I am trying to build an address based map search using PHP and Ajax. Typing in a term in the address field should bring up suggested addresses in a dropown and any address term not bringing up any suggested addresses in a dropown should present a 'Did you mean' section on the left of the page. For my internal functions I need the lat, lng and short country code, for example - 'GB'.
I have tried using both the Geocoder API and the Places API but both APIs lack some features which I would like.
Using the Geocoder API with jQuery UI to bring up suggested addresses in a dropown up and for the 'Did you mean' section' return multiple duplicate results. Is there any way to refine this even further so that distinct results are returned. Also for some countries like 'India' and 'Afghanistan' there seems to be no short country code.
Using the Places API Autocomplete I am able to get the lat, lng and short country code for almost all addresses but I don't seem to able to tell when the suggested addresses in the dropown have been populated. There doesn't seem to be an event for this. Also I can't seem to use the Places API to create my 'Did you mean' section'.
I know the APIs are experimental and are being constantly updated, but maybe I'm missing something. Any help would be greatly appreciated.