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Enable Google Maps

The Sharetribe Web Template offers out of the box support for Google Maps API for showing a map and searching locations with search autocompletion. This guide describes how to set up the API key for the API requests to work properly.

Table of Contents

Enable Google Maps in your marketplace

To enable Google Maps in your marketplace, you will need a Google Account. In addition, in order to enable the required Google APIs, you will need to enter your billing details.

Generate a Google Maps API key

Go to the Google Maps JavaScript API V3 Reference, and click on "Get started" button in the top bar, and follow the instructions. Save the key for later.

Enable Google APIs

Follow the instructions in the Getting started section of the Places library documentation to enable using the Google Places API Web Service. You will also need to enable the Maps Static API and Maps JavaScript API.

Update the API key in Console

If you are using a version of the template v3.4.0 or newer, you can set the API key in the Sharetribe Console.

  1. In Sharetribe Console, navigate to Integrations > Map

  2. Select "Google Maps"

  3. Paste the token into the field

  4. Press "Save changes"

Read more in our article on how to set up Mapbox or Google Maps for location services.

You can also choose to assign the map key to an environment variable. However, if you enable the API key configuration through Console, the settings in Console will overwrite the keys stored in environment variables, assuming that you have not made changes to how the template handles loading configurations via assets.

Enabling Google Maps through environment variables

If you are using a version of the template older than v3.4.0, you need to assign the API key to an environment variable and enable Google Maps by toggling an configuration variable in configMaps.js.

Assign the API key to an environment variable

The template uses the REACT_APP_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY environment variable for the key value. For local development, you can add the variable in the gitignored .env file in the project root:

REACT_APP_GOOGLE_MAPS_API_KEY=my-key-here

Enable Google Maps in the template

To enable Google Maps, you must toggle a configuration variable found in configMaps.js. This configuration variable can be one of two options: 'MAPBOX' or 'GOOGLE_MAPS'. To enable Google Maps in the template, change the variable to 'GOOGLE_MAPS':

export const mapProvider = 'GOOGLE_MAPS';

Further reading

Once you have enabled maps in your marketplace using your chosen map provider, you can change the map's configuration settings. These options allow you to change things like the default search locations and restrict location search to specific countries. Refer to the map configurations article to learn more about the specific configurations you can adjust for maps in your marketplace.