Google Maps have become a common element on websites today. Private persons as well as webmasters are able to use them for free, at least if they do not have more page impressions than allowed by google.
If the website is build upon Typo3, one of the mature extension has been the wec_maps developed by the web empowered church team (http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/wec_map/current/).
In the meantime, google has released the new version 3 of their JavaScript API. Now, the last version number 2 has been deprecated and it is no longer possible to get a key to use it on a new website: http://code.google.com/intl/de-DE/apis/maps/signup.html.
Unfortunately, the WEC Team has not released a new version of their extension that is compatible with the google maps API version 3.
After some research and tests, I have found the Quick Google Maps extension (cbgooglemaps) developed by Christian Brinkert. Their have not been many downloads in the past, but our tests have been very sufficient and we are now using it in production. To find out more about this recomendable Typo3 extension for google maps integration already compatible with the google maps api version 3, just visit the extension webpage at http://typo3.org/extensions/repository/view/cbgooglemaps/current/.
Update 2012-03-10, 20:22
Thanks to Jan Bartels, who send me some infos about the current status of the wec_maps extension development. See below, what he wrote me on March 8th 2012:
In his opinion wec_map is also one of the best google maps extension for Typo3. So he has synchronized himself with Jeff Segars from the web empowered church team to work on an enhancement of the wec_map for the Google API V3 available on github at:
https://github.com/webempoweredchurch/wec_map/tree/googlemapsv3
He plans a new release of the extension in the next weeks.
The current status of his development is:
- The basic map plugin with markers bubles and KML support
- The geocoder is working
- The TypoScript is backward compatible as much as possible
- The PHP-API is almost backward compatible
- The backward compatibility of the JS-API is still in progress
- Additional support for OpenStreetMap and OpenCycleMap is available
From his point of view, the following points are sill missing:
- Tabbed Info-Bubbles: They are not supported out-of-the-box by the new Google API
- Directions from here/to here: Uses Tabs. And the JS-GoogleMaps-Integration for the Geocoder is still missing
- Markergroups: Not supported out-of-the-box by the new Google-API
The missing points shell be completed during the next weeks.
Thanks again to Jan for his work and providing this information!