osmdroid workaround for the classic markers overlapping

Question

I am developing an Android offline mapping application using osmdroid and osm bonus pack and loading the tiles and data from external storage. Right now, as the data grows, markers are starting to get cramped together, I even have the situation of two places on the same building. I know this kind of issue has been asked a lot before, mine is about a simple temporal workaround I'm thinking of implementing. How about if two places are near enough(right in top of each other!) the standard info window pops up as a ListView with each row designed like the standard bubble(image, title, moreInfoButton).

My question is: some thoughts or advices on how to create the new bonuspack_bubble.xml layout file.

Answer 1

I don't know if this will help you. I needed to create a CustomInfoBubble for my project. What I did was, to extend the InfoWindow default class, and pass to it my custom bubble layout. Something like this: http://mobiledevstories.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/osmdroid-bonus-pack-markers-with-clickable-infowindows/

My Java class MapCustomInfoBubble looks like this:

public class MapCustomInfoBubble extends InfoWindow {

    public MapCustomInfoBubble(MapView mapView) {
        super(R.layout.map_infobubble_black, mapView);//my custom layout and my mapView
    }

    @Override
    public void onClose() {
      //by default, do nothing
    }

    @Override
    public void onOpen(Object item) {
        Marker marker = (Marker)item; //the marker on which you click to open the bubble    

        String title = marker.getTitle();
        if (title == null)
                title = "";

        Button moreInfo = (Button)mView.findViewById(R.id.bubble_moreinfo);//the button that I have in my XML; 
        moreInfo.setText(title);
        moreInfo.setOnClickListener(new OnClickListener() {

            @Override
            public void onClick(View v) {
             gotoMoreInfoWindow();//custom method; starts another activity
            }
        });
    }

}

In my XML file, I have:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:layout_width="wrap_content"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
    android:orientation="horizontal"
    android:background="@drawable/map_infobubble_black" >
        <LinearLayout 
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
            android:orientation="horizontal" >
            <TextView android:id="@+id/bubble_title" 
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content"
                android:textColor="#FFFFFF" 
                android:maxEms="17"
                android:layout_gravity="left"
                android:layout_weight="1"
                android:text="Title" />
            <Button android:id="@+id/bubble_moreinfo" 
                android:background="@drawable/map_btn_moreinfo"
                android:visibility="visible"
                android:layout_width="wrap_content"
                android:layout_height="wrap_content" 
                android:layout_gravity="right"
                android:layout_weight="0" />
        </LinearLayout>
</LinearLayout>

Somewhere else in my code, I then use:

Marker wp = new Marker(mapView);
wp.setPosition(new GeoPoint(mylocation.getMyLocation()));
wp.setTitle(editTextName.getText().toString());
wp.setInfoWindow(new MapCustomInfoBubble(mapView));
mapView.getOverlays().add(wp);
mapView.invalidate();

In my code, I set the text on the button with the Marker's title. The Marker is the item on which I click. If you want to put info about more markers in the same InfoWindow (inside a ListView), I think you would need to know in advance what the info will be.

I believe that, You can put whatever code you want inside onOpen(), however, I am not so sure if it's a good practice. You could try creating a custom Constructor and put your logic there. It should work. You need to pass the Resource Id (layout) and mapView to the super constructor, so it returns a valid mView object.