Yahoo Driving Directions stopped working!

[modfather]

Just wondering if anyone has a direct link from their web page to driving directions with Yahoo? I had a link working for the last couple of months, but it stopped working sometime in the last few days. Looking at their site, it seems that the fields have changed, but was wondering if anyone else had this problem or any insight to what might be different...

I would very much appreciate any help.

Thanks!
Steve

 

[csteinhilber]

Yahoo, MapQuest, Weather.com, etc, etc, routinely change their sites for reasons ranging from cosmetic to architectural.

If you're passing URL variables to a site like that, you can not count on those variables (either the name, type or even what variables are required) to stay constant for any length of time. You need to continually update your site as they make changes to theirs.

If you're doing screen scrapes, you're even in more of a sinking boat... since any little UI change on their site has the potential to break yours.

If you insist on using other sites in this way, you have to be prepared for the maintenance issues that come along with it.

I've never tried to integrate anything with Yahoo Maps, so I don't know how it was before, but it really doesn't matter what's changed... the only thing that matters is what works now.
If you're simply linking to driving directions via a URL (ie- you have a link on your page that takes the user to the directions on the Yahoo Maps site), simply go directly to Yahoo Maps yourself, input your start and end points in their form, let it create the directions, and copy the new resultant URL as your link.
If you're submitting to their page via FORM variables (like from CFHTTP), you'll need to look at their forms, note all the new form field names, and adjust your variable names accordingly.



-Carl