gistfile1.md

Integrating google maps into your application

The goal of this tutorial is to learn how to integrate google maps into your application.

Requirements

• android studio project
• google cloud platform account

Create a new empty project you can give it any name make sure that the lowest api level is >= 14. now we're going to include the necessary libraries.

Getting stared

• Download the support library

  1. Start Android Studio.
  2. On the Tools menu, click Android > SDK Manager.
  3. Update the Android Studio SDK Manager: click SDK Tools, expand Support Repository, select Google Repository, and then click OK.

• include the google maps support library in your project

  apply plugin: 'com.android.application'
      ...

      dependencies {
          compile   'com.google.android.gms:play-services-maps:10.2.1'
      }
    

Get an Api key

To get an api key you should have to create a google cloud platform account, you can follow the instructions here. you can afford to skip step 5 and 6 since this is just for the lab.

if you don't want to set up an account now here's a free key you can use

AIzaSyCkPm6lUfs1i3qcPS1_EupwRoD25HHNBpk

Insert the api key into your project

Follow the steps below to include the API key in your application's manifest, contained in the file AndroidManifest.xml.

1. In AndroidManifest.xml, add the following element as a child of the <application> element, by inserting it just before the closing </application> tag:

    <meta-data
        android:name="com.google.android.geo.API_KEY"
        android:value="YOUR_API_KEY"/>

2. Substitute your API key for YOUR_API_KEY in the value attribute. This element sets the key com.google.android.geo.API_KEY to the value of your API key.

3. Save AndroidManifest.xml and re-build your application.

What we want to be able to do is display a map showing the current location of the user.

• Display a map with a marker

include the SupportMapFragment in your main activity fragment file

<fragment
       android:id="@+id/map_fragment"
       android:name="com.google.android.gms.maps.SupportMapFragment"
       android:layout_width="match_parent"
       android:layout_height="match_parent"
       app:layout_constraintBottom_toBottomOf="parent"
       app:layout_constraintLeft_toLeftOf="parent"
       app:layout_constraintRight_toRightOf="parent"
       app:layout_constraintTop_toTopOf="parent" />

we're going to get a refrence to the fragment and set some markers with it

in your onCreate method you need to Obtain the SupportMapFragment and get notified when the map is ready to be used

SupportMapFragment mapFragment = (SupportMapFragment) getSupportFragmentManager()
                .findFragmentById(R.id.map_fragment);
        mapFragment.getMapAsync(this);

we need to implement the OnMapReadyCallback so add this to the end of your class and @Override the onMapReady method

public class MainActivity extends FragmentActivity implements OnMapReadyCallback{

...
    @Override
    public void onMapReady(GoogleMap googleMap) {
        //Add the marker logic here
    }
...

}

Now we can set a marker based on the longitude and latitude

 mMap = googleMap;

// Add a marker in Sydney and move the camera
LatLng sydney = new LatLng(-34, 151);
mMap.addMarker(new MarkerOptions().position(sydney).title("Marker in Sydney"));
mMap.moveCamera(CameraUpdateFactory.newLatLng(sydney));