Google maps is well known for good map products. They also offer neat integration into any web site through a rich API.
More information about maps can be found in the maps Introduction article.
To make it work in DPCalendar, a Google maps API key is needed. You must set up a Google Developer Account and activate the Map Geolocation, Map Places and Javascript API. Then create two different keys and copy them to DPCalendar. All of that is described in more detail in the chapters below.
Google has a pay as you go pricing plan, where they give you some credits (actually it is 200$) each month. So for low usage web sites it should be free. They have compiled an extensive article about all aspects of their billing process and prices. All depends on which SKU (a SKU is the combination of the Product API + the service or function called) you are using as they have different prices per request. DPCalendar uses the following SKU's:
They even have an online calculator where you can play around with your requests and it will tell you how much you have to pay. For example if you have 25'000 page views with a map, 7'000 map searches and you create 100 locations per month, then you still pay nothing.
Go to the Google developer console and either log-in to your account or create a new Google account. Select or create your project name. Go to API Library and enable the Geocoding API, Places API Web Services and the Maps Javascript API. The easiest way is to search for them as the list of different API'S is huge. When found, open the API service and then click on the Enable button. This action will activate the API under your Google account.
Click Consent screen on the left side of the screen. Enter your email address and save. The other items are optional. The consent screen will be shown to users whenever you request access to their private data using your client ID. This screen will be shown for all of your applications registered in this project.
Open the Credentials tab and then click on the Create credentials button. Select API key and the key is created automatically. Create two different keys. One will be used for the Javascript maps on the front end and the other for the geolocation and instant search lookup.
To prevent the keys being abused on sites you don't want then you can define some application restrictions on the keys itself. These rules will tell the Google API that they can only be used on a specific web site or web server. To define these restrictions, click on one of the defined keys in the list and then the edit form will open with all the parameters to restrict the key.
What we couldn't make work are the API restrictions. The services never worked with them in place on our web site. So better to not restrict on particular API's.
You will see your new Public API keys on the dashboard. If you click on the name of the new key, you can edit it and restrict it to Web site names or IP addresses.
Copy and paste the API key to the DPCalendar Options. On the Integration tab select Google Maps as map provider and fill in your keys. Create for Geocode and Javascript a different key. Clear your Joomla cache and open a DPCalendar - Calendar menu item or an external event (eg. from Google) which has a location. The maps should be shown properly and the events location should have now all required information like street and latitude/longitude. Sometimes it can take a couple of hours till Google handles the key properly.
Comments (0)