SomPost

A few days ago, MSN have launched their own interactive Mapplication called MSN Virtual Earth. It looks pretty cool, and they have a few nifty features (and more in the pipeline, as I have heard somewhere). The world isn't totally mapped in full detail yet but Google Maps' wasn't initially either. At least, MSN admits that it's there. Remember, Google Maps used to be consistent with the typical (US-)American's world view: there's the USA and not much else.

Anyway, as I did when Google Maps was still young and interesting :-) I have provided here a pretty-printed listing of the JavaScript code of Virtual Earth (the user interface elements are in a different script, that I'm going to upload shortly).

And now for today's piece of unsolicited trivia: The first interactive client-based AJAX Mapplication wasn't Google Map but map.search.ch which was online for at least 2 years. It's still the best.

And now for tomorrow's piece of unsolicited trivia, today: The first interactive client-based AJAX Application wasn't Google's GMail -- or above map.search.ch for that matter -- but MSDN's lefthand side navigation bar.

And now for the buy-2-get-1-free piece of unsolicited trivia: Microsoft invented AJAX.

Google are apparently using a new JavaScript code version for their Google Mapplication (now maps.3.js), and so do I here. I'm not through yet with de-obfuscation because my simple script has small but irritating difficulties with certain obfuscated names. As the saying goes: Make it as simple as possible, but not stupid!

By the way, based on the listings on this site, someone provided a quite helpful Google Maps Classes and Functions Reference with a cross-reference list. Check it out!

The Google Maps JavaScript code listed here now uses InScript(tm) code listing enhancer technology :-) to list global variables, functions, and classes (including "static" and "virtual" methods) in a separate view. It works both in IE and Firefox. Not that anyone asked for it.

"Is there anybody out there?" Pink Floyd, The Wall

Apparently, Google have updated the code that runs the UI of their Google "Mapplication" (it's now maps.2.js). Accordingly, I have also uploaded a new "How do they do it"-version here, again color-coded and partially de-obfuscated. There are no comments yet, because the conversion process is only three-quarter-automatic. But who wants comments, anyway. After all, if the code was hard to write (for Google) it should be hard to understand (for you).

A few days ago Google launched their online map service (Google Maps). It's still beta (they have a lot of stuff provisio-permanently in beta, come to think of it...) but it already looks quite impressive. The user interface has a very sleek look & feel and is completely client-based.

How do they do it, then? The short answer is: see for yourself! For the benefit of those who would like to know I've posted a (sparsely) commented and (partially) de-obfuscated listing of the JavaScript code that drives the UI. A first shot, anyway. I hope they (Google) don't mind.

I'll add stuff as necessary, if I find time, but for now it must suffice.