Results Settings and interaction

Posted by lcleveland in Enterprise, Our Add Ons, Results, Settings

Additional Results Interaction features are available with the MySLP/Enterprise or WPSLP Premier Add On. The results interaction set of features provides a variety of visual cues on the location map to indicate the location a user has clicked when viewing a list of locations., providing a variety of additional options beyond the standard Info Bubble that Store Locator Plus displays when a location is clicked.

Use the Experience add-on to completely disable the Info Bubble under the map and only use these interactive result indicators. When a visitor to your site clicks on the results marker they will see additional information such as description you have entered for that location, in addition to the fields that are populated for the location.

Info bubble turned off, marker clicked shows the additional info for that location

Google Map Style

Posted by cici in Enterprise, Map, Professional, Settings

The WPSLP Experience Add On and MySLP Professional support the Google Map Style rules. These rules let you control the “inner style” of the map itself. Pre-defined map rules allow you to set a variety of styles via the map settings on the SLP admin panel.

For MySLP go to Store Locator Plus > Settings > Map > Map Style

For WPSLP go to Store Locator Plus > Settings > Map > Map Style

The value of this entry is a Google Maps JSON style string. Some of our Plugin Styles in the Style Gallery will set this for you. You can also build your own with services like Map Style With Google.

No Results Found label

Posted by cici in FAQ, Professional, Results, Settings

The text that displays when there are no locations to be displayed can be changed under Settings/Results in the section under Appearance. Type a message in the box to whatever you want the site visitor to see when there are no results found.

Example of the text added under the SLP Settings/results and how it appears to the site visitor front end when no locations or results found:

Shortcodes for StoreLocatorPlus and Add-ons

Posted by lcleveland in Advanced, Professional, Professional

[slplus] is the primary shortcode used within WordPress sites to display the Store Locator Plus map and location search interface. Many other attributes can be found within the plugin and add-ons.

A shortcode is a special label inside of square brackets that is used within WordPress pages and posts to display the output from a plugin. You place a shortcode within the text of your page or post and the plugin will “do it’s magic”.

Note: Shortcode attributes WILL NOT WORK if Force Load JavaScript is turned on under Store Locator Plus General Settings. Try turning it off before using attributes. If Store Locator Plus won’t load when you turn Force Load JavaScript off, get a different WordPress Theme that fully implements WordPress code standards.

Note: As of WordPress Plugin API update 4.2.3 effects shortcodes with filtered styles which will not be recognized when stored between quotes.

Adding Radius Selection First Entry

Posted by cici in Our Add Ons, Professional, Search, Settings

If you have the WPSLP Experience Add On or the MYSLP/Professional plan an additional setting is available under labels and will show you a new field named Radius first entry under the Settings/Search user interface. When a Radius First Entry has been set it will appear as the first field in the radius drop down that the user sees on your search form. The value will be set to the default miles that you have set in Radii Options. The other radiis you have entered to allow users to search will appear in numerical order in the dropdown but the label for the first entry will appear first regardless of numerical order.

Cluster Map Markers

Posted by lcleveland in Enterprise, Our Add Ons

Cluster Map Markers is available as part of the Premier plugin included with the Premier Subscription for Store Locator Plus or the Enterprise level of MySLP. Cluster Markers show a single map marker graphic (circle with number inside it) when two or more (you set this number) markers are within close proximity to one another on the current map view. As a user zooms in on the cluster, the clusters break apart to show the individual markers. When zoomed out the individual location markers combine into a single marker graphic with the count of locations represented by the graphic shown in the center. You determine the default radius and minimum number of locations before cluster map marker is engaged. Your “center map at” and default radius setting will effect where the map center is located.

Turn On Cluster Markers

Go to the Store Locator Plus : Settings / Map and look under the Appearance section for “Enable Cluster Markers”.

Read the Store Locator Plus news articles about Cluster Map Markers.

Example CSV Import Files

Posted by lcleveland in Our Add Ons, Professional

CSV Imports are the most-used feature for our MySLP Professional users and for our WordPress SLP self managed DIY customers that purchased the Power add on.

Learn about CSV Import formatting and other import notes.

Below files are examples only, you will need to set up your own import files to add your locations.

Example CSV Import Files

9 Restaurants Basic CSV Import

We consider this the simplest usable format for most businesses. It includes the Store Name (Store), Address, City, State, and Zip columns.

You can download our example on our server here

9 Restaurants Full Address

A full address format of the 10 Restaurants Basic CSV Import format. It includes the Store Name (Store), Address, Address 2, City, State, and Zip, and Country columns.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jE_BZTGpHrAuZzYy-K7CwLcFanPzKGC9

9 Restaurants With Latitude and Longitude

The same 9 places with full address and latitude and longitude. Including latitude and longitude gets the locations online and active on the site faster. This was created from an Export CSV of the above Full Address file when we stripped the sl_id column and all the blank columns at the end, relabeled the header row to be user friendly.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jkfRlY4K2retNGFaRVcW17WSLi_tfRmj

Remote file Retrieval; (Currently being patched )

One quick way to tell if your file is accessible is to put the URL you are using for your imports into your browser. Does it download a CSV file you can open with a text editor? If No; It isn’t a “vanilla” CSV file readable by the “Internet”.

This is the link you can use to see if remote file retrieval is working

For example — if you go HERE
https://demo.storelocatorplus.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/9-Restaurants-With-Lat-Lng-Cat.csv

you see an option to download a file

But if you go here :
https://demo.storelocatorplus.com/9-restaurants-with-lat-lng-cat/

it shows you a web page. That second link above from our demo site is NOT a valid remote CSV file URL

Google changed how share links on drives are working and we have found no way to get to the raw CSV file with any links they provided to us.

So Google Drive hosted CSV files is likely never going to work again. Just one more way for them to track everything you do online by using an embed object vs. a flat CSV that they give you access too.

Location Imports

Posted by lcleveland in FAQ, Locations, Our Add Ons, Power Add On, Professional, Professional, Troubleshooting

Location Imports are handled via a CSV file for users that signed up for the MySLP Professional SaaS service or are using the WPSLP Power Add On with Store Locator Plus plug-in for Word Press current version. With MYSLP the import feature is under the StoreLocatorPlus sidebar/locations as shown in screenshot. If you are using WPSLP self managed and have the Power add-on it will look similar.

CSV Import Format

Getting the proper CSV format can be a challenge when using spreadsheet apps like Excel or Numbers. Here are some tips to getting a valid CSV format out of a spreadsheet app:

Make sure you always have a header row. That tells the import process what data is in each column. The column headers have meaning, so be precise.
When a cell is a text field that STARTS WITH A LEADING ZERO, make sure you explicitly mark the cell as text. The easiest way to do this is to type a single apostrophe then the number when adding data to the cell as in ‘01886 for the zip code 01886.
Always export with UTF-8 support enabled.
Export to a CSV format. Comma delimited not tab delimited and quoted strings if given the option.

Check out the Example CSV Imports post to get some usable import files you can play with.