Create an interactive Google map widget with jQuery

Believe it or not, I rarely had to deal with the javascript Google map api, well until recently. Last week I had to create an interactive map with markers and info bubbles taken from html elements in an address list. What a better introduction to the Google map api. These jQuery class’s are certainly not the most powerful plugins out there, but I think it can be a solid foundation for you guys that want to go beyond the scope of the article.

With these 2 plugins you will be able to create a map, add markers, links an information bubble to them, filter a list of addresses from CSS class elements and link them to the map.

Download the source code View demo

The Google Map jQuery Class

The…

$.extend and $.data, more than just internal jQuery methods

Even if I have been doing jQuery for quite sometime, I always find new cool stuff that I never used before. There is a lot of secret gems in jQuery and I wanted to go a bit deeper with 2 of them, $.data and $.extend. I have been rapidly incorporating these 2 in my development, let see how these could be useful to you too.

$.data, link data to DOM elements

I use $.data heavily in my web apps, see $.data as a persistent memory for the DOM (until you reload the page of course, not like localstorage). From the jQuery API:

The jQuery.data() method allows us to attach data of any type to DOM elements in a way that is safe from circular references and therefore from…

Crockford on JavaScript

Good morning everyone, having a slow day at work? take the time to listen to these videos, or just put them in background while you work!

“During the past three months, Yahoo!’s JavaScript architect Douglas Crockford delivered a series of public lectures on the JavaScript programming language at Yahoo!. YUI Theater recorded and transcribed each of the five lectures.”

Volume 1: The Early Years

Chapter 2: And Then There Was JavaScript

Act III: Function the Ultimate

Episode IV: The Metamorphosis of Ajax

Part 5: The End of All Things

Cool web projects that will energize you

Sometimes there are projects that are just way cooler than yours. In this spirit, I wanted to highlights some projects that just flabbergast me. I tried to put more down to earth projects than just “experimental stuff”.

Vanthia

Vanthia is just a browser MMO based on Mootools and Python. The creator worked on it for years and it shows. The UI is great, the game itself looks great, it use canvas and various HTML5 apis. If you are trying to do an MMO javascript based games, I suggest you have a good look at it.

The video is a bit old, it changed quite a bit.

Aves game engine

Aves is a javascript game engine that got an isometric level editor. oh yes, it also got real time features.

Mozilla Hacks HTML5 image…