Using MarkerClusterer and MarkerWithLabel with Google Maps

Both MarkerClusterer and MarkerWithLabel are great libraries, but they do have their quirks;

MarkerClusterer

What is a cluster marker?
MarkerClusterer doesn’t use Google Markers or pin styles, it takes an image path and creates HTML on a layer. The resultant markup is given a class of ‘cluster’ that you can target in your CSS.
Do I have to pass set an image path for the marker?
Yes. You can amend that in the source code*, just check for the image path where the IMG tag is created and only add it if the path is defined.
How do I set the zoom level where clusters become active?
The minimum level at which clusters are visible is set through the maxZoom property. Note: This property also affects the click action of the clusters, if you click on a cluster pin and the zoom level exceeds the maxZoom, the zoom is reset. Again, you can amend this in the source code*, it’s not configurable.
On a small screen clicking a cluster doesn’t zoom in
When setting Google Maps to show a boundary it tries to maintain spacing between that boundary and the edge of the container. This can be a pain on small screens because we’re short on screen space already, to work around this for the cluster markers we again need to go into the source code*, we need to store the maps current zoom level and then test it once the boundary has been set. If the zoom level has not been changed then increase the zoom level manually.
Clicking on a cluster of a single pin zooms in too far
The easiest way to avoid this is to set the maximum zoom level of the Google Map.
Can I set the line-height of a ClusterMarker?
Weirdly, no. The line-height is being used to vertically align the counter so is set to match the height. If you want to change that you have to got into the source. For the other options you can pass in inherit to override defaults.

*Amended source code (GitHub)

MarkerWithLabel

Can I set the pin background images / hover states though CSS?
Pin images can be null, this allows us to set the images through CSS and set hover states. When doing this you might want to set a background size property to enforce the pin sizes. Note: IE11 does not render SVG markers correctly.
Why do marker labels show through other markers?
The labels do not exist in the same layer as their Google Markers so do not obey the same z-index values as their partner. If you must enforce the z-index order then apply the pin styling to the marker label using background images.
Setting a markers z-index puts it under other markers
Markers have a zIndex already set, if you want to amend this position you probably should use the original z-index value as the start point using marker.getZIndex().
Why are the pins too big on iOS?
Pins size and scaledSize must be integers, strings will cause hard to debug issues with click regions.

Centering a boundary on a point

As mentioned markerClusterer uses boundaries to show the markers, we need a custom function to center a boundary. I’ve written a Gist to enable this, it’s had limited testing as it didn’t go into the production version but should be good to use.

Filed under: JavaScript