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When you send a Google Earth tour to a very naive -- even phobic -- user, you pretty much have to tell them exactly what to do to get a satisfactory tour.

To see what I'm talking about, do the following. Download Google's sample, from https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCEQFjAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fdevelopers.google.com%2Fkml%2Fdocumentation%2Fkmlfiles%2Fballoonvisibility_tourexample.kml&ei=uLviVMu8DuLAmwXGvYGQCQ&usg=AFQjCNFw11Z9TSZNIh3ARQsZCVLTQRbk2g&sig2=cW7QOZ7sgsz9PIVOMvNPGQ&bvm=bv.85970519,d.dGY .

Click on the kml file and Google Earth will start. In the left panel, you will see the "balloonVisibility Example", and the "play tour" button looks like a folder.

Click the "play tour" button. The tour will play, but only according to parameters set at menu Tools>Options>Touring, not according to the kml. That's a problem: most naive users don't even know Tools>Options>Touring exists, and it defaults to "show balloon when waiting at features" un-checked. The result: no balloons become visible.

Now un-check the "Play me" box (fourth and last item below "balloonVisibility Example"). The "play tour" button changes to look like a video camera. click it, and the tour plays as as declared in the kml. This is an un-intuitive way for a naive user to have to run a tour; his intuition is to simply click the folder icon in the first paragraph.

Is there a simpler way?

BinCodinLong
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1 Answers1

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Just a reminder: I’m developing an app you use to create Google Earth tours and send them to your parents – some of them quite computer phobic. They get frustrated easily and give up if things aren’t simple and intuitive. So I must find the way to make playing the tours as simple and reliable as possible. This isn’t as easy as it looks, because if you don’t get it right the tour plays according to certain GE Options, not the way you coded it in the kml.

This is what I’ve come up with: Name the tour “Play me”, and put all the Features into a Folder. These two steps get the “Play me” box right below the Document, where your parents will see it. Now you can tell them to double-click the “Play me”, and they’ll get the tour. Here’s the kml:

<Document>
    <Name>foo</Name>
    <Folder>
        <Placemark id = "Placemark1">…
    </Folder>
    <Tour>
        <Name>Play me</Name>…
    </Tour>
</Document>

Now your parents can double-click on “Play me”, and the tour plays correctly, according to the kml.

BinCodinLong
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