Web Development Recipes, 2nd Edition

Recipe 17

Adding an Inline Google Map

Problem

People want simple, accessible, and quick ways to locate a geographical destination. Addresses and written directions work, but the simplest method is to glance at a map, memorize the street number and general location, grab your keys, and go. We want to add a map to our site so that visitors can get an immediate a sense of where something is located and how they can get there.

Ingredients

• The Google Maps API

Solution

Using the Google Maps API, we can bring the power and functionality of Google Maps into our own application. We can render maps of two types: static and interactive. The static map is an image that we can insert into our page, whereas the interactive map allows for zooming and panning. ...