Until now we have relied on Google Maps to display locations of activities, the Club location and places contacted.
You may have noticed that the majority of maps on the Club site are now not rendering on the Club website.
This is because Google have changed the way that their mapping information is served. Up to July of 2018 the simple static maps that we have utilised have been available without the need to register or subscribe to Google.
Google have now re-instigated the need to have an “API Key” and open an account with Google. Whilst Google are being very gentle about this initial requirement to have a financial account allowing up to a certain amount of traffic to be funded by Google themselves which is more than adequate for us to continue to have free use of google Maps. However, it is my opinion that this is a pre-cursor to a more aggressive cost plan which can easily be instigated once accounts are in place. It will only require Google to remove the free credit for us to be in a position where we need to pay for the maps that are displayed on the Club website.
I have taken the unilateral decision to switch our mapping to Open Street map. This is an Open Source Open Data project that offers good data of the UK and Europe and offers a very sophisticated API allowing complex maps to be embedded once we get to grips with either a OSM plug-in or the actual javaScript Open Layers API.
This will take a little time to implement since the Club website includes a not insignificant number of maps but it will happen over the next month.
