The Yahoo! Maps API is quite interesting.  Yahoo! requires a unique key is provided for each application that requests a map, but at the time of this writing the domain/subdomain/subdirectory and port of the web server are not tied to the application key, so any valid key will work on any application.

geoRSS 2.0 Example

geoRSS is a handy format for passing data to Yahoo! Maps.  Here is a sample geoRSS file that contains three locations organized into three groups: Home Depot locations (shown in green), Fry's locations (shown in blue) and a Yahoo! (shown in red).  Because the file is XML you may not be able to see it properly in your browser.

<%
  String urlApi="http://api.maps.yahoo.com/Maps/V1/annotatedMaps";
  String urlXml="http://zamples.com/JspExplorer/samples/yahooMaps/stores.xml";
%>
<a href='<%=urlApi%>?appid=YahooDemo&xmlsrc=<%=urlXml%>'>Click me</a>

Output

When you run the above code example you will see a link entitled 'Click me'.  After you do so, you will see a map like this one (click on the image below to enlarge it):

Simple Map

Here is a code fragment for a simple search.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" 
   SRC="/JspExplorer/samples/yahooMaps/yahooInclude.js"></script>
<p>The RSS feed is hardcoded in the 
<a hef=/JspExplorer/samples/yahooMaps/yahooInclude.js>JavaScript</a>.
<SCRIPT language=javascript>
createForms();
</script></p>

Typical Output

Simple Map with Internet Explorer Support

Here is the same code fragment but modified to include support for IE:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" 
   SRC="/JspExplorer/samples/yahooMaps/yahooInclude2.js"></script>
<p>The RSS feed is hardcoded in the 
<a hef=/JspExplorer/samples/yahooMaps/yahooInclude2.js>JavaScript</a>.
<SCRIPT language=javascript>
createForms();
</script></p>

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