Beginning Google Maps API 3

This book is about the next generation of the Google Maps API. It will provide the reader with the skills and knowledge necessary to incorporate Google Maps v3 on web pages in both desktop and mobile browsers.

It also describes how to deal with common problems that most map developers encounter at some point, like performance and usability issues with having too many markers and possible solutions to that.

• Introduction to the Google Maps API v3
• Solutions to common problems most developers encounters (too many markers, common JavaScript pitfalls)
• Best practices using HTML/CSS/JavaScript and Google Maps

What you’ll learn

• Building reliable Google Maps web applications
• How to transfer from version 2 to version 3 of the API
• Best practices using HTML/CSS/JavaScript
• Dealing with large amounts of map markers
• How to look up addresses and coordinates using GeoCoding and reversed GeoCoding

Who this book is for

Web designers/web developers with a basic knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript, as well as people with knowledge of the old Google Maps API that needs help to easily transfer to the new API. And, this book is for anyone interested in learning how to integrate Google Maps on their web page.

About the Author

Gabriel Svennerberg is a usability oriented web developer from Sweden. He’s been working in the web industry for over a decade and is known in the web developer community for evangelizing usability and web standards. He’s also known for spreading knowledge about the Google Maps API through his website, In usability we trust, which also features articles about usability and other things related to web development. It’s found at www.svennerberg.com. At his current job at Saab Security and Defence Solutions (www.saabgroup.com), Gabriel is busy designing and building web applications for situation awareness and crisis management. These applications always incorporate maps in some way and the Google Maps API is one of the map solutions being used.

Gabriel lives in Växjö, Sweden with his fiancée Petronella and their son Ludvig.