In last week's post, I described how my journey to build a better Google Map in FileMaker got started. Beginning with this post and the following, I'll be demonstrating and experimenting with several techniques for doing just that.

The first place to start would be to map a Single Address and place it into a Web Viewer without all the Google-centric navigation and UI that normally surrounds the map. Say it together now: "We can do better."

It's actually not that simple. We have to back up a couple steps and talk about how the Web Viewer works for a moment.

As promised last week, I'm continuing the discussion about Google Mapping in FileMaker.  As enticing as the title of this post is, I'm not discussing the origins on Google Maps (try the Google blog) but rather the origins of my use of it within FileMaker (that explains the asterisk in the title).

It wasn't like I'm the only one who's ever had this idea.  Heck, the FileMaker Web Viewer has a built-in calculation defined for Google Maps. Anybody ever use this:

"http://local.google.com/maps?" & "q=" & /*Address=*/ "" & "," & /*City=*/ "" & "," & /*State=*/ "" & "," & /*Zip Code=*/ "" & "," & /*Country=*/ ""

Show of hands?

Some time back (Sept. 2007) I wrote a couple of posts at fmCollective on using the Google Map API in FileMaker.  Back then, before I started the process, I thought it would be fairly easy.  You know, build the HTML and show it in a Web Viewer*.  Boy was I wrong...

In an earlier post, I cautioned against using FileMaker's ESS feature to bypass application logic in order to write to external SQL databases. This sort of begs the question: If you can't write to it directly, how are we doing any sort of interoperability between FileMaker, Drupal or other systems out there?

I'm starting to get excited about heading down to Baltimore in early December for The Association of Boarding Schools (TABS) annual conference. This year we decided not to take a booth in the exhibit hall, opting instead to be free to move around the conference without worrying about manning our post. This is a lot more flexible and hopefully it will provide more opportnities for conversations and introductions.