Google Maps com & plug-in

I just installed the Google Maps com and plug-in. I love them! And even better, my users love them! I have two sites for extended family members to keep in touch, and this is the perfect feature for these sites.

I have a few questions I hope someone can answer.

1. I was having trouble getting the XML file to update itself after a user's profile was updated, so I set the auto-update ("minutes between XML caching") to 10 minutes. It seems to be working better now, but the readme file for google maps seemed to indicate that it might not be a good idea to do this. Does anyone know anything about what might go wrong here?

2. Is it okay to unpublish the CB tab for the geocoder, as long as I leave the geocoder CB plugin published? That tab simply confuses my users when they go in to edit their own profiles, and it's better for them not to have a tab that they don't know what to do with. I have the "automatically geocode" set to "yes", and that is working fine - it is placing my users on the map after they update their address in their profiles, just the way it should, so there is really no reason for them to have to manually change the geocoding.

3. Does anyone know a way to put a "get directions" link or feature on the map page?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Post edited by: joanie57, at: 2007/06/30 22:48

Where can I get the Google Maps com you mentioned? I've been looking for a com with good CB integration.

Thanks!

You can get the component HERE

and the plug-in for CB HERE

Thank you!

I'm adding another question to my own thread so it bumps to the top...

The Google maps component and plug-ins are working fine - no problems with the questions I mentioned in the first post here. New members (users) are showing up automatically on the map without my having to manually force an XML rebuild, and there seems to be no problem with not showing the geocoder tab on the profile.

Now I have a new question. Does anyone know how to change the sort order on the sidebar? It is listing my users in the order they registered (i.e., by user ID number). That was not a problem when there were only a handful of users on the map, but as it is becoming populated, I can see a problem developing. Is there any way to change it so the users are listed alphabetically by name, user name, or optimally - last name, first name? (Since this is an extended-family site, a lot of my users have the same last name)

I think I could go in and edit the XML file every time a user is added (edit it to move the members around to put the users in the desired order), but I'm not sure if that would cause a problem or not, and I didn't want to risk messing the whole thing up since it is working so well.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Post edited by: joanie57, at: 2007/07/06 15:07