Map of the Week: Orbitz
Friday, August 23, 2013
In today’s guest blog post, we hear from Monika Szymanski and Mike Kelley, of Orbitz' Android engineering team, who recently migrated from version 1 to version 2 of the Google Maps Android API.
About Orbitz
Nearly 30% of Orbitz.com hotel bookings are now made via mobile devices, fueled in part by the growth of the Android platform. The recently released 3rd-generation update of the Orbitz - Flights, Hotels, Cars app for Android brings major speed and ease of use improvements along with the latest Android UI design patterns to the app. The Google Maps Android API v2 is also integrated into the hotel search experience. Read on to find out how we did it, with tips and sample code along the way.
Migrating from v1 to v2 of the Google Maps Android API
While users of the Orbitz.com Android app will notice some changes to the app’s user interface for maps, the changes to our code are more than skin deep. New classes offered in v2 of the Google Maps Android API like MapFragment and SupportMapFragment, the transition from ItemizedOverlays to Markers, and the addition of a well-supported info window pattern have made including a Google Map in an Android app much easier.
Featuring Fragments
Prior to the introduction of MapFragment (and SupportMapFragment) in v2, we had to write a lot of code to manually show/hide the map view in our app. Only one instance of MapView could be created per activity, so we had to be overly clever about persisting that instance in our Activity. Lack of proper Fragment support was a common pain point for developers integrating v1 of the Google Maps Android API in their application.
When Fragment support was added in v2, we essentially rewrote our map code to take advantage of the new features of MapFragment. Let’s start by taking a look at our hotel results Activity layout:
About Orbitz
Nearly 30% of Orbitz.com hotel bookings are now made via mobile devices, fueled in part by the growth of the Android platform. The recently released 3rd-generation update of the Orbitz - Flights, Hotels, Cars app for Android brings major speed and ease of use improvements along with the latest Android UI design patterns to the app. The Google Maps Android API v2 is also integrated into the hotel search experience. Read on to find out how we did it, with tips and sample code along the way.
Migrating from v1 to v2 of the Google Maps Android API
While users of the Orbitz.com Android app will notice some changes to the app’s user interface for maps, the changes to our code are more than skin deep. New classes offered in v2 of the Google Maps Android API like MapFragment and SupportMapFragment, the transition from ItemizedOverlays to Markers, and the addition of a well-supported info window pattern have made including a Google Map in an Android app much easier.
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| Say hello to the 3rd generation of Orbitz - Flights, Hotels, Cars app, using the Google Maps Android API v2 |
Featuring Fragments
Prior to the introduction of MapFragment (and SupportMapFragment) in v2, we had to write a lot of code to manually show/hide the map view in our app. Only one instance of MapView could be created per activity, so we had to be overly clever about persisting that instance in our Activity. Lack of proper Fragment support was a common pain point for developers integrating v1 of the Google Maps Android API in their application.
When Fragment support was added in v2, we essentially rewrote our map code to take advantage of the new features of MapFragment. Let’s start by taking a look at our hotel results Activity layout:
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