distance or .. if you don't like the default though. When is the Keyhole data going to be laid on top of it =)

The ability to drag the zoomed in map makes this the best map online.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

When you search for a location and it puts a pin in the map, the 3D effects look quite good.

And once again, they've written it using JavaScript and the XMLHttpRequest object...

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

Sigh. As much as I like what Google's doing with Google Local, Google Maps, or images in web results, I wish they'd start to put equal focus on bringing Europe and other plaes on the map, offering same or similar services.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

I was thinking a similar thing – of course, I was thinking they should just focus on the UK though!

Afterall, we cover a much smaller physical area, so things like Google Maps and Google Local would be much easier to implement.

RC [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

The biggest thing in it for me is, I dont have to goto mapquest and see their clunky interface. Nor that they dont work well with Firefox. Nor their bunch of ads and small maps and zillion clicks to see the route.. bravo!!

Ades [PersonRank 6]

19 years ago #

Dragging option is amazing.. no need to mention great interface and larger maps.. also street names are easier to read..

they did it again...

Felipe G. [PersonRank 1]

19 years ago #

Has someone noted that in the screenshots on the Tour section, the maps shows rounded corners?
I didn't see these rounded corners, even in Firefox. Was someone able to see them?

Justin [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

"Sigh. As much as I like what Google's doing with Google Local, Google Maps, or images in web results, I wish they'd start to put equal focus on bringing Europe"

On the plus side, Google is hiring a LOT of people for the UK – take a look at the UK job listings:
http://www.google.co.uk/jobs/

jack [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

It also works in canada.... but in a weird (maybe cool) drill down sort of way. you have to start off with a major canadian city, then you can get search results for small insignificant towns around the area. not sure what to make of that....

Phil [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

Hi all, I haven't been here for a while, but I threw this up on
http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-google.html
and figured I'd put it here as well.

[Long code lines removed. -Ed.]

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

Do you have the file somewhere? It didn't work well with this forum software...

Phil [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

The full entry is on <http://jgwebber.blogspot.com/2005/02/mapping-google.html>.

[But hoping edited version works better this time round...]

Okay, I've been playing around with sending requests to Gmaps via a Python proxy and manipulating the files returned on the fly.

As a result I've created a bookmarklet that loads the required XML file into the page (remove line breaks):

javascript:(function() {
window.parent._load([xml content here]',
window.document)})();

If you save this book marklet and click on it when on any (?--certainly the home page) Gmaps page it should move you to a location in Vancouver, Canada.

By changing various values you can do some more experimenting... For example, I have successfully added another "location" tag with an id "B" and new coordinates. Also I changed the marker image to be a random png from the Google site--but discovered the image dimensions seem to be hard coded so it was distorted.

...

I've located probably the most interesting object ("_m") on the page, which is demonstrated with this bookmarklet which pans the map:

javascript: (function() {_m.map.pan(100,0)}) ();

The available properties and methods are as follows (care of the handy JavaScript Shell bookmarklet):

[...snip...]

_m.map.viewSize
(684, 516)

This should allow specifying things like a pan from one place to another, and adding additional markers, via Javascript bookmarklets. This approach is probably more practical than intercepting the XML/JS retrieved from the server (which is still possible & could be interesting).

...

Last thing for the moment...

The following bookmarklet will follow a plotted route from start to finish, moving the map as appropriate (remove new lines):

javascript: (function ()
   {mv = function(i)
   { c = _m.map.directions.polyline.getPoint(i);
   _m.map.recenterOrPanToLatLng(c);
   if (i < _m.map.directions.polyline.numPoints – 1)
   {window.setTimeout("mv("+(i+1) + ")",500)}};
   mv(0)})();

It works best when you've zoomed in pretty closely. It has no error checking so ensure you have actually got directions currently listed. It takes no notice of the zoom level nor how many points there are in the route, so it could take a long time if the route is long. Obviously there are improvements that can be made along those lines.

I've tested this under FireFox 1.0 on Mac OS X, I'd be interested to know if it works successfully elsewhere.

--Follower. (follower[put at-character here]myrealbox.com)

Phil [PersonRank 0]

19 years ago #

I have put my research up on http://libgmail.sourceforge.net/googlemaps.html and included the bookmarklets in a form that they can be dragged onto a bookmark bar.

I'll put additional information there as it is discovered.

Tony Ruscoe [PersonRank 10]

19 years ago #

> I was thinking a similar thing – of course, I was thinking they should just focus on the UK though!
>
> Afterall, we cover a much smaller physical area, so things like Google Maps and Google Local would be much easier to implement.

At last – they've only gone and released both of these for the UK!

http://www.google.com/googleblog/2005/04/google-does-grimsby-gateshead-and.html

They've even thrown in Google SMS for the UK too!

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!