Implementing a selection box for Google Maps

This method only works with the first version of Google Maps. It does not work with the latest API. I have not had the time to update the code but I am sure if you search Google you will find an implementation using the latest API.

I really like Google Maps but one thing that has been bothering me for a while was the inability to select an area on the map to zoom into.

With the help of the Google Maps API which allows you embed the maps on your own page, I decided to tackle the problem of implementing the selection box.

Well, after around 7 hours of work/hacks/coffee this evening, I had it working on IE and Firefox.  I hope that Google implements this feature soon.

v2 demo and source code here To zoom into an area, press the shift + 'z' key and move your mouse. 
v1 demo and source code here To zoom into an area, press the 'z' key and move your mouse. 

TODO: Re-Initialize on resize; Take into account scroll attributes if map is being scrolled. I'll let Google take care of that when they implement this ;-)

The API could have exposed more functions and the documentation should bee improved. Hopefully they will in the next release. Since the current API only allows you to render an area given the lat, lon of the center and a zoom level, the challenge was converting the pixels of my bounding box to lat/lon coordinates, finding the center and then determining the appropriate zoom level. I think the API in the future should alow a developer to call a method that renders the map given the lat/lon or pixels of your bounding box.

It is almost 4 am..I need some slee