Comments on: I’m writing a book about Google Maps

By: NosboD

NosboD — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:35:44 +0000

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

By: Flip

Flip — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:35:51 +0000

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

By: Marcus

Marcus — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:19:51 +0000

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

By: Kevin Macdonald

Kevin Macdonald — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 13:44:52 +0000

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.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:16:25 +0000

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

Lycka till!

By: Ines

Ines — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:21:26 +0000

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.

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:02:37 +0000

Excellent!!!

By: Gogo Relation

Gogo Relation — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:10:23 +0000

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 !

By: Gabriel Svennerberg

Gabriel Svennerberg — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 19:33:30 +0000

@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!

By: Magic Touch

Magic Touch — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:04:10 +0000

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.

By: Tom Skinner

Tom Skinner — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 17:44:57 +0000

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!

By: Lance Rencontres

Lance Rencontres — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:51:19 +0000

Very interesting topic! Good luck with your writing!

By: parxier

parxier — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:47:04 +0000

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.