I am doing some research for what Map API to use for a coming project.
The main requirement is the ability to lock a map, and the ability to disable parts of the map.
Think about a special purpose map for Europe where I would like to disable and gray out the non-european countries.
A click on those grayed out areas should do nothing, meaning for all of the world except for Europe.
So, is it possible to disable large portions of the map?
Is it possible to add layers for the borders for each country, that is clickable, for instance on Germany?
I am looking at Bing or Google Maps at this point. Which one is more developer friendly one?
Bing looks so much nicer with the birds eye, much easier to read out the map and know what you are looking at. I find Googles full of clutter and always have problem knowing what I am looking at.
Possible approach(google-Maps): use a Polygon with multiple paths.
1 path for the entire world(vertices defined in clockwise order)
other paths for the enabled area(vertices defined in opposite clockwise order)
The result will be a polygon that covers the entire world with a hole for the enabled area. The map will not respond to click-events outside the enabled area(because it's covered by the polygon). The map will still respond to dblclick and zoom in, but this may be avoided by cancelling the propagation of the dblclick-event of the polygon.
It wouldn't be possible to gray out the dissabled area, but you could use the fillColor of the polygon to signalize which part of the map is disabled.
Related
First, I have been reviewing some of the different Google Maps API docs, but I've never done much coding with it. I'm trying to build a simple game for kids in which, if the user clicks on a map within a certain distance of a key map point (could be within 1 mile, 100 yards, 5 miles...depending on situation), then the map point becomes visible and a custom message is displayed with it.
Which google maps api calls would enable this to work? How would I embed a hidden point on the map? With the map being rendered on the client, for security, if I could detect the point clicked and send that point via ajax to the server, then the server could send back whether there is a hidden point at that location, that seems like it could work. Or maybe there's a better way.
Can someone point me in the right direction, as to which API calls, and maybe code samples if possible? To summarize, I'm looking for the following functionality:
Track the lat/long coords of any user-clicked point on a google map. Have that click send the coords to my javascript function.
Have hidden points on the map that the user can't see, but either Maps (or at least just my server via ajax) can be aware of.
Ability to display a custom message right next to the clicked spot or hidden point, when needed.
Thanks!
When I understand correctly what you are trying to achieve it's much easier.
Draw a circle and hide the circle by setting the strokeWeight and fillOpacity to 0 . As radius use the allowed distance, as center the LatLng of the point
Although the circle now is not visible, the API will still respond to click-events on the circle, you only have to set a click-listener for the circle and create e.g. a marker at the center of the circle.
Note: a clickable circle will have a different cursor, you must set a unique cursor for the complete map, otherwise the users will be able to find the circle by hovering the map.
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/doktormolle/0secbwuf/
Has anyone seen a way to shade/color areas of a google map that are outside of a boundary/shape created by a KML file?
An example usage would be that only the area inside the boundary/shape would be interactive (click listeners etc.), and the shaded area outside of the boundary would ignore all actions aside from the basic map functionality, like moving the map back and forth.
Here is an option I have been working on (doesn't quite completely work, but the concept may address your question):
Create a KML file of the area of interest (in the example US states)
Invert it by adding an outer boundary of the whole world
Either display it on your map using an additional KmlLayer or import it into FusionTable (like the example)
Be sure to suppress infoWindows on the "inverted" layer
Example
- Doesn't work for Virginia or Alaska
- Hawaii is problematic.
- Limits the minimum zoom to 5.
I don't want to use streetview, I just want to see what streets allow it and capture a graphic (so as to identify gated neighborhoods where the cars could not get in.) Of course one can drag out the pegman and do a screen capture (or several if one wants to stitch them together). One can use that method to (w/o the pegman) to capture maps (w/o highlighting s/v/e streets) HOWEVER there are much nicer ways to get an 8000 x 8000 pixel map (for example).
Question: Is there same way to leave the display of streetview enabled streets on without hovering the pegman?)
I once had this happen while I was using Gmaps(maybe due to where I dropped the man) but have never replicated it.
I have a web application that needs to display 30,000 markers on a map at the same time. I don't want to use any kind of clustering. I need them to all be displayed.
I also need them to be clickable. The user can click on each point and a popup will come up with information about that point. Even at a low zoom level when there are thousands of markers in a single 256x256 square, the user needs to be able to click on them. It may be cumbersome for the user to click on a point thats bunched up with hundreds of other points, but if there happens to be one marker in the middle of nowhere, I want the user to be able to click on it right there instead of having to zoom in.
How do I do this? I know it's possible because I watched a video on google video where this guy creates a GTileLayerOverlay app that had clickable markers. He didn't explain how it was done though.
Is my only option to just remove the GTileLayerOverlay at high zoom levels and replace it with a true GMarker layer? I really don't want to do that. It seems over engineering to me.
If you were me, how would you go about this?
I found this example is in the Google Maps API Demo Gallery:
Clickable Tile Layer
This example creates a custom map type (GMapType) that shows regional borders and squares for county centers. When the squares are clicked, an info window opens with information about that county. The clickability is accomplished by passing in information about clickable pixel bounds in the cookies attached to the tiles, and doing a client-side check on mouseover for whether the mouse position was within the pixel bounds.
Here's some commentary on his method.
I don't have any experience with GTileLayOverlays, but I believe it is possible to accomplish what you're trying to do without using GMarkers.
Would it be possible to utilize clustering if each cluster could bring up a list of the markers it represents? It seems like having 30,000 markers visible at once would be visually confusing and difficult to navigate .
I am using the Google Maps API to code a campus map for my university. On the main map, when it is being viewed in the "Map" maptype, there is a custom overlay of the campus, which is set (by using GEvent.addDomListener) to be removed when the map is viewed in Satellite or Hybrid mode. When the user gets directions, through my map, to and from the campus, a polyline and 2 markers show up, like normal. When the marker is clicked, a small popup map is display, focused on the area of campus around that particular marker.
I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to set attributes of these mini-popup-maps. I need to extend the event listener to make sure that the overlay gets taken off when the mini map is clicked out of "Map" mode. I also need to be able to set the zoom level for these maps.
Any ideas?
(code can be provided as needed, wasn't really sure what parts would be needed and didn't want to post the whole f'n thing up here.)
Doesn't look like there are any built in options to modify the infoWindow you get from the GDirection markers, but you can explicitly replace the markers once you get them back.
This post describes the process.