On May 12, 9:33 am, stillepost <[email protected]> wrote: >I'd like to develop something using the API to add a small map to each > event page with the venue indicated.
Yes, from a usability standpoint, a map showing just one venue would be way better than the map with all the markers. At the scale that allows them all to be seen, the markers are clustered so tightly together that there's no point mapping them. I.e., rather than working from the map, the user would most likely look through the sidebar list, hoping to remember the name of the venue, click its link and then see its infowindow open. Sub-optimal, as you've said. There's almost no visual-spatial benefit of using the map. (You _could_ add a zoom link in the infowindow that would zoom the map in on that venue.) > - Should I be using GGeoXml at all? I suppose I could create a > database with each venue name and a corresponding coordinate, but that > seems to just duplicate the work that GGeoXml is meant to do. IMHO, learn the Google maps API and store your venue data in a table -- with coordinates -- so you can build maps specific to each venue. As Mike and others on this list often remind us, places like performance venues don't move around much, so once you have the table with coordinates etc. the data wouldn't change often. The method you employ to access the table would determine in what form its data is sent from the server; it could be sent as text, XML/KML, or JSON. Alternatively, you could process your existing kml file each time, looping through until you find the wanted venue and then use only that venue's data to place a marker. But then you'd be loading and processing that whole kml file every time... A few more thoughts: With a little work, you could make yourself an admin map with the tools to add more venues and edit the ones you have, storing the data in your table. Then you don't have to rely on My Maps (yours, that is :-) at all. You might even want more than one marker for a venue; for example, a given venue might have its auto parking at a different nearby location, and you might also want to show bus-stops, bike racks, etc., as well. This would be excellent on a single-venue map, but visually nearly useless with all venues on the same map. If you related the venue table to the events table, a venue's infowindow could even have "Now Showing" info, links to ticket agencies, ... You might try building maps outside the webcalendar framework while learning the API. The single-venue maps could also be generated from template and stored as static HTML files, to be linked or included as needed in the calendar. That would reduce the page's javascript processing and require much less work from Google each time a venue's map is accessed. HTH --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google Maps API" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
