Hey all,

It's been quite a while since the last release of Maps and Semantic Maps, which was version 1.0.5, almost a year ago. The wait for the next version is now over with the big 2.0 release. It contains many new awesome features added in over 400 commits by 20 developers.

New features:

* Added support for marker clustering to Google Maps. * Added support for grouping locations. * Added support for defining image overlays (ground overlays) in Google Maps. * Added support for defining lines, polygons, rectangles and circles using wikitext for Google Maps and OpenLayers. * Added a graphical map editing tool that allows exporting to and importing from simple wikitext (Google Maps only). * Added "copycoords" parameter to Google Maps and OpenLayers that allows copying coordinates after right clicking a location on a map. * Added "minzoom" and "maxzoom" parameters to #display_map. * Added support for using the Google JS API key with Google Maps (for increased map display and geocoding call limits). * Added support for searching markers (searchmarkers=all/title) in Google Maps and OpenLayers * Added support for creating static maps in OpenLayers and GoogleMaps (static=on) * Added positional parameter to show polygons only on hover. * Added an optional link parameter as an alternative to popup bubble with text and title * Added an optional visitedicon parameter (both global and marker parameter), that will change the icon of a marker on click.

Other improvements

* Merged display_map and display_point(s) into a single parser function: display_map (display_points is now an alias). * Updates parameter definitions from Validator 0.4.x to Validator 0.5.x.

Bug fixes

* Fixed JavaScript error on some special pages due to incorrect order of map initialization. * Fixed partially broken kml functionality * Fixed display of maps in multiple instance templates in forms. * Fixed partial incompatibility of Semantic Maps with Semantic MediaWiki

=1.6.

Compatibility changes:

* Changed minimum PHP version from 5.2 to 5.3. * Changed minimum MediaWiki version from 1.17 to 1.18. * Changed minimum Validator version from 0.4 to 0.5. * Removed support for the deprecated Google Maps v2 API. * Removed support for the now unsupported Yahoo! Maps API and associated geocoding service. * Temporary disabled OSM service (you can still use OSM with the OpenLayers service).

Installation instructions can be found here:

* https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Maps * https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:Semantic_Maps

The examples have also been updated (although it's still a work in progress) and can now be found here:

* http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Maps_examples * http://semantic-mediawiki.org/wiki/Semantic_Maps_examples

Enjoy! :)

-- Jeroen De Dauw http://www.bn2vs.com Don't panic. Don't be evil. --