Virtual Earth / Bing maps javascript file size

Question

I am working with a site that uses virtual earth for its mapping. Unfortunately the file size of the referenced javascript file, ecn.dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=6.2, is 200 something kb before being expanded (to 970kb). As our site runs under https this file is not cached on the client, and can cause a few seconds delay to users, made more substantial in times of high load.

My question is, is there anyway to get virtual earth to run smaller, or have more efficient lazy loading? At the moment it looks like our hands are tied.

Answer 1

The new 6.3 version has a lightweight version (only 35Kb !) if you don't use some of the more advanced features.

Use this url to use the Core version:

<script charset="UTF-8" type="text/javascript" src="http://ecn.dev.virtualearth.net/mapcontrol/mapcontrol.ashx?v=6.3c&amp;mkt=en-us"&gt;&lt;/script&gt;

You can find out more about what is and isn't included in that version in its documentation: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff710049.aspx