LocationMapViewer

LocationMapViewer
Author:	klaus3b (k3b)
License:	GNU General Public License (free of charge)
Platform:	Android 4.1+
Version:	0.3.8.210702 (2021-04-24)
Languages:	German and English
Website:	https://github.com/k3b/LocationMapViewer/wiki
Install:	F-Droid
Source code:	https://github.com/k3b/LocationMapViewer
Programming language:	Java
A serviceprovider that allows other apps to show "points of interest" in a map through a simple intent-api.

A serviceprovider that allows other apps to show "points of interest" in a map through a simple intent-api.

Features

• Support for displaying GPX, KML and KMZ files (For details see [1])
  • Example: open a gpx or kmz file in an android filemanager
  • Example: open a link to a gpx or kml file in an android webbrowser
• Support for interpreting Wikimedia-web-api xml
  • Example: https://de.wikivoyage.org/w/api.php?action=query&format=xml&prop=coordinates%7Cinfo%7Cpageimages&inprop=url&piprop=thumbnail&generator=geosearch&ggscoord=28.12722%7C-15.43139&ggsradius=10000&ggslimit=5&pilimit=5
  • Example: https://kmlexport.toolforge.org/?article=Category:Gran_Canaria&linksfrom=1&l=3
• Support for geo-uri-s
  • Example: open a link to a geo uri in an android webbrowser.
    • <a href='geo:0,0?q=53.0,8.0(Hello)'>geo:0,0?q=53.0,8.0(Hello)</a>
• Support for geo-bookmarks
  • to remember and quickly navigate to named latitude/longitude/zoomlevel
• Can work offline (without internet/wifi) once geodata is downloaded and cached.
• Other android apps can use LocationMapViewer through an intent api ...
  • ... to show a map at certain latitude longitude zoomlevel with points of interest
  • ... to pick a location from a map (i.e. "Where was this photo taken?")

Example Usage

This android java code will show a map with 3 markers:

        Intent mapIntent = new Intent();
		
		// we want to view the map
        mapIntent.setAction(Intent.ACTION_VIEW);

		// this will be shown as primary marker in the map
		// the coordinate 53.2,8.8 is in north germany where the map is centered around
		// z=1 means zoomlevel=1 showing the continent
		// the marker's caption will be "primary marker"
        Uri uri = Uri.parse("geo:53.2,8.8?q=(primary+marker)&z=1");
        mapIntent.setDataAndType(uri, null);
		
		// this is the maps Caption
        mapIntent.putExtra(Intent.EXTRA_TITLE, "Hello Map");
		
		// the map will contain 2 additional point of interest
        mapIntent.putExtra("de.k3b.POIS",
                  "<poi ll='53.1,8.9'/>\n" +
                  "<poi ll='53.3,8.7' n='Say Hello' \n" +
                        " link='https://github.com/k3b/LocationMapViewer/' \n" +
                        " d='This will be shown as a Marker. When clicking on the marker you " + 
						"get this text and a link to LocationMapViewer' />");

        try {
            startActivityForResult(Intent.createChooser(mapIntent,"Choose app to show location"), 4711);
        } catch (Exception e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

GeoIntentDemoActivity.java is the sourcecode of a complete android demo app that uses LocationMapViewer (or any other provider that supports "geo:" uris)

Minimal requirements:

• Android-2.3.7 - Android-7 (API 10ff) for version v0.3.5.170911(6)
• Android-4.1 and later (API 16ff) for version v0.3.7.210429
• internet/wifi-connection to download geodata and a SD-Card to cache geodata
  

Requred permissions:

• INTERNET: to download map data from Open Streetmap Server
• ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE and ACCESS_WIFI_STATE: to find out if wifi/internet is online to start downloading mapdata
• WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE
  • to cache downloaded map data in local file system
  • to load gpx/kml-Files to be displayed in the map
• ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION and ACCESS_COARSE_LOCATION: to display my own location in the map

Note: the app that uses LocationMapViewer via the intent api does not need these permissions.

Resources

• LocationMapViewer is available via f-droid store or apk internet download or sourcecode at github
• Recent changes see History
• Licence: GPLv3 or later

LocationMapViewer is based on the libraries

• Osmdroid with OSMBonusPack for showing the map and
• k3b-geoHelper for processing fileformats geo, kml, gpx, ...