PrintGoogle provides web developers with a number of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for building geospatial applications. The most commonly used API (the JavaScript-based Maps API) is the one that we'll be learning about during this course. However, you should make a mental note of the other APIs that are available: two for developing native apps on mobile devices (one for Android phones and the other for iOS), and a set of location-based web services (e.g., the Elevation and Time Zone APIs).
The Google Maps JavaScript API home page [https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/] is composed of 5 tabs:
- Overview: shows demos of the API's capabilities
- Guides: provides a high-level overview of various API concepts. This course will cover a lot of these same concepts, though you may find it worthwhile to use Google's Guide pages as a supplement to what you read here or to explore topics we don't cover.
- Reference: the place to go to obtain detailed information on the usage of the object classes built into the API.
- Samples: go here to find code examples in categories such as Basics, Controls, Drawing on the Map, etc.
- Support: provides a link to Stack Overflow's questions related to the Google Maps API and to a list of known API bugs
- Tutorials: self-explanatory
Now that we've seen where Google Maps developers go for information about the API, let's begin developing our own maps.