Note: Unless you’re a website designer, this probably won’t mean a lot to you!
Need to find out your ‘GLatLng’ settings for a custom Google Maps implementation? The code looks something like this…
“function load() {
if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) {
var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById(”map”));
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.4419, -122.1419), 13);
var gIcons = [];
map.addControl(new GSmallMapControl());
map.addControl(new GMapTypeControl());
map.openInfoWindow(map.getCenter(),
document.createTextNode(”Where I want to be”));
}
}”
The trouble is, by default it is pointed to Santa Paula or similar and you can’t use a UK postcode or similar to centre the map where you want it. You need the true Latitude and Longitude figures which are often a little hard to come by. Michelin to the rescue…
Head over to the Via Michelin website: http://www.viamichelin.co.uk/viamichelin/gbr/tpl/hme/MaHomePage.htm
1. Choose your country
2. Enter the postcode
3. From the resultant window on the left, choose the ‘Send via GPS’ option
4. Choose ‘Garmin’ for the GPS type
5. Name the file in the next box (e.g. ‘test’) and click ‘OK’
6. Save the file produced to your desktop
7. Open the *.gpx you just saved in Textedit (Mac) or Editplus (win) or similar and look for the latitude and longitude numbers. They will be near the bottom and look something like:
8. In your web code, replace the default longitude and latitude settings with those in the file. However, Google only excepts values to 4 decimal places so make ‘53.4776593′ into ‘53.4776′ and also remember that the longitude will have a ‘+’ or ‘-’ before it - don’t forget that.
9. Save and upload your amended web file and you should be centred exactly where you want to be.
