SmartGWT and maps

[mathias]

Hello fellas,

our SmartGWT app is using quite a lot of maps. Since there's no built-in support for maps in SmartGWT, we're using a third-party library (branflake maps) which is a wrapper on top of the Google maps v3 javascript library, and we've written components to make it play nice.

This works fine, however:

1. it's an unmaintained library and haven't been updated in like 100 years.
2. It's using an outdated version of google maps.
3. I'm afraid it will stop working...

I am pretty bad at the whole jsni-wrapper thing (one of the reasons i went with smartgwt in the first place!). I am sure i could do my own wrapper library, but i imagine it would take me a lot of time.

My question is basically, since i've seen some other maps-related questions on this forum - have you guys considered having some rudimentary maps support in SmartGWT, Google, Bing, OpenStreetMap or similar?

[Blama]

Hi all,

I gave the Branflake Maps API a try as well, but could not get it running.
I definitely would like native SmartGWT support as well.
mathias: Can you share your implementation and pitfalls you noticed here? I did see your thread and others here, but these are more problem-related.

Best regards
Blama

[mathias]

Absolutely, i have it running since several years, it did take quite some tinkering :) Drop me a mess. Glad to hear support for a widget!

[Isomorphic]

This is a tricky on for us - most enterprise apps don't require a maps component, but some that do use it very intensively and require rich functionality, and the API has been a bit of a moving target over the years.

Rather than a full component, something like a sample or wiki article showing integration with the best-in-class third-party component could make sense here. Is the Branflakes maps what you two would consider the best? You mention it uses an obsolete version of Google Maps and is itself not well-maintained.

[Blama]

Hi Isomorphic,

thanks for the fast answer. I can't really answer here as I only tried that library and only for two days and without real success (map did come up, but only the 1st map I created).
What annoyed me most when using that library was that I (still on Development Mode, not Super Dev Mode) had to restart Development Mode for any 1-char change when using a certain class from the package, so I'm not sure that this one is best-in-class, but I also did not try any other one.
Perhaps mathias has more input.

I agree that a sample/best practice in the wiki like e.g. the one for relogin would most likely help already.

Best regards
Blama

[mathias]

There are a couple of different libraries historically. Google had a component for the old 2X version of the javascript google maps api.
When v3 was announced, they briefly had an alpha version out for GWT, but it was not updated and is now removed. (Today, the official Google GWT page make no mention at all of maps - in the past they had a maps example)

A couple of tinkerers have made different versions in the past, none are maintained, nor as complete as the Branflake one. This has worked really well in the past, and has had extensive usage, and is the one i am using. However, since he joined Sencha, there has been no updates... (outside of Sencha's map component of course)

There are also a couple of libraries that use openstreetmap, but again none in better shape than the unmaintained Branflake one.

One final thing regarding branlake maps;

There are a couple of outstanding pull requests with a lot of bug fixes on the GitHub repo. I have not incorporated them myself, i am using the latest alpha release. I have a long-standing internal todo to fork it myself since it's not maintained, but i had somewhere hoped that something would eventually come from Isomorphic... :)

So yeah, Branflake is the "best" one to look at.


There are tons of other things to think about, regarding maps api/public downloads, limits to map views, licensing (Google), nested component and resizing issues, rendering issues in different browsers etc etc. but let's save that for another day...

[mathias]

On this topic: I am very happy to share knowledge, code, thoughts help etc. if it means some sort of iso-support! Since you can look at the sourcecode for branflake, i'd imagine it shouldn't be extremely hard? (just a thought!)

[Isomorphic]

As we have not looked at the Branflakes map component, yes, sharing technical information on your approach and whatever hurdles you faced (as Blama already asked) would make it more likely that Isomorphic would provide a standard wiki article or sample, as well as, obviously, benefitting anyone who finds this thread.

[Blama]

Hi mathias,

could you share some insights here, so that Isomorphic might create a sample / wiki entry for this?
It's not important for me right now, but a really cool feature I'd like to implement.

Thank you & Best regards
Blama