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A Closer Look at Smart Markers with Yahoo! Maps

The incorporation of Ajax-based geographical mapping applications, like the popular Yahoo! Maps, into an existing website can help to increase the number of potential visitors. So, if you're a web developer who wants to boost your web site's traffic by working with this powerful Yahoo! Ajax framework, or if you simply want to expand your skills in using its main features, then this series of articles might be what you're looking for.

Author Info:

By: Alejandro Gervasio

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May 06, 2008

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

In accordance with the concepts that I deployed in the section you just read, I’m going to end this final article of the series by showing you how to incorporate a few smart markers into an existing hybrid Yahoo! Map. This process looks very similar to the one described when working with a regional map, so I won’t bore you with irrelevant explanations about how it works.

Instead, you can save your valuable time and have a close look at the following code sample, which demonstrates how to use the aforementioned smart markers with a selected hybrid Yahoo! Map:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">

<head>

<title>Example on using smart markers with an hybrid YAHOO! Map</title>

body{

padding: 0;

margin: 0;

background: #fff;

}

h1{

font: bold 16pt Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

color: #000;

text-align: center;

}

#mapcontainer{

height: 400px;

width: 500px;

margin-left: auto;

margin-right: auto;

}

</style>

</head>

<body>

<h1>Example on using smart markers with an hybrid YAHOO! Map</h1>

function initializeMap(){

// Create a new map object

var map=new YMap(document.getElementById('mapcontainer'));

// Add type controls to the map

map.addTypeControl();

// Add the Pan Control to the map

map.addPanControl();

// Add slong zoom control to the map

map.addZoomLong();

// Set map type to YAHOO_MAP_HYB

map.setMapType(YAHOO_MAP_HYB);

// Display the map centered on the selected location

map.drawZoomAndCenter("Los Angeles",3);

// Add an event to report to our Logger

YEvent.Capture(map,EventsList.MouseClick,displaySmartMarker);

// display smartMarker

function displaySmartMarker(_e,_c){

var geoPoint=new YGeoPoint(_c.Lat,_c.Lon);

var newMarker= new YMarker(geoPoint);

// call 'autoexpand()' method

newMarker.addAutoExpand('This is a smart marker');

// add HTML to the smart marker

var markerHTML= '<p>This is the markup<br />';

markerHTML+='of the smart marker</p>';

YEvent.Capture(newMarker,EventsList.MouseClick,function()
{newMarker.openSmartWindow(markerHTML)});

map.addOverlay(newMarker);

}

window.onload=function(){

initializeMap();

}

</script>

</body>

</html>

As you can see, once again I used a click logger to display different smart markers as the pertinent map is being clicked. Logically, the only difference to spot here is that a hybrid map is used, instead of a regional or a satellite-based one. The rest of the source code remains the same, so you shouldn’t have major trouble understanding how this specific example functions.

Besides, below I included a complementary image that shows how these smart markers are properly displayed on this regional map:

As is usual with many of my articles on web development, feel free to modify the source code of all of the examples developed in this series. This way you can improve your skills in using the Yahoo! Map framework.

Final thoughts

We’ve come to the end of this article series. I hope that all of the code samples that I provided in this group of tutorials will be useful enough to get you started utilizing the most relevant features offered by Yahoo! Maps.

See you in the next web development tutorial!

DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended to open and/or modify your hardware.