django, google maps integration.

Question

I'm in need of integrating a django application with a visually intuitive google-maps interface, for the purpose of radio dispatched security guards/emt's.

I'm already using GeoDjango, although it appears it may be a bit overkill for the specific use. At any rate it's already making the geospatial processing on the server as easy as I need it to be.

But my javascript is weak enough without having to build an ajax rpc layer on my own. are there any tools or techniques that can help this?

Edit: To clarify, i'm not asking about how to use google maps api. as this post explains, google gives good documentation, and there are many examples on the web, from google or otherwise, that explains how to use the api, stand-alone. Django has good documentation too.

It's using them together that's slowing me down.

Answer 1

Google Maps API isn't that hard to learn (+ has good documentation), just try for yourself, there is excellent playground with many examples ready.

As a side note, being web application developer you should already get your hands dirty with javascript (see this really old but not outdated post by James Bennett).

Answer 2

Well your question is pretty vague. What do you need help with exactly? It isn't clear.

I wrote a PHP application that integrated with Google Maps, and I just finished porting it to Django. My original code was just plain old Javascript, but during the port to Django I started leveraging jQuery, which cut the code I had to write down by half. All my application does is allow site users to place a marker for their location on a map along with a short message and their avatar.

Without any specifics, I can recommend learning something like jQuery to help reduce repetitive Javascript code that you have to write. Otherwise it is just manipulating the Google Maps Javascript API, which, as you note, and I agree with, is documented pretty well and easy to use.

Answer 3

I'll answer my own question with what I'm going to try to do. If it works out well, then all the better.

Some of the work will just be standard CRUD type entry and manipulation. Django makes this part at least fairly easy, by subclassing django.forms.Widget and using the media attribute.

Since I asked the question i've discovered jQuery.forms, which can probably help with 90% of the rest, since it makes ajax easier, if not actually easy, or fun.