Creating a User-Contributed Map Without PHP

Pamela Fox of the Google Maps API Team wrote a wonderful tutorial in November called Creating a User-Contributed Map with PHP and Google Spreadsheets. With the release last week of forms for Google Speadsheets it is actual possible to now create a user contributed map without PHP.

1. The first step is to create a form for your spreadsheet here. The basic information you need is a latitude and a longitude. I want users to be able to add their names to a map so I will also ask for a name. When you have entered your questions save the form.

2. Now it would be much easier if users could just click on a map to show where they live so we need to hack the created form. This is the most difficult stage in the creation of our map. You can have a look at the completed map form here( and enter your location on the map).

If you cut and paste the html of this page all you need to do is change the map key
<style type="text/css"><script src="http://maps.google.com/?file=api&v=2.x&key=ABQIAAAAnR5GZQuxVMxhcdjokpo5GhS2G8WG_YTPerRNkuj-hO8d1WpZFhR14aUIYCscY15YWY866PuAN-CGgw" type="text/javascript"></script>
to your own map key (available from the Google Maps API)

The only other thing you need to do is change the form key. If you look at the html of this map you will find a line that reads
<style type="text/css"><br /><form action="http://spreadsheets.google.com/formResponse?key=pHxwMuyQhRdSwN9QcKaqWVA" method="POST">

What you need to do is change the key number to the one that was generated by the form you created in step 1. If you look through the html code of the form you created you should be able to find the key easily enough.

3. Once you have created your spreadsheet all you need to do is use Google's Spreadsheet Map wizard to create your User Contributed Map.

The wizard will do all the work and create your map for you.

Here is the map that the wizard created for my spreadsheet.

You should now have a User Contributed Map without any PHP and with Google hosting your data for you.