Google Maps Extension 0.9.0 is available

[Evan Miller]

Здравей, Wiki Mappers!

We have an exciting release today. Besides the usual bug fixes and new
translation (Bulgarian!), I'm happy to announce two features that
people have been requesting for a long time. They are:

* KML Export: A new tag called "googlemapkml" will create a link to a
KML file that contains all the markers, lines, and polygons in a given
article. If you add this link to your articles, people can open the
maps in Google Earth. Example usage:

<googlemapkml>View in Google Earth</googlemapkml>

Google Earth lets you see your maps in a whole new way! But it's even
more useful with...

* KML Import: Now you can include external KML and GeoRSS files in
your Google Maps. What does this mean? Well, for one, now you can
create mashups... of your wiki! Let's say you have a page called
"Restaurants" and another page called "Bars". If you export the KML
like I described above, you can then include them both on a third
page, like this:

<googlemap>
http://my.wiki/w/index.php?title=Special:GoogleMapsKML&article=Restaurants
http://my.wiki/w/index.php?title=Special:GoogleMapsKML&article=Bars
</googlemap>

Presto, the world's easiest mash-up! You can import KML from other
sites, too.

Another reason this is a big release is that I'm introducing a new
syntax for the <googlemap> tag. The new syntax permits:

* specifying the width of individual lines
* specifying the opacity of individual lines and polygons
* multi-line captions
* marker "tooltips" that appear when you mouse-over the marker

The new syntax is incompatible with the old syntax, but the extension
will continue to support both old and new. Details about the new
syntax are here:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Google_Maps/Syntax

As usual, the download and installation instruction are here:

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Google_Maps/Installation

Please email me with bug reports or comments.

Happy mapping,

Evan