Google Maps

[JohnRussell]

Hello, I'm new here. Been using Serendipity for a few weeks and think it's swell.

This question is kind of unrelated to strictly serendipity.

My site (GIrussell.com) is basically a blog and a photo album that will relate to my upcoming experience as a soldier in the U.S. Army. I'm not actively posting on it yet, but will be soon. I like the idea of using a google satellite image with a marker of my current location in the world, and am currently using one in the sidebar (in the HTML nugget sidebar plugin). I don't really like the load time (firebug is clocking one aspect of the module at 6.5s) and don't need the map to be functional (zoom, mode change, etc) other than showing a location, with a marker. Is there a way to save or use a map as an image as opposed to it being a module?

Regards,

J Russell

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Sadly I think the google MAP API does not support a "static image" page call. Because the output of GoogleMAPS is dynamic Javascript, the image cannot simply be saved by a PHP plugin, because it's only rendered in the browser.

But maybe you could suggest this feature to the Google people and ask them if a "static" image type can be suplied?

Best regards,
Garvin

[JohnRussell]

Thanks for the reply Garvin.

I think I might take a screenshot of a map at full size and then crop it down, might be worth a shot.. resolution should be fine because I only want it to be 200 x 200px.