I’m writing a book about Google Maps

It’s been a while since I last wrote on this blog and I thought I would get you up to speed why that is. The reason is that I’ve been occupied with writing a book about Google Maps.

I haven’t written a book before so this is new territory for me. What I’ve noticed so far is that it progresses far slower than I predicted, but at least it progresses steadily even if slower than anticipated. I’ve taken a few weeks off of my regular work to devote to writing this book but this time won’t suffice, so there will probably be quite a few late nights and weekends of writing as well.

About the book

The book will mainly be about how to use the recently released Google Maps API V3. This new API introduces a whole lot of changes compared to the old one (V2) and this book is meant to explain the differences and to guide you into this new way of using it. Of course if you never used the API this book is for you as well. It will provide you with the skills and knowledge necessary to develop great maps.

The main target audience of the book are:

  • Webdesigners that have some basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
  • Developers that quickly wants to transfer from the the old API to the new.
  • Other people interested in incorporating Google Map in their web pages.

The book will deal with the basics of creating maps as well as some advanced topics such as how to deal with large amounts of markers. It will also promote best practices for both HTML, CSS and JavaScript. The book will be filled with code examples that will teach you how things work and that you can start using right away in your own web applications.

As of now I don’t know in which form this book will be published, but I’ll keep you informed as things progress.

If you have a request for something that you want me to include in the book, or any thoughts or questions about it, please contact me in the comments or through the Contact page.

Update: If you want a sneak peek of the book, I have published a beta chapter about Markers called X Marks the spot.

Stay posted

If you want to stay updated with the progress of the book, sign up below.

[notify_me label_text="Email" button_text="Send" context="Google Maps Book"]

And just for the record, your email address is safe with me. I will use it for this purpose only. I hate spam as much as you do!

You should also follow me on twitter.

About the author

Gabriel Svennerberg is an UX Designer and FrontEnd Developer living in Sweden. When he's not busy designing or building applications at Meetod, he writes about UX Design and all things web on In usability we trust. Gabriel is the author of the book Beginning Google Maps API 3 published by Apress. Gabriel on Google+
  • http://parxi.com parxier

    Good luck with a book! I’d like to see more about server side clustering, smart geo-based clustering, line and polygon areas clustering, different projections, etc.

  • http://www.celibataire-endurci.com/ Lance Rencontres

    Very interesting topic! Good luck with your writing!

  • Tom Skinner

    I’m glad you’re doing this…I’ll be the first in line to buy it.

    The most valuable to me would be an “annotated reference”, giving the syntax and (if there is any subtlety to it at all) an overarching explanation of why it’s there and a short example of how it’s used. Once I have this brief information I’m usually “up and running” with it, and it’s surprising how often this information is either missing or unclear in computer texts.

    lycka till!

  • http://www.magictoolbox.com/magictouch/ Magic Touch

    Good luck Gabriel. Have you chosen how to publish the book? We publish ours with Lulu. Its a low cost and easy way to start. You can progress to a proper publisher later once sales are moving along nicely.

    Some possible content for your book… check out our tool Magic Touch which works like Google Maps except for any image. It takes huge images, and cuts them into 256px tiles so that they can be zoomed/panned quickly. There is no API yet but there are quite a few customisations available and many more to come.

  • http://www.svennerberg.com Gabriel Svennerberg

    @parxier: There will be a chapter on marker clustering. But I’m not sure yet if I’m going to include any server side clustering.

    @Lance: Thanks for the encouragement!

    @Tom: That’s a really good idea. I’m also planning to do a cheat sheet. I myself often find that very valuable.

    @Magic Touch: Thanks for the tip! I’ll be sure to check that out. Also, Magic Touch looks really cool. Me and a friend actually discussed that kind of solution just a couple of days ago. Nice to see an implementation of it. God job!

  • http://www.relation-amoureuse.net Gogo Relation

    Nice idea ! It would be the first Google Maps book in the world. I am sure that lots of people would buy it. Wsh you good luck with your book !

  • Tim

    Excellent!!!

  • http://www.geocubes.com Ines

    Great idea! I’m looking forward to it. Maybe our clustering solution http://www.geocubes.com for dealing with large amounts of markers could be interesting to analyse and compare.

  • http://www.matt-biehl.de Matt

    Yes, that is definitely a good idea. I could use such a book right now, while I am learning the Maps API.

    Lycka till!

  • http://spatialdatabox.com Kevin Macdonald

    Hello,

    I’d like to point you to two cluster implementations that manage the display of 2,050,000 markers with real-time responsiveness:
    http://spatialdatabox.com/million-marker-map/million-marker-map.html
    http://spatialdatabox.com/heat-map/heat-map.html

    I am working on a reimplementation of the million marker map to provide a more appealing presentation of content.

    Please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss this further.

    And, good luck on your book. Writing clearly is tough work.

  • Marcus

    Good luck with the book! If you need beta-testers let me know.
    One thing I would like to know is: I have an address or a position. How can I get the name of the country and the name of the city? I tried reverse geo-coding and I get something but I am not sure if there is an exact node for the city or not. This isn’t documented anywhere. Maybe it’s different for each country?
    I need this because I want to group my markers by country and city. So depending on the zoom level I want to show locations (zoomed in) or cities (zoomed out).
    Maybe you can handle this in your book. And I would be happy to read a how-to and not having to wait for your book.

    By the way: Someone said this will be the first book about Google Maps. It isn’t. There are two – one for Ruby on Rails and one for PHP users. I think one of those is in the process of preparing a new release.

    Cheers
    Marcus

  • http://flipout.us Flip

    Really looking forward to the book. Just diving in to maps v3 and your posts were really helpful. Any updated ETA?

  • NosboD

    Thanks,
    The manual was really useful,
    Now waiting for the Full Manual!

  • http://no Muhammad Naeem

    Please help .I want drwa an ellipse i google map api v3

  • http://enidballard.co.cc/ Enid Ballard

    Very interesting topic! Good luck with your writing!

  • Steffen Mutter

    I bought your book. Some aspects are very interesting, but what’s really missing (in my opinion) is a layer to show latLng positions of the mouse over the map. I tried it using a API v2 sample but failed. What I want to do is to set a marker (dblklick) and store it in a database (Get or Post to a php-connector) shouldn’t be too difficult, but I got stuck.

    An exact description how to get some slide in/out sidebars working (like the routing stuff in maps.google.com) to enhance user-experience.

    I really like your book, but I still miss some features.

    Kind regards from Germany,
    Steffen

  • http://www.svennerberg.com Gabriel Svennerberg

    Thanks for your feedback Steffen. Maybe that’s something I should create a tutorial for.