If ever there were something that needed simplifying, it’s the Google Maps API. To quote Mike Williams:

Using the Google Map API is not easy if you don’t have much Javascript experience.

If you find the Google documentation too difficult to understand, it’s not because it’s badly written it’s just that the subject is not easy.

Well, that stinks.

Thankfully, there are a few tutorials out there that make life with Google Maps a little easier to handle. I’ll just cover two of them here, because quite frankly, I still need to learn a lot more to understand the other things out there that are available. (Like KML from Google Earth, for instance.)

Using Phoogle to map the Google (Ed. Note: Easier Google Map)

The guys at NETTUTS.com have created two different tutorials about using Google Maps, and they are both very easy to understand and implement.

The first was How to Create a Mashup by Combining 3 Different APIs

This tutorial came in handy because I was searching for a good way to integrate a Google Map into a client’s website without pulling my hair out. I’m glad I subscribe to their RSS feeds, because it was a lifesaver.

They show you how to use the Phoogle Maps v2.03 PHP class to automatically create a map using a simple array that lists the values that you need to map. Since I already had these values mapped to variables, it was a piece of cake to implement.

Using Google to map the Google (ED. Note: Harder Google Map, but more extensible)

Their second tutorial, This is How You Use the Google Maps API – screencast, was created to make more sense of the Google API, using the standard Google API methods. It’s more intense, from a programming standpoint, because you need to have more things created manually, but you can have a lot more flexibility, i.e., complexity, if you so choose.

I’m working from this one currently, because I have a project that requires more extensive overlays than are available through the Phoogle PHP class. Territory Central will be my place to create and store information for/about different areas or territories used by people doing regional sales or other territory-based activities. It’s not fancy at all, but it’s a start

As soon as I get it completed, I’ll post a tutorial on how I got it to work.

Cheers!