Check/uncheck element through link inside Google Earth

Question

So I have a folder with 2 placemarks in it. One of them is hidden on load while the other is visible. I'd like to have a link in the description of the visible one to hide/show the hidden one. Is there a way to do this?

Answer 1

If you are using the Google Earth plugin, this is one way of doing it.

First assign each placemark an 'id' - so in the KML file you need to edit the code that says

   <Placemark>
   <name>Placemark 1</name>

to

   <Placemark id="placemark1">
   <name>Placemark 1</name>

and the same for Placemark #2

then you have a javascript function like the one below, which is executed by adding a button through the balloon description (see this example page for how to do that)

    function togglePlacemarks() {
         var pm1 = ge.getElementById('placemark1');
         var pm1 = ge.getElementById('placemark1');
         if (pm1.getVisibility() == true) {
    pm1.setVisibility(false);
            pm2.setVisibility(true);
     } else {
    pm1.setVisibility(true);
            pm2.setVisibility(false);
     }
    }

In the example code to execute JS from a balloon, you would change the following line

     balloon.setContentString(
    '<a href="#" onclick="alert(\'Running some JavaScript!\');">Alert!</a>');

to

      balloon.setContentString(
    '<a href="#" onclick="togglePlacemarks();">Toggle Visibility</a>');

Finally, if you only wish to have a simple (ie only 2 placemarks), then perhaps you should use the example code to create your placemarks instead of creating and loading a custom KML file. In which case, when you create the placemarks (through this line of code)

     placemark = ge.createPlacemark('');

You would do this

     placemark1 = ge.createPlacemark('placemark1');
     ...etc

and also

     placemark2 = ge.createPlacemark('placemark2');
     ... etc
     placemark2.setVisibility(false);