Question

I have trouble finding any information on how to use the API to:

1. Search for streets and get some clickable results that returns a LatLng object or something (at least coordinates). So If I search for a street and click on a result, I’ll pan to that street (for example).

2. How can I calculate distance between markers? and possibly, draw lines between them.

All I get is the API but no guides so it’s fairly hard figuring out what types to use.

Answer 1

Here is a fiddle showing how this can be achieved:

http://jsfiddle.net/foxwisp/vQGMr/1/

To convert street names to lat/lng you need to use a Geocoder such as the one provided by Google Maps API.

Then, when you get back the results from the geocode, you use the lat lng properties to create a marker. Once your first marker is placed, you repeat the process for your second street address. We nest these calls so that we can be assured of the order of execution due to their asynchronous nature.

Once we have our second marker we use Google’s polyline function to draw a line between the two latlng marker points.

Then we use a slightly complicated mathematical equation to do some distance calculations and voila.

The Google Maps API is fantastically documented, hopefully this fiddle will put it into context for you and you can explore each element step by step by reviewing functions and properties in the documentation