Google Maps Plugin

Version 1.0 of my GoogleMap Sidebar Plugin is now ready!

This sidebar plugin^[?] performs a rwhois lookup of the user connected, and plots that location using the Google Map API. Becuase it uses data in the whois database, the results are only as good as the data in there. If you wanted to purchase an IP to geolocation databse from a company like MaxMind and modify the lookup code.

Several options are available, including the title, map size, zoom level and map type (centered on the lookup or centered on the world view).

Simply drop the zip folder into your plugin directory, and ensure the web server has read access to the files. The custom icon used assumes that they are readable by the browser and located in http://[base_URL_of_your_blog]/plugins/serendipity_plugin_googlemap/ so if your plugins are in a different place or you rename the plugin directory the php code will have to be changed.

Because the Google Map API uses keys tied to a specific folder, this plugin checks the current URL and only displays when it thinks it is there. If using URL rewriting, this means it will only display on the base blog page, or any page where the URL used is the old index.php?serendipity[subpage]=pagename syntax.

For example, the URL http://www.silent9.com/blog/index.php?serendipity[subpage]=BeamMax can display the map, but the same page at http://www.silent9.com/blog/pages/BeamMax.html^[?] via URL rewriting will not. This is because I regestered to get my API key using http://www.silent9.com/blog/ and the later example looks to the Google Map server as residing in /blog/pages/, not /blog/. The plugin tries to filter for page URLs that agree with the registered blog root, to prevent a the popup that otherwise is generated.

To get your own API Key, you need to have a google account (gmail, e.g.) and go here to request one. If you need a gmail account, let me know and I'll email you an invite (I've still got 50).

Add the plugin in the usual way to get to the config screen (at left, click to get a larger view) and put in the API Key. The remainder of the defaults should be OK to get started.

You can find it in the Download section here.

Any question, use the Contact Me form.