When using the API the images in some situations are outdated compared to what is provided in the public Google Maps interface.
Is there anything we can do about this?
Regards
Jeremy
No, there isn't anything you can do about that, other than possibly to select different versions of the Maps API or to select the "visual refresh" in the API.
The Maps API and the Google Maps site don't use the same map tiles and imagery. Much is common between the two, and they tend to sync up over time, but it will always vary as new releases of each come out.
Related
I wish to use the results of the Google translation that results from right clicking on a web page in Chrome, as opposed to using the API. These results I will use as part of a web language learning tool. I have read this page: https://cloud.google.com/translate/attribution about adding a logo, and have also read the HTML markup requirements at https://cloud.google.com/translate/markup.
My question is as these terms and conditions pages are referring to the API, do they also apply to using the translation results of using the Chrome menu item? I could use the API but this is much simpler for my temporary need.
Yes, when you're using the Google Translate Tool in a page by using the right-click, you can see that it send a request to the Google Translate API.
In definition, you have to add Google Attribution.
I guess for a personal website or non-commercial use it might not be that big of an issue but still, it will avoid future ones.
I have been searching around to find out anything that needs to be taken into consideration when upgrading to Universal Analytics.
I found this post:
Google Analytics - Upgrading to Async Code
He explains that if you are not doing anything advanced you should be ok. We have lots of event tracking in place that we would like to keep the same. We also have some Custom Variables I could do without and/or deal with in Custom Dimensions.
Other than that we have a fairly basic setup.
We do have a "keep alive" event in place also that helps determine an accurate time on site.
Another really important question has everything to do with being able to transistion from Classic analytics to Universal. Is this possible? I found an article that said it wasn't but that article was a couple months old and not sure if its still true.
Thoughts?
Universal Analytics is Google's newest tracking code. It is currently in beta phase, so you may want to hold off on it, depending on your resources... In principle it works more or less the same way as the async code. Here are the major points about it:
The syntax is different. All config/tracking is done by making a call to ga()
Some of the "config" arguments for things have been moved to the GA interface. For example, names and scope for custom variables are no longer passed as arguments on-page. They are now done within the GA interface. Actually to be more accurate, custom variables no longer exist. Google now has custom dimensions and metrics as a replacement. Custom dimensions are the closest translation to custom variables (they are pretty much the same in principle). Custom metrics are some kind of mix between dimensions and events.
Google currently does NOT offer a way to upgrade your profile(s)/account(s) to Universal Analytics style. In order to use Universal Analytics, you have to create a new account or profile. If you want to try Universal Analytics out, Google currently recommends implementing it along side the traditional or async version you already have implemented.
Google has not currently officially stated when or if they will provide a means to migrate existing profiles, though I personally think they eventually will, since preserving historical data and reducing time and costs associated with migrating is a huge concern to everybody.
In addition to #Crayon-Violent's answer, be aware that the current Core Reporting API (v3) doesn't support retrieving custom dimension/metric data.
This month Google anounced that classical analytics properties can be upgraded to Universal without any data loss.
Universal Analytics is a set of technological innovations that improve
the way data is collected and processed in Google Analytics. The
Universal Analytics Upgrade is a process you can use to upgrade all of
your classic Google Analytics properties into Universal Analytics
properties without losing any data or changing your account settings.
All Google Analytics properties will soon be required to use Universal
Analytics. Any properties that don’t follow the upgrade process will
be auto-transferred to Universal Analytics in the future.
You can upgrade your analytics property from analytics admin panel. https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/upgrade/
In case of upgrade problems you can refer to Google group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ua-upgrade
I recently inherited a project loaded with Google Analytics and I had never worked with them before. The code migration to Universal Analytics was straightforward with the exception of moving from Custom Vars to Dimensions. Google's documentation does little to highlight this.
After some digging around I found a couple of things that I think may help others that are migrating:
1) Set up or edit custom dimensions & metrics
Note that when you set up the Dimensions you are provided with code snippets that you can copy & paste into your project.
2) How to use the code to send custom dimensions & metrics
This docmentation will help you understand the provided code snippets and learn how to better work with them.
I hope this info spares others some of the pain that I experienced going through this.
I've created a plugin like jQuery Migrate to backward compatibilty of eventTracking and other features.
Allow developers to migrate old methods _gaq.push() to ga() object.
https://github.com/empiricompany/universal-analytics-migrate
We are creating a website for motorbike tours and would like our visitors to be able to enter a start and end location and have this update an embedded Google map on our own website, basically highlighting the best route. We'd like it to work exactly as the "Directions" feature on Google Maps works.
Is this possible? If so, how best to acheive this?
Also, we'd like to restrict the businesses and places of interest that appear on the map as some of them simply won't be relevant to our motorcycle audience. Is it possible to filter out businesses and places of interest and only display what we would like to display?
Really appreciate any advice that could be offered. Thank you.
Regards
Nath.
Yes you can there is already a post with a HTML example. There are limitations on how many requests can be performed in 1 day for free usage. Check the licensing information on the google site.
google maps plot route between two points
Surely you can.
Take a look here and here (the first is for javascript functionality, the second for server-side functionality through web services).
With these API you can show map, show pinned point on that and, using the direction API, you can also calculate the best route among other things.
About the businesses and places you want to show, you can use the places API. though I never used this one, so I can only suggest to have a look at the documetation.
At this point Google does not have a Google Earth plugin API for the flash player. I would still like to use GE in my AIR(Flex) application though. Can I do this by using the HTML container? If not what is a possible solution?
You can't do Google Earth (unless you can use an iframe or something). Instead check out the 3D Google Maps examples in Tour de Flex and see if those might work for you.
you'd better have a look at this
I'm new to Google map api. My goal is to overlay a series of transparent PNGs over a map over a timespan.
I'm wondering if a purely javascript approach to this is a good start, or if it would be not too hard to do some code behind in asp.net
Also, I'm curious if either google map Api v2.x or v3.x is better suited to this task
You will need to do it in Javascript, unless you want to reload the page every second or so. (Which is a horrible idea).
You might as well use the latest version of the Google Maps API.
I recommend avoiding v3 for live sites until its syntax is more stable.
While it's a Google Labs project, Google's policy is that they can make changes to the syntax that will break existing pages with only a few months notice in the discussion group. A while ago they changed the names of all the get_ and set_ methods, and changed some of the event names.
Once the API goes out of Labs and into Beta you can expect Google to take care to preserve backward compatibility whenever they make syntax changes. If you use v3 for a live site while it's still in Labs you'll need to monitor the discussion group for announcements of changes that might break your page.