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falcatraz

By falcatraz
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falcatraz

falcatraz

Posted
Posted (edited)

Under the "For online maps..." section of each cache, can Google Maps be added and be used?

 

maps.google.com

 

Right now, it's in Beta, but it's pretty neat in that you can click on the map and drag in all directions.

 

Thanks

Falcatraz

Edited by falcatraz
Prime Suspect

+Prime Suspect

Posted
Posted
Under the "For online maps..." section of each cache, can Google Maps be added and be used?

 

maps.google.com

 

Right now, it's in Beta, but it's pretty neat in that you can click on the map and drag in all directions.

 

Thanks

Falcatraz

Google doesn't have either center crosshairs or the ability to show a pushpin at a specific point via the URL. So since it can't pinpoint where the cache is, it's not all the useful.

 

(Yes, I know about the XML hacks to show custom POIs.)

klossner

+klossner

Posted
Posted
Let's wait until they're out of beta.

That could take years. Google tends to leave new services in nominal beta state for quite a while. Alerts, Catalogs, Froogle, Gmail, Local, News, Orkut, and Scholar are all still in beta. Groups went back *into* beta. The only major services not in beta are Web and special searches, Directory, and Images.

Pasha

+Pasha

Posted
Posted (edited)

I've yet to have any problem with Google maps, and the interface is so slick that I've already added it to GSAK's external mapping links listing and use it almost exclusively. Not having the marker for the centerpoint is a drawback, though I'm pretty sure it could be done through a bookmarklet or something. There's already a bookmarklet out there that shows you the realtime Lat/Long as you move around the map.

 

(edit - minor grammatical)

Edited by Pasha
Pasha

+Pasha

Posted
Posted

How geeky am i?

 

I've just been futzing around with some of the various Google Maps hacks out there, and I've managed to cobble together a GSAK custom URL that will show you your cache, with pin marker, via Google Maps. This goes to a wrapper script on my site that loads the map in an IFRAME, but don't worry, you're not sending any information beyond that freely available in the cache listing (name, waypoint, lat/long). It works but is very simplistic at this point:

 

Google Maps=http://massivebraincase.org/gmaps/?title=%code|lat=%lat|lng=%lon|desc=%name

Let me know what you think.

Rattlehead

+Rattlehead

Posted
Posted
Why the need for a wrapper script?

Because, AFAIK, there is no way to submit a URL to Google Maps directly and have it display markers on the map. So, a proxy is required to "inject" the necessary code to display the markers.

Pasha

+Pasha

Posted
Posted

I've discovered that this apparently doesn't work with IE6, either; something in the javascript required to inject the location and pushpin info causes errors with the IE JVM.

 

In the meantime, Rattlehead is correct; it has to be wrapped because I have to have some method of taking the data from the query (the URL sent from GSAK) and inserting it into the correct javascript code to make Google do its thing. There's no way to just send the javascript query directly from the browser or GSAK.

 

Keep in mind that this page is not Google Maps - it's a page on my site that sends the javascript query to Google Maps and then renders and displays the raw data in an IFRAME. The GMaps interface is not present. There's about 5 different files involved, including an XML template, an XML data file that's written out with the information from your query, an XSLT file to render the returned XML, a CGI to get the graphics and such from Google, and a couple others.

 

My guess is that Google will shortly recognize the advantages in allowing users to specify their pushpin location and will add a GET variable specifically for that, and all this jumping through hoops will end.

 

-p

Marky

+Marky

Posted
Posted

What's up with the vertical bar characters in the URL? I can't get them to work with GSAK. Was there a reason you didn't use the '&' character?

 

--Marky

Pasha

+Pasha

Posted
Posted

Well, this is OT, but the "standard" & character for separating GET variables in a URL is actually not correct HTML; it's supposed to be escaped (&) instead, but I was lazy when I set up this web server and told PHP to only recognize | as an argument separator. Now that's lazy.

 

Works from GSAK for me... what browser are you using?

Hynr

+Hynr

Posted
Posted

I got it to work without modification with GSAK and Netscape 7.2

 

Looks cool, Nice work. But I would prefer a much smaller bubble (perhaps with some transparency) and no shadow. But it's pretty nice as is. I know... let's let Google mature this baby. The Google maps look very nice.

Pasha

+Pasha

Posted
Posted

Ya... as I said in another thread, I'm pretty confident that Google will recognize the usefulness of allowing users to specify their pushpin location via the URL arguments, the same way they added the &ll and &sll lat/long arguments. Just have to wait for it. This has all just been an interesting exercise while we wait.

 

-p

Pasha

+Pasha

Posted
Posted

Also, per your suggestion I increased the IFRAME size and the span of the map. The reason the pushpin tag overlay is so large is just because it's the default one from Google. To fill it a little more, I changed the contents of the description field and so forth. To use the new version, replace the existing GSAK custom URL with this one:

 

Google Maps=http://massivebraincase.org/gmaps/?title=%code|lat=%lat|lng=%lon|desc=%name|typ=%typ|con=%con|dif=%dif|ter=%ter

 

-p

Bunson_Honeydew

Bunson_Honeydew

Posted
Posted

I am curious if there has been any headway in extracting xml or comma deliniated data from a Google Maps route query so that it can be imported as an arc in GSAK? In searching here, I have only found passing mentions about it, but nothing solid.

UV2003

UV2003

Posted
Posted

I made a plugin for the ConQuery FireFox extension to let you scroll around on google maps, then center on an area, right click "Link to this page" and choose to "Query To / Thou Shalt Not Geocache Here" ... This sends the longitude and latitude to www.geocaching.com to show you the nearby caches.

 

I made a post about it here:

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=95144

 

Best regards,

Josh

UV2003

UV2003

Posted
Posted
I tried your plug in and while the query option shows up, it bring me to GC.com w/o the lat/long filled in.

Hi odragon,

I have had this problem a lot if I am not using version 1.4.6 of ConQuery. I tried in version 1.5.1, 1.5.2, and 1.5.3 and had no luck. Were you using 1.4.6?

 

There is a "Support/Discussion" link on http://conquery.mozdev.org/

 

I made a post there about the problem, but have not heard back yet. (That link is not working right now)

 

-- Also, make sure you have clicked somewhere on the map to "center" it so that the ll=.... parameters show up in the link.

 

Josh

ODragon

+ODragon

Posted
Posted

I have had this problem a lot if I am not using version 1.4.6 of ConQuery. I tried in version 1.5.1, 1.5.2, and 1.5.3 and had no luck. Were you using 1.4.6?

 

If that's what the link you posted gave, that's what I have.

 

-- Also, make sure you have clicked somewhere on the map to "center" it so that the ll=.... parameters show up in the link.

 

Centering it does not change my link at all. It's always maps.google.com.

 

Do you have a better place to discuss this as it's not necessarly the right place here?

MoonHerb

+MoonHerb

Posted
Posted

It's interesting that when you drag the map east, it jumps (after a while) straight back to alaska . . . missing all of Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania etc. etc. etc. :(

UV2003

UV2003

Posted
Posted (edited)

I have had this problem a lot if I am not using version 1.4.6 of ConQuery. I tried in version 1.5.1, 1.5.2, and 1.5.3 and had no luck. Were you using 1.4.6?

 

If that's what the link you posted gave, that's what I have.

 

-- Also, make sure you have clicked somewhere on the map to "center" it so that the ll=.... parameters show up in the link.

 

Centering it does not change my link at all. It's always maps.google.com.

 

Do you have a better place to discuss this as it's not necessarly the right place here?

Yes, on my site there is a "Feedback" discussion module at the bottom of the page:

 

http://67.19.192.183:7136/Default.aspx?tabid=55

 

I started a thread there. You don't have to be registered to post. (Use Guest / Guest) to login with.

 

-Josh

Edited by UV2003
UV2003

UV2003

Posted
Posted
... There's already a bookmarklet out there that shows you the realtime Lat/Long as you move around the map.

...

On a related note about bookmarklets, I added a bookmarklet to my page that does the same thing the ConQuery plugin does to translate from Google Maps to Geoaching.com:

 

http://67.19.192.183:7136/Default.aspx?tabid=55

 

This is the JS:

 

javascript:void((function(){var l=document.getElementById("linktopage");if (l!=null){var re =/ll=(.*?\.\d{6})[%2C|,](.*?\.\d{6})/;var m=re.exec(l);open("http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?origin_lat="+m[1]+"&origin_long="+m[2],"geocachewin");}})())

Marky

+Marky

Posted
Posted
... There's already a bookmarklet out there that shows you the realtime Lat/Long as you move around the map.

...

On a related note about bookmarklets, I added a bookmarklet to my page that does the same thing the ConQuery plugin does to translate from Google Maps to Geoaching.com:

 

http://67.19.192.183:7136/Default.aspx?tabid=55

 

This is the JS:

 

javascript:void((function(){var l=document.getElementById("linktopage");if (l!=null){var re =/ll=(.*?\.\d{6})[%2C|,](.*?\.\d{6})/;var m=re.exec(l);open("http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?origin_lat="+m[1]+"&origin_long="+m[2],"geocachewin");}})())

Fun little bookmarklet. I found that GCF3D1 is the closest to the default coords for googl maps (i.e. if you zoom all the way in from the default map and then get the nearest).

 

--Marky

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