Question

I already made a simple android application, which I also have integrated Google Maps in it..
It is also capable of connecting to MySQL (localhost) to display my desired places using longitude and latitude values..
My question is, is it possible to make another overlay item above Google Maps when a marker is clicked (just like what happens in foursquare)?

To be specific, i want to display a text that contains the name of a place.

Heres my class of displaying the overlay items.
I made an onTap method, but it display a dialog box, I want to display a simple text box that shows the name of the place.

    package finddroid.map;

import java.util.ArrayList;

import android.app.AlertDialog;
import android.content.Context;
import android.graphics.Paint;
import android.graphics.Point;
import android.graphics.Rect;
import android.graphics.RectF;
import android.graphics.drawable.BitmapDrawable;
import android.graphics.drawable.Drawable;
import android.text.TextPaint;

import com.google.android.maps.GeoPoint;
import com.google.android.maps.ItemizedOverlay;
import com.google.android.maps.MapView;
import com.google.android.maps.OverlayItem;

public class CustomItemizedOverlay extends ItemizedOverlay<OverlayItem>
{

    private int markerHeight;

    private ArrayList<OverlayItem> mapOverlays = new ArrayList<OverlayItem>();

    private Context context;

    public CustomItemizedOverlay(Drawable defaultMarker)
    {
        super(boundCenterBottom(defaultMarker));
        markerHeight = ((BitmapDrawable) defaultMarker).getBitmap().getHeight();
        populate();
    }

    public CustomItemizedOverlay(Drawable defaultMarker, Context context)
    {
        this(defaultMarker);
        this.context = context;
    }

    @Override
    protected OverlayItem createItem(int i)
    {
        return mapOverlays.get(i);
    }

    @Override
    public int size()
    {
        return mapOverlays.size();
    }

    @Override
    //Event when a place is tapped
    protected boolean onTap(int index)
    {
        OverlayItem item = mapOverlays.get(index);
        AlertDialog.Builder dialog = new AlertDialog.Builder(context);
        dialog.setTitle(item.getTitle());
        dialog.setMessage(item.getSnippet());
        dialog.show();
        return true;
    }

    public void addOverlay(OverlayItem overlay) 
    {
        mapOverlays.add(overlay);
        this.populate();
    }   
}

Answer 1

Have a look at this project – balloon itemized overlay. It is using own class extending FrameLayout to show balloons.

So if you want to modify your code put this into your onTap method to display a TextView above taped item

TextView text = new TextView(context);
text.setText(item.getTitle());
MapView.LayoutParams params = new MapView.LayoutParams(ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT,
    ViewGroup.LayoutParams.WRAP_CONTENT, item.getPoint(), MapView.LayoutParams.BOTTOM_CENTER);
params.mode = MapView.LayoutParams.MODE_MAP;
mMapView.addView(text, params);

I think this code is simple and easy to understand and you can improve it accordingly to your needs. To make it work you have to pass instance of MapView to constructor of your overlay and save it to private variable mMapView.

private MapVeiw mMapView;

public CustomItemizedOverlay(Drawable defaultMarker, Context context, MapView mapView) {
    this(defaultMarker);
    this.context = context;
    this.mMapView = mapView;
}

And don’t forget to add MapView as one of parameters when you call new CustomItemizedOverlay().