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A couple small problems

Thread began 7/12/2011 10:12 am by codamedia | Last modified 7/25/2011 2:24 pm by lesMatthews | 3543 views | 10 replies |

codamedia

A couple small problems

I am having a couple of small problems with Pro Maps, and wondering if there is an easy solution.

1: The time to load is extremely slow in "Internet Explorer" or "Safari". If a result with approximately 30 - 40 records is chosen, the load time is about 15 - 20 seconds. When results of a few hundred, it is minutes, and users will never stick around that long. I was under the impression the XML cache file would help this problem, but it doesn't seem to make much difference (yes - the XML cache file is being created, and has the appropriate entries)

Firefox 4 loads fast, as does Google Chrome, but Safari and IE take a long time.

To test this I have a test page that pulls approximately 30 - 40 records.
(Link Removed)

2: On occassion, once the map loads it zooms out to show all of North America despite that fact there are only pins in the one city/town. It seems to do this when there are a lot of pins.

To test this, you can use this URL. Only do this in Firefox, as it has 900 pins and takes forever in IE. Firefox should load in 30 seconds or so.
(Link Removed)

3: Is there any way to stop it from opening the first address automatically in a balloon? I just want the pins to show, then let the user decide what to choose.

4: Is there any way to make the balloon wider? I need more width to work with so I can insert some images and still line up the address the way I need it to.

5: Is there any way to Group pins? Some cities (Winnipeg, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, etc...) have hundreds of pins, and it would be great if they could group, and open up as someone zooms into an area.

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Jason ByrnesWebAssist

1) not sure about safari, but the issue with IE is in the way it handles caching of images when called from javascript. the short description is that for each marker that is created, it will try download the marker images, caching in IE is fairly slow, so the images will not get cached while the script runs

you can try adding the marker images directly to the page using image tags to force IE to cache the images which should speed things up:

<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/google_javascript/images/traditionalflat_pacifica.png" style="display:none" /> 
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/google_javascript/images/traditionalflat_shadow.png" style="display:none" />
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/google_javascript/images/traditionalflat_pacifica.gif" style="display:none" />
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/google_javascript/images/traditionalflat_pacifica_mozprint.png" style="display:none" />
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/google_javascript/images/traditionalflat_shadow.gif" style="display:none" />
<img src="http://www.yourdomain.com/google_javascript/images/traditionalflat_pacifica_transparent.png" style="display:none" />



2) when it zooms out to show all of North America, it means that the last address it tried to process through the geocoder failed lookup so it is drawing the default view. double check the validity of the addresses.

3) if you enable driving directions, but do not enter a starting address it will not open the balloon on load

4) the balloon uses a span tag, for example:
infowindowtext: '<span style="font: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: black;"><strong>Address:</strong><br />2001 Cornwall Street<br />Regina, 1 S4P 3X9 Canada</span>',


you could add a width attribute to increase the width:
infowindowtext: '<span style="font: 12px Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: black; width: 400px;"><strong>Address:</strong><br />2001 Cornwall Street<br />Regina, 1 S4P 3X9 Canada</span>',


5) I'm not quite sure i understand what you are getting at with this last question.

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codamedia

Jason,

Great support! Exactly the types of info I was looking/hoping for. Thanks!

Regarding my 5th question, the actual term is "marker clustering" and a search on Google for "google maps marker clusters" will reveal several solutions and 3rd party API's. I was just hoping that this was easily incorporated into Pro Maps - even if I do need to get my hands dirty in the code.

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Jason ByrnesWebAssist

looks like this is available in the Google Maps v3 api:
reference.html



you can convert pro maps to using the v3 api by editing the following line:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=2&key=ABQIAAAAzdubZVAMycelfiiPTYpVFBQPFfY7zKGhKSBgg4Uk6CKe9Mc3hhSAtsG1lpEwuqfqQ_TTP-avu9iPMQ">/*wagmp*/</script>
</head>


change the v=2 to v=3:
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://maps.google.com/maps?file=api&v=3&key=ABQIAAAAzdubZVAMycelfiiPTYpVFBQPFfY7zKGhKSBgg4Uk6CKe9Mc3hhSAtsG1lpEwuqfqQ_TTP-avu9iPMQ">/*wagmp*/</script>
</head>


cant really say how easy it will be to implement, but with a good understanding of the google maps API, it should be doable, though we wont really be able to offer any assistance with it.

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codamedia

Thanks Jason. I don't mind getting my hands dirty so I'll see what I can figure out.

I'm also going to add this as a feature request in the wish list forum. Not sure how many others could use it, but I know I would.

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Jason ByrnesWebAssist

no worries.

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MikeyT

Jason, when you say that you can convert pro maps to use the v3 api by tweaking that line of code, does that mean that the map's controls will take on the look and feel of v3 as well?

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Jason ByrnesWebAssist

it wont take on the look and feel unless you modify the script to use the new controls.

the V3 API still uses the old controls as the default, but offers new commands to use the new controls.

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MikeyT

Thank you.

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Jason ByrnesWebAssist

you're welcome.

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