Google Maps Plugin for confluence isn't working in 4.3 correctly.

[Sean King]

We currently were using confluence 3.5 and the google maps plugin worked great. Now that we've moved to 4.3 the functionality is horrible. Things that the old version did don't work anymore even though the documentation says it should. For example, only like 5 locations show up now out of the 20+ locations I have added. Also, the info for the locations is ignored. In the previous version, when you set the marker to false it only removed the first locations marker allowing you to use it as the map center. Now all markers get removed.

Is anyone else experiencing this? If so, do you have a solution?

[Joe Clark · Accepted solution]

The Google Maps plugin is maintained by Atlassian employees, but is not officially supported by Atlassian, so there's no SLA or warranty for bugfixing timeframes.

With that said, you can report problems directly to the development team by creating JIRA issues in the plugin's project - https://studio.plugins.atlassian.com/browse/GMAP

I believe there is already an issue reported for the problems with Confluence 4.3 and the google maps plugin - it's reported here - https://studio.plugins.atlassian.com/browse/GMAP-33

It's marked as 'resolved', so I'm going to chase up the developers to see if the fix has already been released or not.

[Joe Clark]

I've confirmed that GMAP-33 does not fix any of the problems mentioned in this thread. I have reported the problems here as https://studio.plugins.atlassian.com/browse/GMAP-34

Please vote/watch/comment that issue.

[Sean King]

Thank you. I've added my vote.

[Simon Tideswell]

Hello

I don't have an answer for this question but I have problem with the current Google Map plugin (0.8.1) and Confluence 4.3.5. This is running on CentOS 6.3 x86_64 and Postgres 8.4 DB.

After upgrading from Confluence v3.5.13 and Google Maps plugin 0.7.1 my embedded Gmaps just show the rotating circles hourglass and never render a map. In my map body text I have been using a format like ...

12 Street Address, City Suburb, State ZIP

... this used to work fine on the previous versions. If I remove the commas, so it becomes ...

12 Street Address City Suburb State ZIP

... then the issue is resolved.

I have a workaround but I was just wondering if this was a known issue or anyone else had experienced it?

Simon

[Chnikki]

Thank you for the workaround!! By removing the commas, we are at least able to see the map. Also, I voted for https://studio.plugins.atlassian.com/browse/GMAP-34.

Using Google Maps plugin 0.8.1 and Confluence 4.3.3

[Simon Tideswell]

Hello

I can confirm that I see the same issue as Sean above with the 'info' for the locations being apparently ignored. I haven't tested the other aspects mentioned by Sean.

Simon

[AlysonA]

Hi Sean,

Apologize for not getting back to you. I believe that you may be running into some sort of bug between Confluence 4.3.* and the Google Maps plugin. So if you can provide detailed steps to replicate this issue, we can possibly create a bug report in your behalf.

Cheers

[Devin Davis]

I just installed 0.8.1 from download at https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.atlassian.confluence.ext.gmaps to 4.2.8, and my info fields are ignored. The marker boxes read:

Info: <whatever address I put in>

I also cannot use commas or it sits and appears to load forever like this guy. Where should I file bug reports?

[Sean King]

All I did was upgrade my version of confluence from 3.5.13 to the latest version 4.3.3. I updated the plugins to their respective latest versions also. The body markup that worked fine in the google plugin version 0.7.1 did not work in the latest version 0.8.1.

The markup I used in the body is found on this page which is out of date either way as content and parameters are added differently now.

An example would be place:address=New York|info=The big apple in the body of the macro. The pop up shows "Info: New York, NY, USA" when it should say "The big apple".

The marker property in v0.7.1 would only hide the first marker which is used to center the map. In v0.8.1 it hides all the markers.

Also, in v0.7.1 I could have any number of markers on the map by adding a new line just like the documentation shows. In v0.8.1 it starts picking and choosing which ones it wants to show and which ones it doesn't.

A bug report or whatever is needed to get the plugin fixed would be amazing. It was a really nice and easy way to add a location map for our company. Currently I'm having to build a custom google map and add it to the page which is not ideal for non computer savy collegues.

[Simon Tideswell]

Thanks Devin, I'll try it out.

Incidentally, I've noticed when using Gmap plugin with CustomWare Composition tabs that if you select the required tab and then refresh the page that the map looks OK (whereas prior to refreshing it's all messed up).

Simon

[Simon Tideswell]

Hello

There doesn't appear to be any movement on this. Is the Google Map plugin now deprecated? Is there another recommended way to use maps within Confluence that doesn't suffer from all of these defects?

I have read somewhere that perhaps we should use the Google Map API directly from a piece of Javascript, instead of using the Atlassian provided plugin, is that the case? Can someone point me in the direction of some documentation on how to do that?

Simon

[Devin Davis]

Hey Simon,

I ran into some of the issues you describe previously, and I've had much better results with this plugin over the Atlassian one. It only lists compatibility up to 4.0.5, but I haven't encountered any hiccups yet on 5.1.1. Good luck!

[Joe Clark]

It's not "deprecated" in the sense that Atlassian has stopped supporting it, because Atlassian never really supported it in the first place - it was only a side project by some Atlassian employees.

There doesn't appear to be anyone working on it lately, so if there are alternatives available to solve the problem, you should definitely consider using them.

If you want to build your own custom integration with the Google Map API, you can embed JavaScript into a Confluence page using the HTML Macro, or by writing a Java plugin that injects the JavaScript into the page.

Alternatively, the Google maps plugin is open source - you could have a shot at fixing the problems yourself - https://bitbucket.org/atlassianlabs/gmaps-confluence-plugin/overview

[Simon Tideswell]

Apologies if this post appears twice.

Hello

I am now on Confluence 5.1.3 (still using the 0.8.1 Google Map plugin) and whilst the issue with addresses containing commas doesn't bother me, because I have a workaround, another issue is now bugging me.

We use CustomWare Composition plugin to create tabs across the page. When a Google map is placed on the first tab all is OK, but on subsequent tabs the size of the map is very small (and cannot be controlled by the editor features). Additionally the location marker is not central on the map and frequently indicates the wrong position.

I could dedicate some time to giving a more comprehensive description of the problem but if nobody at Atlassian is actively doing any work on this plugin there really doesn't seem to be much point in me doing that.

Can someone please indicate whether this plugin is likely to get some attention soon or whether it is essentially deprecated and there is another preferred/recommended way of embedding maps in Confluence pages?

Thanks.

[Simon Tideswell]

Cool, I'm glad it isn't just me experiencing this issue. The way you describe it above is EXACTLY what I see. Simon

[AlysonA]

Hi Sean,

Can you confirm you're using the latest 0.8.1 version of the Google Maps plugin? I believe that you may be using an older version that is not compatible with Confluence 4.3.*.

Please let us know if that's the case.

Cheers

[Sean King]

I am indeed using v0.8.1 of the google maps plugin.

[Sean King]

Hey Alyson any suggestion about how to fix this? Is it a known issue? I am using the latest version like you asked.