Book Image

Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook

Book Image

Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook

Overview of this book

Day by day, the use of location data is becoming more and more popular, and Google is one of the main game changers in this area. The Google Maps JavaScript API is one of the most functional and robust mapping APIs used among Geo developers. With Google Maps, you can build location-based apps, maps for mobile apps, visualize geospatial data, and customize your own maps.Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook is a practical, hands-on guide that provides you with a number of clear, step-by-step recipes that will help you to unleash the capabilities of the Google Maps JavaScript API in conjunction with open source or commercial GIS servers and services through a number of practical examples of real world scenarios. This book begins by covering the essentials of including simple maps for Web and mobile, adding vector and raster layers, styling your own base maps, creating your own controls and responding to events, and including your own events.You will learn how to integrate open source or commercial GIS servers and services including ArcGIS Server, GeoServer, CartoDB, Fusion Tables, and Google Maps Engine with the Google Maps JavaScript API. You will also extend the Google Maps JavaScript API to push its capabilities to the limit with additional libraries and services including geometry, AdSense, geocoding, directions, and StreetView.This book covers everything you need to know about creating a web map or GIS applications using the Google Maps JavaScript API on multiple platforms.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
Google Maps JavaScript API Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Introduction


This chapter covers the controls that are found in the Google Maps JavaScript API. Generally speaking, controls are UI elements that interact with the user. At a very basic level, they comprise of simple HTML elements or a combination of them.

Controls enable the user to pan the map, zoom in or out, measure distances or areas, and so on. Complex controls involve the administration of multiple overlay layers (introduced in Chapter 2, Adding Raster Layers) in the form of a table of contents (ToC) control, or an editing toolbar for drawing vector features.

The Google Maps JavaScript API presents developers with the opportunity to use and customize built-in controls as well as build custom controls from the ground up.

This chapter will first focus on dealing with built-in controls and their configurations in detail, including the customization of the UI. Then, creating custom controls from very basic to complex ones (such as ToCs) will be covered.