Tutorial: How to embed an interactive map in your post
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:54 pmThanks to Matt for making this possible.
First I am going to show you an interactive map and then I will show you how to add similar maps to your own posts.
This map is for part of the Cloud Peak Wilderness in Wyoming. The map is ‘live’. You can pan, zoom, right-click and play with the buttons in the upper right corner.
Instructions for adding an interactive map to your post:
1. Paste this line into your draft post where you want the map to appear:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?ll=_____________
2. Replace the underline with the latitude,longitude for the center of your map
3. Highlight the entire Gmap4 line
4. Click the new “iframe” button. Make sure you do not have a carriage return in between the Gmap4 URL and second iframe code.
5. Click the preview button
You should see your map in the preview pane.
Note: The latitude,longitude must be in decimal degrees and be based on the WGS84 datum. In North and South America the longitude has a minus sign. South of the equator, the latitude has a minus sign.
Fine tune your map
6. By default, the Google Terrain view is displayed. This works worldwide. If your map is for anyplace in the USA or Canada then you can add &t=t2 to the Gmap4 URL and your map will display detailed topographic maps when it opens. These maps are courtesy of the MyTopo Company. Be careful to not let any spaces get into the URL.
7. By default, maps will open at zoom level 15. To override that default, add &z=14 or &z=13 etc to the Gmap4 URL.
8. Do you want to display your GPS track on the map? Here’s the code:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=http://_____________
Just replace the underline with the URL for your file.
Note: The URL for your file cannot include spaces, question marks, or special characters.
For more examples showing how to use the Gmap4 URL parameters please see:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4_examples.html
and the Gmap4 ‘Help’ file:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4_help.pdf
9. Do you want to display markers on the map that will show a photo when the marker is clicked? You will need to use a KML data file. The Appendix of the Gmap4 ‘Help’ pdf file has links to template KML files that I made. You can copy those files and plug in your own data. Information in the Gmap4 ‘Help’ file combined with comments in the KML template files is all you need to start making maps that display KML files.
For more information about Gmap4 please see the homepage and click ‘Examples’ for a quick tour.
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.html
See also this Gmap4 thread:
http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=696113
Enjoy,
Joseph
First I am going to show you an interactive map and then I will show you how to add similar maps to your own posts.
This map is for part of the Cloud Peak Wilderness in Wyoming. The map is ‘live’. You can pan, zoom, right-click and play with the buttons in the upper right corner.
Instructions for adding an interactive map to your post:
1. Paste this line into your draft post where you want the map to appear:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?ll=_____________
2. Replace the underline with the latitude,longitude for the center of your map
3. Highlight the entire Gmap4 line
4. Click the new “iframe” button. Make sure you do not have a carriage return in between the Gmap4 URL and second iframe code.
5. Click the preview button
You should see your map in the preview pane.
Note: The latitude,longitude must be in decimal degrees and be based on the WGS84 datum. In North and South America the longitude has a minus sign. South of the equator, the latitude has a minus sign.
Fine tune your map
6. By default, the Google Terrain view is displayed. This works worldwide. If your map is for anyplace in the USA or Canada then you can add &t=t2 to the Gmap4 URL and your map will display detailed topographic maps when it opens. These maps are courtesy of the MyTopo Company. Be careful to not let any spaces get into the URL.
7. By default, maps will open at zoom level 15. To override that default, add &z=14 or &z=13 etc to the Gmap4 URL.
8. Do you want to display your GPS track on the map? Here’s the code:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=http://_____________
Just replace the underline with the URL for your file.
Note: The URL for your file cannot include spaces, question marks, or special characters.
For more examples showing how to use the Gmap4 URL parameters please see:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4_examples.html
and the Gmap4 ‘Help’ file:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4_help.pdf
9. Do you want to display markers on the map that will show a photo when the marker is clicked? You will need to use a KML data file. The Appendix of the Gmap4 ‘Help’ pdf file has links to template KML files that I made. You can copy those files and plug in your own data. Information in the Gmap4 ‘Help’ file combined with comments in the KML template files is all you need to start making maps that display KML files.
For more information about Gmap4 please see the homepage and click ‘Examples’ for a quick tour.
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.html
See also this Gmap4 thread:
http://www.summitpost.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=696113
Enjoy,
Joseph