KML to control Optional Features (such as "Tour Guide")

1
votes

I'm new to KML programming but have gotten most of what I need to do working, which is multiple map overlays.

One thing I want to control but haven't found a way to do so are the options you can turn on/off via "View" on the GoogleEarth.exe menu.

For instance, if I run Google Earth stand alone, turn on "Tour Guide" (View > Tour Guide), then terminate Google Earth, when I start up my application that interacts with Google Earth, the Tour Guide photo strip is on. If I exit my app, re-run Google Earth, turn off the Tour Guide, and exit, then the next time I start my app and it starts Google Earth the Tour Guide is off.

Are there KML commands to control this ("Tour Guide") and other optional features? I'd like to do this inside my app rather than forcing the user to manually configure the settings the way my application wants them.

By the way, I'm coding in C# in .NET Framework 4, using GoogleEarth version 7.0.2.8415, and running on Windows/XP and above.

Thanks for any help/guidance you can supply!

  • john
1
c#kmlgoogle-earthgoogle-earth-plugin
For what it's worth, after further digging, I did find that if I set the following REGEDIT key to "false", the Tour Guide strip is off when I fire up GoogleEarth: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google\Googl‌​e Earth Plus\TourGuide\Filmstrip\Enable. I'm hopeful there's an easier way via KML to do this. - John
Are you using the Google Earth COM api, or the JavaScript Plugin api? It isn't clear... - Fraser
@Fraser -- COM API. Apologies for the latent response.... - John
Ah, you should be aware that it has been depreciated. - Fraser

1 Answers

1
votes

Google Earth provides additional elements in it's extended KML namespace to achieve things like the tours (using the gx: prefix for those XML elements as you describe / have used above). In all cases these extended elements tell Google Earth how to interact with the various geographical elements within the KML, and none define the behaviour of the Google Earth application and plugin in anyway.

So, short answer is out of the box Google Earth and KML cannot achieve your desired behaviour.

EDIT Here is the relevant link to controlling the tour if you are using the Google Earth Plugin in you app: https://developers.google.com/earth/documentation/reference/interface_g_e_tour_player