Interactive web map that shows user's location and destination

January 22, 2013 6:03 AM

I need to publish a map for a website that shows the user's location and a pre-defined destination.

This is for a residential project. The idea is that the client goes to the 'how to get there' page, and gets a map showing her current location, using the html5 geolocation api, and the position of the project.

This should work both in the desktop and mobile platforms, and not require any downloads, apps, etc., just be HTML, CSS and Javascript.

It should also be simple, fast and free, ideally.

3 stars if it could also show the route between the user and the destination.

posted by signal to Computers & Internet (4 answers total)

Best answer: Google Maps supports this out of the box. Just use "Current+Location" in the URL like this:
https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Current+Location&daddr=1600%20Pennsylvania%20Avenue%20Northwest,%20Washington,%20DC

You can embed it in an iframe or however you want. It should work across a huge variety of platforms.
posted by ChrisHartley at 6:41 AM on January 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Added caveat: The current location can sometimes be wrong, especially with IP based geolocation and this can be very confusing - make sure you remind users to verify the starting location before they start driving.
posted by ChrisHartley at 8:50 AM on January 22, 2013

Response by poster: Awesome, thanks. Can I give it the destination as Lat/Lon?
posted by signal at 11:10 AM on January 22, 2013

Yes, just put the lat/lon pair in the daddr= portion of the URL like this: https://maps.google.com/?saddr=Current+Location&daddr=37.322778,-122.031944
posted by ChrisHartley at 12:52 PM on January 22, 2013