Use Leaflet instead of Google Maps?

[NelsonMinar]

Are you interested in using different maps Javascript for the browser UI? Thinking specifically of Leaflet. The main advantage is Leaflet doesn't require a Google API key to view online; the files will just work when copied. Leaflet is also open source and pretty nice to work with, I have a lot of experience with it.

If it interests you I could knock out a quick demo of how it'd work for you to look at, then work with you to submit a pull request for the alternative.

[credomane]

Very, actually. More so because the Google Map API is terrible to actually work with and the docs are rather lacking I find. There are a few things I'd like to add but making the Map API play along made me give up. leaflet looks nice. I'll play with it some or you can do a working PR. Whichever. :)

[NelsonMinar]

I'm glad you like the idea! I took a quick stab at it; demo is temporarily here: http://minar.us.to/~nelson/tmp/factorio/leaflet.html#5/75.365/44.802

It's very simple. The code for Google Maps had a whole lot of stuff for it that Leaflet or a plugin already does. I'll append the complete code I wrote for the page. It could do with some testing on larger maps, I'm a little confused as to how lat/lon is mapping to the image filenames.

Do you like it? Should I prepare a PR for you? What were you thinking of adding to the map UI you couldn't do with Google?

var map = L.map('map_canvas').setView([0, 0], 3);

L.tileLayer('Images/{z}_{x}_{y}.jpg', {
    attribution: '<a href="https://mods.factorio.com/mods/credomane/FactorioMaps">FactorioMaps</a>',
    minZoom: 3,
    maxZoom: 6,
    noWrap: true,
    tileSize: 1024,
}).addTo(map);
new L.Hash(map);
map.zoomControl.setPosition('topright')

[credomane]

That looks nice. Know of anyway to set the bounding box so the "scroll" stops at the end of the map? Currently you can scroll the map all the way off screen and potentially lose track of it completely. I did, anyways, trying to see if leaflet did that annoying looping on the x-axis like GMaps. Took me forever to figure out the right code to make GMaps stop that looping and it still does it sometimes anyways.

What were you thinking of adding to the map UI you couldn't do with Google?

Adding an overlay layer through the pin/notes api for displaying some of the features added in 0.15.

[NelsonMinar]

There's a maxBounds option when creating the map that limits scrolling, but it's not clear what the Factorio map's bounding box is. I did disable the looping: that's what noWrap: true does.

A feature overlay layer would be nice! One easy way to do that would be to create a GeoJSON file in the Lua code that contains all the features you want to highlight. It's very easy to put custom markers on a Leaflet map from that.

The real problem here is coordinate systems; WGS84 coordinates like 117°W, 43°N don't really make sense for Factorio. That's why I cautioned this should be tested on a larger world than I have.

[pokemane]

The real problem here is coordinate systems; WGS84 coordinates like 117°W, 43°N don't really make sense for Factorio.

Looks like they got you covered already, actually. Awesome. Nice find, @NelsonMinar

[NelsonMinar]

Oh nice, L.CRS.Simple looks like a way to use image pixel coordinates in Leaflet. The key thing is whatever coordinate system we use, the Lua code and Javascript code understand each other. Does Factorio have a natural coordinate system?

[credomane]

Does Factorio have a natural coordinate system?

Yes but it isn't pixel based. I don't think it would be too hard to "create" that when the screenshots are taken.

[NelsonMinar]

Gotcha. It's possible to use any custom CRS you want with Leaflet, just a bit of work. It's only necessary when you want to start georeferencing markers, etc; then the code needs to agree on the CRS. The thing I've done already replaces the existing Google Maps functionality pretty well.

[EricReiche]

@NelsonMinar any chance of that PR appearing at some point? :)

[NelsonMinar]

No one who works on the mod has said they wanted it. And there is an unresolved question about the proper CRS. My demo at http://minar.us.to/%7Enelson/tmp/factorio/leaflet.html is still working; you're welcome to take the HTML/Javascript code from there. It's very simple, I'll attach it here.
map.zip

[credomane]

I've started working on this in the leaflet branch. Sorry for the extreme delay.

@NelsonMinar I would like to make a CRS that matches Factorio as closely as possible.
http://leafletjs.com/examples/crs-simple/crs-simple.html looks to be what is needed.

[NelsonMinar]

Sweet. I don't think I have much else to offer than the one working demo already here. I've never used CRS-Simple but that looks like exactly the right thing.

[abrahamvarricatt]

@credomane ,
I made a local clone of your leaflet branch and just tried it with Factorio 0.16.51 on Linux. Works like a charm! (when I open the map locally at least). And in one aspect, it's superior to google maps - mouse dragging to explore Leaflet maps works really well! Oddly enough, I need to use my keyboard for the google version.

Is there any reason you haven't updated the mod?

[jahands]

You have to add &v=3.3 to the script src=https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/js line in the generated map, that fixes the mouse dragging issue.

[jahands]

@NelsonMinar Hey that demo looks great except for one thing: if you try to zoom to fast, the screen goes blank. Is it possible to make sure it's always rendering the lower resolution images until the higher zoom level is loaded?