Archive for February, 2008

Posted by Pamela Fox, Google Maps API Team

Why re-invent the wheel when you can copy and paste our wheel instead?

In the Google Maps API group and in my Inbox, developers often ask me questions such as "How do I draw a circle on the map?" or "How do I create groups of toggle-able markers?" Most of those questions are answered in the usage of little demo applications that I or one of our great external developers have put together. Previously, you have had to hunt through multiple places -- blog posts, developer sites, and group posts -- to find links to those demos. Well, start saving your hunting skills for the inevitable apocalypse. Our new Maps API Demo Gallery aggregates these demos togther, displaying a gallery of 40+ mini-applications with thumbnails, descriptions, and easy-to-read source code. Check out a standalone embedded version of this gallery below, and contact me if you'd like some of your own demos included in it.

On the IE blog, Eric Lawrence presented the User-Agent string for the beta version of Internet Explorer 8 which will be available later this year. The RSS Platform will also introduce an updated User-Agent string for use with the IE8 beta. For details on the RSS Platform User-Agent string in IE7 please take a look at my past blog post.

The change is a simple increment of the version number to "2.0" as in

Windows-RSS-Platform/2.0 (MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)

And as before, note that there are two cases to keep in mind:

1. The user is not subscribed to the feed. The user navigates to a feed and IE presents a preview of the content.
2. The user is subscribed to the feed. The RSS Platform retrieves the feed content on a schedule (or on demand).

In the first case, the request is made by IE and hence the IE User-Agent string is used.

In the second case, the RSS Platform User-Agent string is used.

- Walter vonKoch
Program Manager

We’ve been a little quiet of late, mostly because we’re busy working on our next release. We still have a bit of QA to do, but we’d like to share some details.

Search

As you can see, we’re actively integrating blog search into beta.bloglines.com. We’ve incorporated some Ask 3D's popular features into Bloglines blog search. For example, related searches in the right-hand column in the screenshot below. In case you’re wondering, we’ve retained the filtering allowing you to search based on feed subscriber popularity. You also might notice an advertisement on that mockup. Keep an eye-out for CPC oriented ads in future releases.

Flickr View

We continue to expand our views for photo-feeds with a new preview mode for Flickr photo-feeds.

Add Feeds

Many of you noticed that Beta's add page was pretty basic. Essentially, it was a stub for future development. We’ve finished off the next iteration on the page, so you can easily track packages, monitor weather, or see recommended packs.

Blogliners, we're here working for you. Enjoy!

- Eric Engleman and the Bloglines Team

Do you have a blog, online profile, or some other personal web page? Would you like to communicate more with your visitors? Today we're launching a new Google Talk feature that lets visitors to your web site chat with you. We call it "chatback" because instead of you doing all the talking on your blog, your visitors can talk back to you. Sure, they could leave comments, but those are public and hard to use for a real conversation. With chatback, it's a real instant message session.

To use chatback, you must have a Google Talk account ... but your visitors don't have to! They don't even need to have an email address, or to have ever used instant messaging.

When they visit your site, they'll see a badge like the one on the right showing your online status (available, busy, offline) and, if you're available, they can just click and start chatting. Chatback uses the web-based Google Talk Gadget so your visitors don't need to download anything. It opens in a new window so they can keep chatting with you even if they browse to other pages.

Of course, chatback isn't just for blogs. You can use it on any web page that you can add HTML content to. To get started, visit the chatback start page. (This is also linked from the Google Talk homepage.) Then just copy the provided HTML snippet to your web site. Visitors will then see a badge on your site indicating your availability, and can click to start a chat with you. If there's a time when you don't want to be distracted, just set your online status to "busy" and visitors won't be able to chat with you until you change your status back to "available."

If you're not already a Google Talk user, it's easy to become one. If you've got a Gmail account, then you already have a Google Talk account. If not, just go to www.google.com/talk or www.gmail.com to get started.

Bruce Leban
Software Engineer

Recently, we've seen many swicki builders add their swickis to niche social networks. We've been extremely excited about this development, as among other reasons, users on social networks are ready to make contributions, which is a key component to swicki technology. As more users make contributions to swickis, both in the form of voting and in the form of comments, swickis become an increasingly powerful search tool.

Coming across so many of these niche social networks made us realize that we needed a social network of our own, dedicated entirely to people who have built swickis. Hence, with a little help from our friends at Ning, we built the network swicki shoutouts. This network is a great place for swicki builders to share what they have learned while building, training, and promoting their swickis. With over 100,000 swickis being built to date, there should be plenty of knowledge to go around.

Even if you don't want to join the community, there are plenty of tips in the forum that will help you train and promote your swicki. In many cases, making a few tweaks to how you've trained your swicki, or taking a few minutes to make sure you've promoted your swicki in the right places, can make a huge impact on the success of your swicki.

Come join or browse the community now at shoutouts.swicki.com

Posted by Tom Manshreck, Maps API Team

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably already use the Google Maps API and love it as much as we do! But you may find it not useful for certain cases: the Google Maps API requires JavaScript, can take a while to load over slow connections, and requires some overhead to maintain a dynamic website.

The Google Static Maps API provides a simpler way to add maps to your website. Rather than use JavaScript, the Google Static Maps API creates map images on the fly via simple requests to the Static Maps service with HTTP requests. No JavaScript, no overhead. Just create a special URL as the src attribute within an <img> tag and let the Static Maps service create your image.

To see how easy the Static Maps API is to use, note the image below:

This image was created using the following simple <img> tag:

<img src="http://maps.google.com/staticmap?center=47.238336,8.827171&zoom=12&size=512x512&key=MAPS_API_KEY">

(Note that you will need to replace the key parameter above with your own Maps API key. You can obtain a free key at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html)

When this blog post was displayed in your browser, the URL in the <img> tag was sent to the Static Maps service, which constructed an image based on the parameters passed in that URL. Voila! You can create maps up to 512 x 512 pixels, and at any zoom level or location on the face of the earth that Google Maps supports. You can even place markers on your map images! This Static Maps Wizard lets you play around with some of the options.

The Static Maps API is especially useful for pages in which you want a map to load quickly. You can even replace the generated Static Map with a JavaScript Maps API map after the page loads, allowing a seamless transition from a quick-loading map to a fully dynamic implementation.

Because the map generated by the Static Maps API is an image, you can also send it to your friends as an email attachment (especially handy for planning your next party!) or display it on any cell phone browser, whether or not it supports JavaScript.

Full documentation on constructing maps with the Static Maps API is available at:

http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/staticmaps/index.html

As always, please post questions in the Maps API forum.

Posted by Mano Marks, Geo APIs Team Our friends up at NetSquared recently opened a mashup challenge to engage developers in helping nonprofits realize some of their web ideas. The concept is pretty simple. First, nonprofits post ideas on data they have and what they'd like to be able do do with it on the web. Then, product managers and developers peruse projects and sign up to help produce specs and bring them to life over the course of the next month. Nonprofits with the coolest mashup at the end are eligible for grants totaling $100k at this year's NetSquared conference in May. This year there's extra emphasis on openness, from standards and data to software and ideas. If your mashup can itself be mashed up, all the better. Mix and match APIs from different sources as you see fit - the only goal is to meet a need that a nonprofit has expressed. We like this idea a lot, and we want to help it - and potential volunteers like you - succeed. On March 7, we'll be hosting a hackathon at the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, for participants, where you'll be able to talk shop with API experts from Google. We'll also be inviting gurus from other API providers in the area to join us so you get all the help you need. If you sign up to work on a project you'll hear more from NetSquared about this event and others like it. Go check out some of the projects, think about how you might be able to apply your design skills and API wizardry to help these groups out, sign up, and mash away!

Posted by Keir Clarke, Virtual Tourism Blog Author and Google Maps Mania Blog Contributor

Pamela Fox wrote a wonderful tutorial in November called Creating a User-Contributed Map with PHP and Google Spreadsheets. However if you are like me, the thought of having to tackle server-side scripting sends you running for the hills. Fortunately, the recent release of forms for Google Spreadsheets means it is now possible (with just a tiny bit of hacking and wizardry) to create a user contributed map without any server-side scripting and with the added bonus of Google hosting the data for you.

1. The first step is to create a form for Google Spreadsheets at this page.

   The information that we need in order to add a contributor to our map is their name, latitude, and longitude. Of course, if you want more information on your map, you can always add more fields to the form later.

   • The first question we will ask is ‘What is your name?’. Type this into the ‘Question Title’ box. The default question type is ‘text’ - leave this as it is. After you have completed the ‘Question Title’ press ‘save’.
   • Now add the second question by clicking ‘+ Add a question’ and this time type ‘Latitude’ in the Question Title box. Again leave the question type as 'text' and press ‘save’ again.
   • Add one more question with ‘Longitude’ as the ‘Question Title’.

2. The second step (and the only one that requires some coding) is to hack the generated spreadsheet form so that instead of having to type in a latitude and longitude manually, our users can just click on a map to show where they live. To do this, we create a map and then assign an event listener for the map 'click' event that writes the values of the clicked coordinate into the form input fields. The code that accomplishes that is shown below:

   var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map_canvas"));
   map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.4419, -122.1419), 13);
   map.addControl(new GSmallMapControl());
   map.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());
   
   GEvent.addListener(map, 'click', function(overlay, latlng) {
     var LatLngStr = "Lat = " + latlng.lat() + ", Long = " + latlng.lng();
     map.openInfoWindow(latlng, LatLngStr);
     document.getElementById("latbox").value = latlng.lat();
     document.getElementById("lonbox").value = latlng.lng();
   });
   

   The full HTML for the form and map is here. This page extracts the latitude and longitude when a user clicks on the map and automatically fills in the input boxes for latitude and longitude in the spreadsheet form, and also lets the user fill in their name. The important things to remember about modifying the generated spreadsheet form is that the form field names remain the same (e.g. the name for the latitude input is 'single:2'), and that the form action remains the same (e.g. 'http://spreadsheets.google.com/formResponse?key=pHxwMuyQhRdSwN9QcKaqWVA').

   Now that you understand how the simple map-based form works, feel free to hack it further. Here's an example using the same form that integrates the GClientGeocoder to let users type in an address and then stores the resulting coordinate in hidden input fields.

3. Once you've successfully modified the form, all you need to do is use the Spreadsheet Map wizard to create your user-contributed map.

   The wizard will do all the work of creating your map and generating the code, and give you something like the map embedded below. You could also try out generating KML from the spreadsheet with the techniques from the Spreadsheets Mapper tool.

The great thing about feeds is that there is a selection for any topic, so this time celebrate Valentine’s Day year round. Here are some feeds of interest:

• Love Quote of the Day (Subscribe) - A daily missive on the spirit of love.
• iVillage - Love Advice for Singles and Couples (Subscribe) - A wide spectrum of timely advice on all things love.
• Ask Men - Dating & Love (Subscribe) - A variety of tips and techniques from a particularly male point of view.

While cynics might insist the greeting card industry created Valentine’s Day, romance is always of interest. We would love to hear your stories of how you use Bloglines to improve your love-life.

Enjoy!

- Eric Engleman & the Bloglines Team

It goes without saying that instant messaging has become integral to communicating in the workplace and at school. Chat helps us to share ideas instantaneously with co-workers and classmates. That's why Google Talk has always been a part of Google Apps, our package of applications built for collaborating within organizations. We're happy to announce today that we've made it even easier for you and your co-workers or classmates to start using Google Apps and Google Talk. It's called Google Apps Team Edition, and if you have an email address from your employer or school, you can sign up right now.

With Google Apps Team Edition, you and members of your organization get Google Docs, for creating and sharing documents, spreadsheets and presentations, and Google Calendar, for coordinating your schedule. When you use Google Talk with Google Apps Team Edition, your contacts list will automatically include the other people at your organization using Google Apps Team Edition. And since Team Edition recognizes your connection to co-workers or classmates, it makes sharing documents and calendars easier too. Give it a try by visiting www.google.com/apps.



Bill Kee
Associate Product Marketing Manager