Question

Is there a way to have a loading icon while the map is loading markers? I am using google maps API 3 with javascript and cant find much information on this.

Answer 1

If you’re loading markers using a KmlLayer object, then you can attach a listener to the event metadata_changed which gets fired after the KmlLayer has loaded all the information.

So you can have your custom loading icon display as soon as you initialize your map, then make the call for the markers using new google.maps.KmlLayer(...). In the listener for metadata_changed you can remove the custom loading icon, or hide it from displaying. So when the KmlLayer finishes loading, then it’ll run the code to remove your loading icon.

You can attach listeners by going:

google.maps.event.addListener(kmlLayerObject, 'metadata_changed', function () {
    ...
}