Maps plugin with a nice preview

As I mentioned in my last entry, the recent update to the Google Maps static API menas that finally it was time to release the new version. As you can see in the version log the feature to use a preview inside the editor was added some months ago, but it only worked for hybrid maps, it was slightly confusing, so in order to avoid wasting the time replying over and over again (yes, there is people that doesn't read the docs and even ask how to install this plugin) I decided to not release it except for the people that had cooperated in its development.

There's still a difference between the final map and the preview: the static api doesn't allow to use encoded (compressed) paths, so until they fix this issue the path won't be shown. Yes, I could get the points and generate the path, but I think that it's more work that it is worth, after all this is just a preview inside the editor

Check it in the demo and upgrade your version, it's a drop in replacement.

The static GoogleMaps now allow to use all the map types

We have been waiting for it since it was launched, and now finally they have allowed to use all the map types with the static API.

I guess that means that I finally should release a new version of the GoogleMaps plugin :-)

Not a review of IE8beta2

Everybody will offer you a review of the new beta 2 of Internet Explorer, so I won't bother to do it as you won't read it ;-)

Instead I'll just point out that in a 5 minutes test drive I was able to make it crash constantly, so I've created a simplified testcase and filed a bug in the MS Connect.

I'm not sure about what to expect here from MS. On one hand every crasher should be taken seriously, the tab crash restoration system is very good, but anyway it's a really unexpected situation that should be handled better. I don't think that they have announced the plans for the next version, would it be a Beta3 or RC1 ?

Releasing another beta makes sense because although there have been lots of improvements in this version, it still have lots of thing to polish, opacity isn't supported, dynamic VML doesn't work, there are a bunch of crash reports. I'm not sure that many developers are going to adjust their sites at the moment in this state of things, so it won't be tested properly and there might be still some other issues that are not gonna be known. A RC should be something that can safely be renamed as the final version because all the work that it's planned has been done and there are no big issues pending, and I'm a little sceptical that they can manage to fix all the big issues without another public beta in order to test that they have been fixed and nothing new has been introduced.

For example, the editing part wasn't ready for Beta1, this new version works quite better in FCKeditor, but even using the latest nightly if you try to insert a table it's done at the start of the content, (I guess that it will fail also with other elements, but I haven't done too much research about it), and the fact is that many times the errors can't be discovered just in one session. Some parts are clear and can be tested very easily, but other times it's the interaction between some elements the one that can trigger the problem.

Another example is the wrong dimensions for the content of the dialogs, seems related to the overflow:hidden in the body of the content, but why does it affect it that way, and sometimes it's displayed properly and then it goes wrong?

Trying to apply patches in FCKeditor for a beta that might change in drastic ways for the next release doesn't make sense, what we need are nightly builds of IE8 and more detailed info about the problems that they are working on. Yes, mark as invalid any ticket in Connect regarding new features, just give as a IE8 that does work at least as well as IE7 and that aims to be as good as the rest of the browsers.

 

Write Area: It's Alive

Finally, after waiting for almost three months since the release of version 0.7 , the extension has been approved in AMO and you can install it in Firefox without the need to be registered!!!.

Wow, I didn't thought that it would take that long since I created the first prototype at the end of 2007. The code itself didn't take too long, there were only a few problems due to the restrictions of being in chrome and a few differences (one problem that still remains is the fact that no tooltip is shown in the toolbar icons, I still haven't tried to find out if it's just a bug or there is some workaround that doesn't means rewritting the toolbar with XUL.

One interesting fact about running inside chrome (besides the fact that the clipboard buttons work without the need of any other special setting) is that images from the clipboard can be pasted inside the content.

Yes, that means that if you have a document with some images inside and try to paste it inside Write Area, those images will be shown while you are editing (trying to do it in any other site won't show anything because it's using a path to your computer). But when you press the save button the images will remain in your Hard Disk, and they won't be shown in the final web.

But let's think about it: Write Area is running as an extension, it has the ability to read local files, so that means that when the Save button is pushed, I can check if there's any image in the content that it's pointing to the local disk, and send it to a web server, get the proper path to use that image and replace the original reference with this one.

Interesting...

It needs a little coding and a way to know where to send the pasted files.

Wouldn't it be really nice? You just write your content, prepare any screenshot and paste directly there, and when you press Save everything is uploaded (or maybe even after pasting, the file is automatically uploaded while you keep on writing)

Ok, let's not digress any longer and install Write Area right now!

FckGoogleMaps is dead. Long live FCKMaps

It might take still a while to have everything finished, but I've started to code the changes necessary to be able to use not only the Google Maps, but also the MS Virtual Earth is starting to work at the moment, and probably I will add also support for Yahoo Maps.

I'm a little disappointed, specially the quality of Yahoo maps outside USA seems quite poor, Virtual Earth also lacks somehow in the quality of the images, although the Bird's eye view is very good.

Anyway, I'll keep on coding at least the MS version and then I'll see the outcome and if I'm still willing to continue with the Yahoo maps.

Next version of the GoogleMaps plugin

Lately I've worked to do some improvements in the Google Maps plugin, you can already check the current status in the live demo.

One of the new features is that now the map remembers the type of map that has been selected, and now it's possible to select also the Terrain view. I guess that this isn't anything special, some might even wonder why I didn't add it earlier, but there are so many things to do that I just can't afford them all.

A more interesting change (mainly due to the opportunities that it can offer) is the usage of the Static maps. When you add a map you'll no longer see the white area with the Google logo, instead it will show a preview of the map. I haven't added the markers of polyline to the static map, and that's because I'm not fully satisfied with the current status.

First, it isn't possible to select the type of map, so the user will think that I'm gonna generate a wrong map because they see the map view instead of satellite as they have selected.

And the second problem is that the generated images can't be any larger than 512x512, so if I try to request a preview for a map of 600x400 Google sends an error message. In the end I've checked the dimensions of the map and restricted them in the static preview to those 512x512, so the image will be shown distorted, but at least the user won't see a X.

If those problems are solved (I think that only Google can provide a fix, I don't foresee any workaround), I have some other nice ideas (mainly one: load just a image and then the rest of the JS API on demand), but I don't see any reason to start coding them if people will complain that they won't work correctly.

The last important change for the FCKeditor plugin (besides some bug fixes related to the comments in the markers) is an idea from Enrico Danilo Visciola, allowing to have 2 different API Keys, and even asking to the user in the moment what's the key that they want to use. Based on this change I think that it will be possible to include the plugin inside the Write Area extension and as long as the web where you are using it doesn't filter out javascript you'll be able to include GoogleMaps with a few clicks.

Of course, there are many other things waiting to be done, if you want to sponsor some development just contact me, or if you want to cooperate with some code I will be grateful for your contribution.

WriteArea 0.7 and GeckoSpellChecker extension

Finally, now that the RC1 for Firefox 3 has been released I've uploaded a new version of WriteArea updated to the current nightly and have requested its approval so it's no longer necessary to be registered in order to install it.

With this release I've updated from the 2.5 series to the new FCKeditor 2.6, meaning that the dialogs are now inline, but when they are used inside chrome they show a Firefox 2 bug, meaning that the content isn't blocked while the dialog is active, but everything works fine in Firefox 3.

Now there's another incentive to install this version of the extension, and it's a plugin that I have mentioned previously: the GeckoSpellChecker that integrates the spelling into the normal context menu.

You can see how it's shown in this screenshot:

but I would really encourage you to install the WriteArea 0.7 and then check it live in the playground.