Cyril Mottier

“It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen.” – John Wooden

Enhancing Google Maps API V2 With Polaris V2

In October 2012, I released a library called Polaris. At that time, the library received quite a lot of success because it was really filling the mammoth blanks of the Google Maps external library (aka Google Maps Android API v1): effortless map annotation, gesture support, map callout support, built-in “user tracking” mode, etc. If you have never heard of Polaris feel free to checkout one of the links below:

(Un)fortunately - the addition/removal of the ‘un’ obviously depends on the point of view - Google released a radically different and new version of the library in December 2012. In addition to this release they announced the deprecation of the first version of the API as of March 20131. Let’s be honest, at first I was pretty annoyed by this new release because it turned almost all of my work to a waste of time. On the other hand, I was quite happy to notice the new API were really close - functionaly and API-ly speaking - to what I did on my own with Polaris.

Back in December I gave my point of view about the new Google Maps Android API v2. After almost 6 months, the library has been updated only once (as part of the Google Play Service, it was supposed to be updated very often…) and is not a great starting base for building libraries on top of it (all of the classes are final and hence cannot be extended).

With the release of AVélov 1.2, a lot of people were interested in the animated clustering algorithm I developed. Several companies asked me for the app source code and I was quite frustrated not being able to deliver a true library but only a sample code. That was true until I decided to find a way around the Google’s locked down library. I finally managed to by-pass the ‘final’ limitation fairly easily. I entirely wrapped the original Google’s library into my own library: Polaris v2.

Introducing Polaris v2

The main purpose of Polaris v2 is to act as the root component for creating library projects around the Google Maps Android API v2. Although I originally developed it for creating commercial library providing animated clustering, I extracted the essence of it and kept some basic features. As a consequence, Polaris v2 aims to fix some of the most frustrating bugs of the original library and provide additional features.

For now, the code is mostly a wrapper but I’m releasing and open-sourcing the code so that the community can contribute to it and enhance it with some awesome new features and fixes. The current release includes just a few improvements (see the README file on GitHub for more information). Hopefully, some of the changes introduced in Polaris v2 will be backported into Google Maps Android API v2…

Using Polaris v2 in your projects

Using Polaris v2 in your projects is quite simple. The API exposed by Polaris v2 is a super-set of what the original Google Maps Android API v2 exposes. As a result, you only need to switch all of the imports from the Google Maps Android API v2 (com.google.android.gms.maps.*) to Polaris v2 (com.cyrilmottier.polaris2.maps.*)

Finally you can start interacting with the underlying GoogleMap by calling getPolarisMap() (instead of getMap()) on your SupportMapFragment, MapFragment or MapView.

Conclusion

While the original project at the root of Polaris was more featureful, this release is the perfect way for developers to start adding some missing features to the original Google-provided mapping library. Today, Polaris v2 is just a wrapper around the Google Maps Android API v2 but could easily become a must-use library in the future. The project is just waiting for the community to help it grow.


  1. Having a deprecated API doesn’t mean it is not working anymore for all existing applications. Google only decided to prevent people from generating new API keys. As a consequence, it is now impossible to create new applications using the Google Maps external library except if you are signing your application with a certificate you already have assigned a map API key to.