In a Word

The first of the above works to get the zoom, the second does not. The difference?
the word var. The second creates a variable within the function, and not accessible.
The first - without var - is a global function.

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So this code, allowing one to access zoom in a continuous fashion, works as well:

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Little hack which allows one to save map information, on the fly. Can't really
create a database on a phone. And for security reasons, very difficult to link
with anything that might write to one's computer. So one could add an href
to a file on the computer, which would retain some of the information from the session.

User could then ask for map with center and zoom information.

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Form input, entirely local:

Unlike setting zoom, one needs to create a new google maps object to set a new center: