Hi all - thank you to EVERYONE involved in making this component happen - it's so smart!

It was quick and easy to install and is quickly becoming a key part of my new web site

For some reason the latitude coordinates are not going into the database, so I'm having to insert these directly into the database.

Other than that, the XML side of things is a LITTLE fiddly, but here are the key URLs that have made this an easier job for me:

* www.YOURSITE.com/components/com_google_maps/google_maps.xml (Check your XML!!!!)

* www.YOURSITE.com/index.php?option=com_google_maps&task=xml (run this after you make any major changes / add a lot of data)

* www.YOURSITE.com/index.php?option=com_google_maps (see the magic!)

Getting the Google API key took seconds and since then I've bee adding data to the database like there's no tomorrow (and I've got a full day's work ahead of me!)

Thanks again - really appreciate your efforts...

Oh, I don't like the admin ads though :(

All the best, Coos

While this is a good API, I really have to disapprove of the ads in the background. To the author: It's also a violation of the Google Terms of Service. Someone at Google is eventually going to notice this - especially as the new TOS points it out.

Great component! when a version for joomla 1.5 native?

Easy to install, easy to configure, easy to use! If you need a map to your location, this is a great tool!
Great job! Thank you

I cant say i know exactly what all i did to make it work. But apparently there directions were good enough. The ads on the admin side are no bother to me.

It doesnt seem to come designed to allow link backs to member profiles from their popup over the marker for each member. Perhaps i just missed it though.

Its great, but I am confused and there no forum I could find for help. The API key and the map work wonderful. But My info bubble is empty and I when I put the code for the directions they show, but then Google is confused and wrong.

So I am dissapointed, I looked at all the Google Maps and all of them are so confusing and dont work right. I like this the best becasue it set up in 10 minutes.. and does technicaly work.

Component works great, there is just one thing....
If you have two categories and one marker in each category points near the same location, you can't choose the market to be on top (layer)

If anyone have found a workaround for this I'll be happy to know about it.

Wow! Took me about 5 minutes to have exactly what I needed, just a simple Google map to my location.

I definitely recommend this extension to anyone looking for a very simple, easily customizable mapping solution.

I feel that I do a good job of supporting open source software providers. I donate what I can, where I can ... but this is just silly. Where does the author get off be 'sneaking' google ads in to my back end..? The back end of my site should be a secure environment that I CONTROL. I feel that this is an abuse of my trust by the author. As an end user, I'm placing a lot of trust in the authors to not do un-authorized activities on my site/server. I now have an un-authorized third party (google) in the admin section of my site. Is this really fair...? This is too much of a price to pay for this plug-in. Too bad, it looked good.

This component is extremely powerful in what it can do. It is much more powerful than I first thought.
As a note about the other comments, I wouldn't worry about the Google Ads in the admin section. It isn't a good idea, I agree. However, if you're site is setup properly and you don't use easy to guess passwords it's as secure as any other site on the internet. Also if you'll look at all the adds, they are extremely generic, since Google can't login to your admin site to see what kind of adds it should suggest.
As for the product and its capabilities, it so far appears to be able to do almost all of what the Google API from Google documents. The only two things that I can see as needing improvement is more documentation, that would be able to help to newbie, but the component has sufficient already if you know about XML and Joomla. The last thing is something that I am looking into now with the author and that is that it doesn't appear to obey the Joomla Access controls (Public, Registered, Special). This however, may be due to a specific setting that I chose to use, so don't judge the component, by this just yet. More to follow on that.
However, truly deserving of the Excellent rating I gave it. Most all problems with it are actually problems with Google's interaction with Internet Explorer and not due to anything this component is doing. Those problems can be duplicated with the actual Google API and IE, so it's proof that the component isn't the problem. By the way, it's usually be a refresh issue. Clearing IE's cache and restarting it has always fixed those problems. Haven't seen a problem at all for that with Firefox, but I still use IE, since the majority of internet users do a well.

Well, I found this component exciting and relatively easy to set up. I tried the rival plugin and that didn't work for me. Not ever having used Google Maps before there were one or two things that I had to 'discover' by myself. For example 'Center point' (general configuration) is where your map will be focuessed when the user loads it, and the zoom level (general configuration) tells the component how close in to look at the map at first load. I had my map opening on a map of Europe when it was supposed to be a street plan map to find my office !

The most difficult thing though was the coordinates. Geocoding (ability to find automatically find location based on address) was not precise enough for me. It had my office 100 m up the road, which for a street plan, could have been confusing. So I eventually learnt how to take Geocoding off (configuration advanced) and also eventually learnt that I could get the exact coordinates of my office on Google Earth (you need to change the format the coordinates to decimal rather than degrees and this can be done via the Options.

The flickr pics provides were great too though one or two more explaining the points above would be useful to new users.

Thanks very much !!

I like this extension a lot. Didnt find any better. I have a wish list however:
-allow selection/deselection by user of multiple layers
-allow the display of lon and lat directly on the map (to make it easy for a user to add a new marker)
-allow import of kml file to the database
-allow the display of multiple markers (one for each category)
THanks for your contribution, guys!

Adding maps to my Puglia (Italy) site has added a new dimension. So far we have mapped the recommended beaches.

Fairly easy to figure out and get started. I'm sure we will be adding more and more maps ..... Towns, Restaurants, places of interest and so much more

Thank you

Pros
====
1. Well integrated with Google API.
2. Handy links to Google documentation to help get you started.
3. Clean, easy-to-use interface.
4. Nice integration with Joomla! database.
5. GNU/GPL (Thanks to the developers!)
===

I don't understand the previous review. I saw no ads or inappropriate 'callbacks.' Actually, a 'callback' if you want to call it that, is the whole point.

This extension feeds live Google data to your site, complete with rich user interaction. That's a powerful feature.

Google's Web Services, and free APIs, are a great example of where cutting edge Web systems are headed. This extension puts your site on the map (pun intended.

I use this extension to catalogue horse trails & trailheads. It would be hard to think of a better tool than this! Reading here, I see that some are unhappy with the Google ads, so I went to have a look in my admin. Realized that I have been using this extension since last August and hadn't even noticed that there were any ads until it was pointed out here.
Thank you for this great extension. If I can help by mentioning the minor difficulties I have had, it is that the extension is very "fussy" about co-existing with other extensions (especially mambots, it seems) which use java. I have had to uninstall a few of these to keep the Google Maps API working. A caution to Firefox users, remember to check out your site in IE after installing new mambots! Most of the time the conflicts only affect IE.