You may or may not know that the live team last week released their ASP.NET VE Map control, and about time too.
In the past year, if you’d wanted to use Virtual Earth while not dealing with JS, you had to opt for something like Chris Pietschmann’s Web.Maps.VE control (at about $99 for version 1 and $139 for version 2).
While Chris’s control was a good alternative to learning JS, it lacked many features (in my opinion), there was no way to tap into the Find functionality, no way to set the map view and no way to give a pushpin offset which made custom pushpins just look silly at times, to name a few I encountered (or at least, in version 1 anyway).
So, now the CTP of Microsoft’s ASP.NET VE Map Control has been released, I decided to have a play, and see if it filled in the gaps – oh and of course, the price difference (it’s free as in beer).
First off I watched the little intro video on Channel9. This quick video runs you through some of the basics of setting up the control and adding some basic functionality. Mark demonstrates using the extenders, as well as code behind to manipulate the map.
A much more extensive set of videos has been provided by John at SoulSolutions. This excellent set of videos guides you through the basics of setting up your map control, learning how to set properties (client and server side) and also shows you how to add shapes and import data collections from maps.live.com. Well worth a look, and with the current lack of references, this should help you on your way!
I personally think this is a better, more rounded control than the Simplovation control, however, as Chris points out, if you want to use this in production, you’re better off going for his control at the moment, until MS releases the control properly (i.e. not as a CTP!)