Is it possible to host a deployment of google maps locally so that users, on a small local network, do not need an internet connection? This is for a tradeshow project that will not have internet connectivity.
I'm hoping to get an answer from Google on this, the Dev site suggests that this is the place to ask.
As far as I am aware it is not possible, the library functions often call external services for processing and the map tiles themselves cannot be downloaded. You could on the other hand use a local copy of OpenStreetMap as a base layer and then either use a local copy of the maps API over the top (being careful which methods to call to avoid errors) or even using OpenLayers for your mapping functionality.
Hope this helps.
Related
is it possible to have an application (web-based) with google map api that works even without internet connection?
Say have to cache or store the map somewhere, so that when there is no internet connection the application still works.
I doubt it. Google Maps is a web service, which you can place into your application via an API key.
Therefore, you'll need to have an internet connection to actually make a call to the Google Maps web service to validate your API key and load it.
I'm assuming you mean a web application running internally within an intranet to access Google maps. This link might give you some clues evn though there seems to have an Android version of this feature. A google search on "offline google maps" returned quite a few Android links
Is it permitted to use the Google Maps API (ver 2) in offline mode if I use OpenStreet tiles?
If so, how can I do this? I can store the Google JS file locally (main.js). What else do I need to do?
It is not permitted according to the Terms Of Service
http://code.google.com/apis/maps/terms.html
It is also unlikely to work, as the API Javascript is designed only to work online e.g. it must be able to talk to Googles servers.
I'm writing an HTML5 mobile application that uses Google Maps V3 with a custom layer of OpenStreetMap tiles.
The OSM tiles (from tile.openstreetmap.org) are set to cache for just over 24 hours, and I'm using a cache-manifest for all my HTML/JS/CSS.
So the application could in theory be used offline, except the Google Maps interface isn't happy when offline.
It always wants to call to the Google Maps server at http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false®ion=GB - when this fails, Google Maps fails to load.
Is there any way to use Google Maps V3 API offline?
Could I cache-manifest http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false®ion=GB, or would that be a bad move?
(Sorry for this rather beginner question, let me know if I can explain better!)
Google coders themselves have tackled this problem and unfortunately the information isn't well disseminated. But yes you can use cache-manifest to do exactly what you've described.
Required Readings
First take a look at the Google Code blogpost here: http://googlecode.blogspot.com/2010/04/google-apis-html5-new-era-of-mobile.html
Then have a read at Missouri State's own post: http://blogs.missouristate.edu/web/2010/05/12/google-maps-api-v3-developing-for-mobile-devices/
The Technique
You must cache every URL used by Google Maps
Employ methods to battle Chrome's and Firefox's stubborn caching methods by removing it from "offline websites"
All customizations must be client-side in javascript
Your cache file will look like (as per Missouri State):
CACHE MANIFEST
/map/mobile/examples/template.aspx
/map/mobile/examples/template.css
/map/mobile/examples/template.js
NETWORK:
http://maps.gstatic.com/
http://maps.google.com/
http://maps.googleapis.com/
http://mt0.googleapis.com/
http://mt1.googleapis.com/
http://mt2.googleapis.com/
http://mt3.googleapis.com/
http://khm0.googleapis.com/
http://khm1.googleapis.com/
http://cbk0.googleapis.com/
http://cbk1.googleapis.com/
http://www.google-analytics.com/
http://gg.google.com/
Caveats
You will need to be entirely HTML5-based and recognize the impacts this will have on your users. This situation is handy where either your users are up-to-date on browser standards/devices or you have control over user choices.
Hope this helps.
I have http://maps.google.com/maps/api/js?sensor=false in the CACHE section of cache.manifest, together with my application files and there isn't any problem.
Although, I believe you also have to cache other files that the Google Maps API requests. You can take a look at the files downloaded by your app and include them.
Not possible!
Google map CDN URLs have dynamic nature,
https://mts0.googleapis.com/vt?pb=!1m4!1m3!1i8!2i234!3i15...
https://mts1.googleapis.com/vt?pb=!1m4!1m3!1i8!2i233!3i155!!...
No wildcard characters are allowed in CACHE section of the HTML5 cache manifest files
We can not have some thing like,
CACHE MANIFEST
/css/style.css
/js/libs/modernizr-2.0.6.min.js
/js/libs/jquery-2.1.4.js
http://mts0.googleapis.com/*
http://mts1.googleapis.com/*
http://fonts.googleapis.com/*
NETWORK:
*
I had a google map project that I needed offline. I found Bing Maps (https://www.bingmapsportal.com/ISDK/AjaxV7) is much better offline and switched my project over to that and I'm happy. I ran the google and bing version side-by-side in offline mode and Bing was great. Whereas google would immediatey fail on tile loads, Bing maps cached more tiles and appeared to even resize zoomed tiles to at least give you something in offline mode.
I know the question here is about Google maps; but if you don't care about bing vs. google and really just need offline support, I'd highly recommend trying Bing maps. It solved it for me.
I'm embedding a map on a page via https URLs but I'm still seeing resources loaded via http:// in the Net tab in Firefox. I've done some Googling and everything I'm finding is about the Google Maps API. Has anyone gotten this to work over SSL before?
http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2011/03/maps-apis-over-ssl-now-available-to-all.html
Ismail is right - check out the thread on Options for Google Maps over SSL.
Personally I had to migrate my Google maps to Bing for the https connection api.
The Google map apis should now be available over https - but at least from my point of view there may be clashes with the licence (not-for-profit organisation but the site is access protected).
Have a look at Mapstraction if you want to swap map interfaces around to try them out.
A team I work with is currently in an unfortunate situation. They've spent a lot of time integrating the google map control on their site but they didn't discover that to run google maps on a https site you must license the control (and it isn't cheap) and the same goes for bing maps.
So my question is do you know of any cheaper/free map controls like google or bing maps?
OpenLayers
In version 3 of the API, HTTPS support is now free.
Why can't they put the google maps part on a non-secure page or frame? The google licence says that you must have it on a publicly accessible site to benefit from the free version of the licence, so even on a http site, you may still need to pay for the data.
All other mapping tools are dependant on the expensive map source data, so you'll not find any. The exception is OpenStreetMap which uses community-supplied map data.
MapQuest's API allows SSL usage through the free license.
I was looking into this and found this post - you can use Bing maps over ssl with no problems, and it seems to work fine.
For the danish users I found the following VisKort component on SoftwareBørsen. It looks like it is based on OpenStreetMap, but I'm not sure.