Mixed Content Warnings and Site migration

Posted by cici in Advanced, FAQ, Support, Troubleshooting

Google’s push for all websites to be HTTPS  has been a game changer over the past few years with many companies  switching from HTTP to HTTPS with some hiccups along the way.  Some of the site transfer mishaps are minor, but if done incorrectly can cause your plug-ins to misbehave , and often is the case, after the transition team has left the building.

Mixed Content Warnings – Loading Assets Over HTTP

If you have never had HTTPS on your site, you will undoubtedly run into an issue with how your site assets are loaded. By assets we are referring to things like images, JavaScript, and even your CSS.   Insecure assets may not stop the green padlock from showing in browsers, but it will add an exclamation point warning to your users that information is being loaded insecurely.

 Site Migrations Vary

Occasionally we see comments from customers that Store locator Plus broke their site or is not working. When asked if they recently  migrated their site they often state nothing has changed.   On further investigation , or by inspecting their console  we often see the “Mixed Content warnings” quite often for images or icons from older versions of Store Locator Plus. This is a sure fire clue that there was indeed a “site migration”. They started out with their site when  the SLP plug-in was originally installed as HTTP and now , at least part of their site, is HTTPS.  This is known as  a protocol migration. If you migrate your site from HTTP to HTTPS, Google treats this as a site move with a URL change. That means you may need to obtain a new Google API key for SLP to work properly. With version SLP 4.9.15 you are allowed to add HTTP referrers now as long as you also obtain a geocode key. See  info about those changes under news

Upfront Investment

A site migration is a great opportunity to address legacy issues. If you have outdated legacy add-ons  this is a good time to invest in your future by planning for and including any  update expenses in your overall budget.  Including these costs in the project scope is the most cost-effective method to ensure your site stays relevant and on-track. When you consider that  issues that may arise after going live will require additional time , resources and, yes, may even create downtime and loss of traffic  to your site it is worth including the new versions in your budget.

Location Limit URL control

Posted by cici in Enterprise, General, User Interface

Location Limit

The location limit feature is available exclusively to our Store Locator Plus Premier/Enterprise customers.

When the URL Control module is active you can enable location ID passing by turning on “Location Limit” under the General / User Interface tab.

When this is enabled you can pass in a limit for the number of locations to be returned when the map initially loads and when a search is performed by adding ?limit=<id> to the end of the page address where your locator map is deployed with the [slplus] shortcode.

Example: Client has 250  results to return by default but when the site via a URL link loaded they only wanted 5 to come back.

Location Limit functionality supersedes the initial default limit.

Store Locator Plus INFO Plug-in Environment

Posted by cici in for WordPress, Info, Support

Plug-in environment

We often have questions posted from users asking why something is or is not working. The information needed to be able to assist them properly and efficiently is shown under the SLP/INFO tab under Environment

What is meant by the  (Plugin) Environment.

The plugin environment shows the versions of Store Locator Plus, and any active SLP add-ons you have installed, as well as the WordPress version, php version, MYSQL , the domain name and other useful data specific to the WPSLP environment.

You can also  find the latest release versions under your account Downloads List, and/or review the Versions under the Support tab on the WordPress Store Locator Plus  home site  to see if you have the most recent version of Store Locator Plus and the various add-on packs.

CSV Import Zip / Postal Codes formatting

Posted by lcleveland in FAQ, Professional, Professional, Support

Note: IMPORT requires  Power add-on for the stand alone WPSLP plugin  or if you are using MYSLP SaaS, the  Professional level or higher plan. 

When creating a CSV import file make sure the zip / postal code column is properly formatted as text so you do not lose leading zeros.

The column header for postal/zip codes is zip or sl_zip.

In the United States many northeastern postal codes start with zero.   Many sheets, Microsoft Excel in particular, LOVE to leave off the leading zero if you enter a zip code as 03907 and save as CSV.

Invalid Postal Codes
Invalid Postal Codes

In Excel, and many other apps, you can force a field where you are typing in numbers to be text by starting your entry with an apostrophe (‘).  Type ‘03907 when entering the data NOT 03907.

A good test to see if this is happening to you,  open your CSV file in Google Sheets and see what it looks like.  Does it look like the sheet above missing a zero and right aligned?

Another indicator that this column is set to a numeric type and not an text type is the data is on the RIGHT SIDE of the cell.  Text is left-justified (like sl_state) and numbers are right-justified.

MySLP SaaS: Deploying On WordPress

Posted by lcleveland in for Everything

These instructions are for MySLP SaaS users only.  

MySLP is a monthly subscription service that allows you to deploy a locator map on ANY platform including WordPress.   It is a managed service where we handle the hosting of the locations, settings, and map software as well as handle the Google API key.   We keep the software updated so you don’t have to worry about it.

These instructions DO NOT APPLY to the stand alone, self managed WordPress plugin(s).

For our buy-it-and-own-it solution you will want to look at the WPSLP plugins instead of this page.

If you are NOT using My Store Locator Plus® you should think about it.

If you are using MySLP, read on…

You’ve already added your locations and generated your embed code per the instructions in our Getting Started post.  Now you are ready to deploy on your WordPress site.

Here we are going to deploy the script in a new page on our site.

Read More “MySLP SaaS: Deploying On WordPress”

MySLP : Deploying With Basic HTML

Posted by lcleveland in for Everything

My Store Locator Plus can be deployed on any website technology that can publish basic HTML pages.   The functionality of the service depends more on the browser technology used by your site visitors than your web stack.

The most basic deployment is a local HTML file that is opened by your web browser.   Your desktop or laptop and even some mobile devices will allow you to create a basic HTML file on your device.   You can then open this file using that device’s web browser.

Read More “MySLP : Deploying With Basic HTML”

Deploying A SquareSpace Map

Posted by lcleveland in for Everything

Deploying a SquareSpace map is a simple process that uses the SquareSpace embed block and a simple My Store Locator Plus (our SLP SaaS solution) JavaScript snippet.

Setting up a SLP  SaaS account, adding locations, setting up a SquareSpace account, adding the map, and deploying a site can take as little as 15 minutes.

Squarespace map.
Using Store Locator Plus to deploy a SquareSpace map.
Read More “Deploying A SquareSpace Map”