How to create the Map part in Compastic

There are two maps display in Compastic!

1. The first one displays the current location and the place of interest location. Both points are connected with a great circle line.
2. The second one is used when the user looks for a place of interest using a keyword. The results returned by the geoCoder are displayed on a map so that the user can choose which is the correct one.

Now in a javascript maps api, this would be a no brainer piece of work, 5 mns at most. With Android unfortunately things are not so simple.

To start with you will have to set up your Map API environment. There are already countless blogs on creating a map with Android. I found this one very good for learning the basics and getting quickly up to speed. I will not paraphrase this tutorial but focus on the specifics of Compastic that are not covered in the blog.

The specifics of Compastic! are basically:
- display a great circle line to connect the two points of 1)
- geo search based on a keyword for 2). I want the application to return a list of places based on keywords I enter. I want the application to display those in a list view and on the map with a little icon and label to match the list item.

In the next post I will explain how to display a great circle on a Map View.