New Components - Yahoo! Maps API in pure ActionScript 3
DIGG IT!
28
Comments
Published
Monday, February 11, 2008
at
6:00 AM
.
This morning Yahoo! releases a new ActionScript API for Maps. Having worked with the API for the past few weeks it is a great component addition to both Flash and Flex. The key to this release is that the YMaps API integrates a complex set of services and controls that you can leverage in your applications for anything geo-releated in under 30Kb.
DOWNLOAD
Here are some of the key features:
Geocoding API - Turn a string address into coordinates (latlong)
Traffic - Get traffic
(NOTE: Seems directions didn't make final release. Will be added in a later release.)
Local Search - Search a map for points of interest
Widgets - Simple widgets to control the maps
1. import com.yahoo.maps.api.YahooMap;
2. var yahooMap:YahooMap = new YahooMap( "YOUR-APPID" , 300 , 300 );
3. this.addChild( yahooMap );
Yahoo Maps in AS3 has been the most requested component at Yahoo Developer Network for some time and it is great to see this release happen.
I can't wait to see how you integrate maps into your application targeting Adobe Flash Player or Adobe AIR runtimes.
Cheers,
Ted :)
Yeah ! That is the one I was waiting for !
Yeah - no bridging between HTML an Flex anymore :)
this is amazing!! You have no idea how happy I am at the moment :)
It doesn't seem to have the directions feature though...or am I overlooking something? :(
The driving directions are in there along with Traffic. See:
com.yahoo.maps.webservices.directions.DirectionsService
The team broke out services from the map tile engine.
Cheers,
Ted :)
Thanks Ted! Are they available for US only or around the world?
Hey everyone, unfortunately we had to take out the directions service in the initial release, however we are looking forward to adding it back in a later release. Stay tuned!
-zach g.
This is very nice.
Even better that Yahoo said no to Microsoft (for now) otherwise this would be a silverlight API:)
The more services we have available to Flex/Air developers the better. M$ is pushing their stuff very hard (now thru ms update).
Yayyyyyyyy!
This is great news and perfect timing for me. Now if only Yahoo Maps would get better local road data for other countries (Brazil for example)
Just when you think you can get some down time. Likely make something that i won't need any time soon, but what the hell.
Hey all,
Unfortunately we had to pull the directions package out for the initial release. Looking forward to adding it back in a future release. Stay tuned!
-Zach
Awesome news! Really looking forward to getting directions too!
Zach, the directions feature is the only one which seperates this components from other components like the google UMap from afcomponents. Why did you need to remove the package and for how long? I really need something like this for a project :)
Hi all!
What are the advantages ( or disadvantages ) over the google maps API? Why would you use one or the other?
Thanks~
Awesome! big thumbs up to Yahoo!
It's a shame Yahoo Maps doesn't have the same coverage as Google Maps outside the US. Being in Australia that's pretty much a deal breaker for my use of this library at this stage.
I think that in addition to all that Yahoo! has done recently, this has caused me to officially flip my position about major search engine companies:
Yahoo! has the greatest web application infrastructure today.
Google had a good web application infrastructure at one time.
Finally, Yahoo! is living up to the exclamation point in their name.
No good for Japanese. No support Japanese, useless Japan map, so far performance than Google Maps...
Check out ESRI AS3 mapping component - www.esri.com/flex
This is great! Really looking forward to use it!
While trying it I had the impression that the map was loading too much
data. If you start with a world view and start zooming to street level
it seems that the API keeps loading all tiles from each intermediate
zoom level, that I am not really seeing because I am zooming very
fast. I would expect that the API would cancel tiles loading that I am
not gonna view because I am already in another zoom level. So if as I
said, you start from a world view and click seven times in the zoom
you kind of get stucked waiting for intermediate tilesd to be loaded
before you get the actual ones you want to see.
This must also have huge impact in yahoo servers. For a simple zoom
I just downloaded 15 MB of data when I probably only
needed 2MB or less. I just looked at 2 different zoom levels. The
intermediate ones i did not have time to see them.
Yahoo Maps + Cocomo, oh My!
http://blogs.adobe.com/collabmethods/2008/02/yahoo_maps_cocomo_the_funness.html
A real-time-collaboration mashup w/ co-navigation of the map. Took a whole day since the map release, I must be slipping... :)
Anyone know how to programmatically change the map type? This code throws an error :s
http://pastebin.com/f4b1363ed
TypeError: Error #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference.
at com.yahoo.maps.api.core.tileengine::MapBase/set mapType()[/Users/zachg/Documents/yahoomaps/YahooMap/src/com/yahoo/maps/api/core/tileengine/MapBase.as:181]
at com.yahoo.maps.api::YahooMap/set mapType()[/Users/zachg/Documents/yahoomaps/YahooMap/src/com/yahoo/maps/api/YahooMap.as:830]
at Hopping/addMap()[C:\Users\Frederic\Desktop\Projecten\Hopping\src\Hopping.mxml:17]
same comment about tile loading...seems like an unoptimized way to do tile loading...in fact if you pan and zoom often...and switch from map to satellite, it causes the loading to freeze up.
performance-wise http://www.afcomponents.com/components/umap_as3/ seems much more responsive.
Where did the SWFMarker go where you can load in an animated marker? :(
I wonder if this feature works in addresses of Brazil?
As GoogleMaps Brazil
Does anyone implemented the "Callout Component" that is on the Adobe site into Yahoo Maps? http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/samples/fig_callout/
Hope someone can point out where to start!! Thanks!
Mike
Awesome! Nice to know the API uses NavTeq data source instead of TeleAtlas data source. Just to let you know, the other popular map API uses TeleAtlas data source. Big deal? Yes, if you want accurate maps with accurate driving directions, then use NavTeq data source especially in North America. Some of the new streets over 2 years old do not exist on the TeleAtlas data source.
So...when are directions coming? It's kind of a big thing to not have in the API.