Recently, I made a Dealer Locator for Thule’s website. This is probably the biggest Javascript based project I’ve done so far. The application was made using the Google Maps Javascript API, jQuery and HTML5.

The main target was to get a faster and more flexible Dealer Locator than their previous locator. It should also easily be deployed globally to all countries they are operating in (currently 79). The application also had to meet needs of being portable to smartphones and tablets. All design and programming was done by me in this project. The hardest part was to make it as lightweight as possible and maintain decent speed in all browsers.

An interesting technical detail is that my translation system is using the new HTML5 Microdata model. In shorthand, the microdata model allows you to store custom data on all elements in your HTML. There’s no native support for it in the browsers right now, but it’s easy to work with it in jQuery. I think it has great potential and we have to see what it will be used for in the future.