This article provides information on how to recover from critical errors after a plugin update. Critical updates can occur for a variety of reasons. These errors can take your WordPress site offline until the error is resolved.
For the purpose of this article we are going to delve into an example where a Store Locator Plus® add on is running an outdated version and the base plugin is updated to an incompatible version. While newer versions of the Store Locator Plus® plugin will auto-detect incompatible add on versions and disable them automatically, there are some third party add ons that do not report version updates properly and can prevent this auto-detection from working.
SaaS users can skip this step.Store Locator Plus® for WordPress users need a Google API key to utilize the full features available in the the plugin. WordPress administrators who are self-managing their plugin updates, security, and Google services need to setup a Google API account so they can start billing for map services.
For the Store Locator Plus® for WordPress users these instructions are a general guideline. You will need to visit Google and read their User guide to obtain a new account or update your existing account. Google will bill you directly for your monthly map views and location look-ups.
When a visitor goes to a page with the Store Locator Plus® map code embedded, it will show a default search form and a map centered in your country or on the “Center Map At” address you entered when configuring Store Locator Plus®. When someone searches for a zip code that is close enough to a location you entered it will show those locations on the map.
All Store Locator Plus® software updates are handled for you.
There are no Google or other map location service API keys to manage.
Store Locator Plus® bills a low easy-to-understand monthly fee.
WordPress
You must manage your own Store Locator Plus® software updates.
Google requires an API key for all products using their map software. You must create, manage, and secure your own API key.
Google will bill you for every map view and location geocoding request. Rates are on a sliding scale and are different for map views and location look-ups.
Location Results reports are included with the Professional or Enterprise plan. This report is designed to show the locations that were returned by users entering addresses on the search form when looking for locations. This can be useful for determining which locations are appearing most frequently for your site visitors.
To view this report you’ll need to turn on reporting features as outlined in the Reports documentation.
Location Results Report 2208.15+
This report will show up to the top 500 locations returned within the date range selected.
Location Search reports are included with the Professional or Enterprise plan. This report is designed to show what addresses users are entering on the search form when looking for locations. This can be useful for determining areas where your site visitors are looking for your product or service.
To view this report you’ll need to turn on reporting features as outlined in the Reports documentation.
Location Search Report v2208.15+
This report will show up to the top 500 searches within the date range selected.
WordPress environment is setup and configured including activation of the following plugins
Store Locator Plus®
SLP Power add on
In addition map service (Google API keys) should be in place and some locations should be added to the system.
A page has been created with the [slplus] shortcode present and the map is rendering properly.
Users are logged in as a WordPress administrator (the process will be slightly different for SaaS users).
Adding Categories To Locations
Objective
Create a location category and attach it to an existing location.
User Action: Add A Location Category
Click on Store Locator Plus® | Categories in the WordPress sidebar menu.
In the left “Add New Category Form”…
Type a category name. (Restaurant)
Click Add New Category
Result
The new category should appear on the category list on the page.
Category list after adding the restaurant category.
User Action: Attach Category To Location
Click on Store Locator Plus® | Locations in the WordPress sidebar menu.
Click the Edit action icon on the first location.
Check off the box next to “Restaurants” in the Power | Categories section of the form.
Click Save.
Result
The category is assigned to the location and appears on the location table.
The location with an assigned restaurant category. This view is showing fewer columns as the Screen Options was updated to removed unused columns from the table view.
User Action: Show Category Select On Front End
Click on Store Locator Plus® | Settings in the WordPress sidebar menu.
Change the Category Selector setting to “Single Drop Down”.
Click Save
On the front end, go to the page that has the [slplus] shortcode.
Result
The search form for the map should show a category drop down.
The front end page with the [slplus] shortcode, showing the category selection filter.
User Action : Filtering Locations With Category
On the front end, go to the page that has the [slplus] shortcode.
The base Store Locator Plus plugin and add ons are updated on a regular basis. Often the updates include security and bug fixes or fundamental changes that are designed to improve performance by reducing the memory and/or disk request load when your visitors are interacting with the map.
The most common reason your legacy add on stopped working is because it is no longer supported with the latest version of Store Locator Plus or vice versa
You may wish to choose to stay with your WPSLP Self Managed plugin and upgrade to the replacement bundled add-ons or switch to the managed MySLP.
Make sure you have a backup copy of the current version of SLP you have installed that IS working with your add on packs. We ALWAYS recommend that your site uses VaultPress or JetPack
Whenever you update the base plugin make sure ALL of your SLP add-on packs are updated to the latest version.
MySLP Professional and Enterprise level services allow for locations to be categorized. Each category for a location can have its own map marker associated with the category. These markers are then displayed on the map to mark the location. (This also applies for those customers using the WordPress SLP plug-in with the Power add-on or Premier)
However, some locations may belong to more than one category. In this case the map marker that is selected to be displayed on the map is determined by the RANK assigned to the category. If multiple categories have the same rank, or no rank, then the first category by alphabetical listing will be the one selected as the “main” category for rendering the map marker.
Default map markers when no category is selected.
Filtering Locations By Category
What happens when a user decides to filter the list of categories? Only locations that are within the selected category are shown.
If the location only belongs to ONE category, as is the case for the “#1 Food Store” in our example above, the choice is easy. Show the category map marker.
But what should be displayed if a location belongs to several categories, as is the case for our “24 Seven #1” location shown in the example above?
Prior to our mid-September 2020 release of Store Locator Plus® (or the Power 5.5.7 add on for our legacy WordPress plugin users), the marker for the “24 Seven #1” location would be the highest ranked category, which is the convenience store marker.
With the mid-September 2020 release, however, this behavior has changed. The map marker displayed will be the one that matches the filter the user selected.
Since our mid-September 2020 release, category filters change the map markers to match.
Multiple Location Categories
What about Store Locator Plus® interfaces that allow users to select more than one category, such as interfaces that allow checkbox selections for categories? Markers will be chosen from the markers for the selected categories only. If a location matches 2 or more of the categories, the highest ranked OF THOSE SELECTED will be displayed on the map.
This is different from earlier versions of Store Locator Plus® where it would always display the highest ranked category map marker, even if it was not part of the checked list of categories.
