

Leaftlet - A Lightweight JavaScript Library for Interactive Maps - mars
http://leaflet.cloudmade.com/examples/quick-start.html

======
sciurus
I used a similar mapping library, <http://openlayers.org/> , around 4 years
ago. It thought it was nice at the time. The documentation wasn't great, but
there were decent examples and the support for GIS standards like WMS and WFS
was solid. It looks like people have increasingly become dissatisfied with it
and started working on alternatives like leaftlet.

[http://vmx.cx/cgi-
bin/blog/index.cgi/wherecampeu-2011:2011-0...](http://vmx.cx/cgi-
bin/blog/index.cgi/wherecampeu-2011:2011-05-29:en,GeoCouch,OpenLayers,MapQuery,conference,geo)

[http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/472/perceived-flaws-
ofope...](http://crschmidt.net/blog/archives/472/perceived-flaws-
ofopenlayers/)

<http://notes.tommacwright.com/post/6010879882/openlayers>

~~~
frewsxcv
If you're looking for a _complete_ javascript mapping library, I'd stick with
openlayers for now. In the future though, I hope leaflet takes off and offers
some competition

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rgbrgb
Looks great. Has anyone compared this and the google maps api? I'm working on
a GIS project and we're going to do some stuff in js for the web so I'm very
curious.

~~~
akamaka
I work full-time building custom Google Maps-based projects, so my first
thought was to compare them. While this seems very nicely done, there's little
in it that you couldn't do with the Google Maps API. Some of the default
settings are more nicely chosen, though.

BTW, if you need a freelancer to help on your project, feel free to contact
me.

~~~
rgbrgb
Thanks! Unfortunately it's an academic thing so we're not hiring any outside
help.

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JangoSteve
I love that this uses OpenStreetMap instead of Google Maps, as I like being
able to control all my own data and not be reliant upon MegaCorp (TM) for my
site to function. At the same time, I've never seen an OSM API that seemed
both as useful and as simple as the Google Maps API, but this looks pretty
nice.

I may have to wipe the dust off RateMyStudentRental.com and retrofit Leaflet
at some point.

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kroo
For some reason the map travels behind my cursor as I drag it around. This
would drive me away if I was looking for an alternative mapping library to
google maps.

~~~
mourner
Could you give more details on this problem? Do you mean that map moves more
slowly than the cursor? In what browser/system does it happen?

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shaggyfrog
Tried the demo really quickly (Mac OS X 10.6/Safari 5) but I got rendering
errors without breaking a sweat:

<http://www.shaggyfrog.com/junk/leaflet-rendering-errors.png>

Based on it breaking so easily I wouldn't consider this an an alternative to
Google Maps quite yet.

~~~
mourner
Well, it's in early stages of development, I'm sure it'll become quite stable
in future - just give it some time.

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js4all
Leaflet is just great. I made a demo as soon as I heard about it a few weeks
ago. I combined leaflet on the client side with varnish as a tile cache and
nginx as a tile server. I plan to switch to node.js as soon as it supports
sendfile.

<http://maps.cloudno.de>

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mixmastamyk
I've been using mapstraction (<https://github.com/mapstraction/mxn>) and like
it; don't see much different here. Maybe someone should introduce them to each
other.

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sciurus
Discussed (briefly) before at <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2548927>

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sjwright
The title is misspelled on HN. (It's Leaflet.)

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msy
Unlike Polymaps this also supports IE6 & 7 which is a big win for orgs that
have to support a wide range of browsers.

~~~
whatwhatwhat
Aha! I came here about to ask "Why is this better than polymaps?" -- thank
you! Any other reasons you know of? (or anyone else?)

~~~
mourner
It is also seriously targeted at mobile devices like iPhone and Android. It
also has quite different approaches to API and source code architecture (with
Leaflet leaning towards OOP and Polymaps towards functional approach).

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ricardobeat
Borks the whole page on the iPad. It appears to be stealing all touch events
after any interaction.

~~~
mourner
Weird, didn't happen before. If you report the problem to
<https://github.com/CloudMade/Leaflet/issues> I'm sure it'll be fixed soon.

