A Consuming Experience

If you have the well known web authoring software Adobe Dreamweaver you can use Google Maps on your website or blog without having any expertise in the Google Maps API or indeed any coding skills.

Just download the free Dreamweaver Tools for Google plugin from Webassist.

This add-on "walks you through a simple wizard to add a Google Maps API powered map to your web page. The properties of the map can even be edited via Dreamweaver's WYSIWYG editor" (according to the Google Maps API blog). You can "easily add multiple markers, each with custom pointers and messages - and retain pure Google functionality."

But the plug-in does more than that. It seems to let you off having to struggle with the Google AJAX search API too (phew!). You can "add powerful Google Search capabilities targeted to your site, drop a Google Map on any page to highlight multiple locations with custom markers or sell goods and save money with Google Checkout" - which includes "...Add a Google Search control with an option to search just the sites you want, without complex coding." I've just mentioned that you can try Google Checkout for free, e.g. to accept donations, until the end of 2006.

Now I usually don't post about something till I've roadtested it. But I should say that in this case I've not tried it yet as I'm swamped for at least another week (I will get back to dealing with comments on my blog soon, I promise! Emails go to the bottom of the pile though, unless you know the secret handshake... ). I've got an old version of Dreamweaver knocking around somewhere (might not even have re-installed it on this PC) but usually I'm a Notepad kinda gal.

So - I've not tested this, but it looks good, and seems to have Google's stamp of approval in the form of the blog link, so go download and enjoy!

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