Product Description There is much to like about this book. The explanations are straightforward, the code is readable, the examples are relevant, and the writing style is approachable. — Michael J. Ross, Web developer/Slashdot contributor Until recently, building interactive web-based mapping applications has been a cumbersome affair. This changed when Google released its powerful Maps API. Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax was written to help you take advantage of this technology in your own endeavorswhether you’re an enthusiast playing for fun or a professional building for profit. This book covers version 2 of the API, including Google’s new Geocoding service. Authors Jeffrey Sambells, Cameron Turner, and Michael Purvis get rolling with examples that require hardly any code at all, but you’ll quickly become acquainted with many facets of the Maps API. They demonstrate powerful methods for simultaneously plotting large data sets, creating your own map overlays, and harvesting and geocoding sets of addresses. You’ll see how to set up alternative tile sets and where to access imagery to use for them. The authors even show you how to build your own geocoder from scratch, for those high-volume batch jobs. As well as providing hands-on examples of real mapping projects, this book supplies a complete reference for the Maps API, along with the relevant aspects of JavaScript, CSS, PHP, and SQL. Visit the authors’ website for additional tips and advice.
Details
- ISBN13: 9781590597071
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Beginning Google Maps Applications with PHP and Ajax: From Novice to Professional
Average Ratings 4.5 out of 5
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{ 5 comments }
I found this book to be very readable and easy to follow. It doesn’t just rehash old ideas but gives new ways to do things with clean code. I am a beginner in maps and have got so much out of this book already.
Rating: 5 / 5
I am a fairly inexperienced, self taught programmer. I bought the book partly due to the fact that it had “beginning” in the title.
The code that is used in the book is not laid out very well. There are parts of the code that they don’t explain (such as what apikey. php is) until you go and find out on their website what it means.
They are also very inconsistent. Sometimes they used apikey. php and sometimes they didn’t. Going through the examples they use the same file names for different examples so you don’t know if you are suppose to use the old files from the previous examples or not.
Even after I got all of the files that I needed for the tile overlay example it failed on me. This is after spending 3 hours reconstructing the MySQL table (which I didn’t care about) because that information wasn’t provided with the tile overlay example. After doing all of that work and using their unmodified code (except to change my database logins and api key) the code didn’t work. And it failed BEFORE it even got to the MySQL database which means all that work I spent was for naught.
The authors suggest that you can email them (and I did a couple times) and they will get back to you. Its been several months and I still haven’t heard back from any of them. The questions were about problems using their unmodified code.
This book may be good if you have some experience with coding. But on the other hand if that is the case there really isn’t any need to buy the book.
Rating: 2 / 5
This book has a lot of very practical examples. With this book and the API docs you can make just about anything you like. Good, clear code and comments. Get this book if you want to make Google Maps.
Rating: 5 / 5
Wow and Kool are the first words that come to mind after reading just the Into and Chapter 1.
As a Web Programming Instructor, I am always searching for easy ways to get my students motivated. Page 2 of Chapter 1 shows an XML and XHTML strict – but the code is so straight forward – that you are not in the least intimidated with the strict XHTML. To find something students can relate to that gives a solid example of two abstract things – is great. There is nothing to be intimidated with, the explanations are clear and the web site – give corrections. Each chapter offers a lot fore each level user.
Chapter 1 is fun for a wide range of web skills: Web Development, Digital Photographers, Digital Imaging, and more advanced.
Chapter 2 – gives the JavaScript, XHTML developer’s lots of detail on what is going on in the script. Each exercise builds on the previous one, until by the end of the chapter you have a robust program, you can use immediately.
Chapter 3 – adds user input, it begins the discussion of adding to a Database & Ajax. You have a dialog wit the authors of why they did what they did – it’s insight to working with a database. The chapters keep getting richer and draw you in. You hate to put it down!
Appendix B has a generous 28 page summary of the important API commands, making learning Google Maps API easier.
I am adding this to my Reference Book list
and it will defiantly be a required reading for Advanced PHP classes.
Jil MacMenamin
http://JilMac. com
Rating: 5 / 5
This book is very well written. Very concise, clear and focused in the real world problems and solutions. Following the advices and codes of the book, you will can afford most of your google maps projects knowing exactly what to do, and how to do it. I specially find very interesting the chapter dedicated to how to code a map with multitude of markers. Very clarifying.
Must have-read book if you are working in a Google Maps project.
Rating: 4 / 5
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