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PHP 7 Compatible Store Locator v4.0: New Benefits & Tighter WordPress Integration
– PHP 7.0+ & PHP 7.2+ compatibility both for base plugin and addons
– Geocoding improvements reported by a number of users (no more red or pink-highlighted locations in admin location management)
– Don’t worry about losing current locations because Store Locator v4.0 uses the same database as before. Deactivating / activating / upgrading Store Locator never deletes any location data.
– Map settings, custom CSS (stored in ‘/wp-content/uploads/sl-uploads/’) won’t be affected by updating either
Store Locator v4.0+: PHP 7 compatible Store Locator, featuring tighter integration with WordPress and many new benefits
WordPress Store Locator v4.0 is a PHP 7 compatible store locator that’s now ready following a thorough update & improvement.
WordPress requested these updates in order to allow Store Locator to continue providing all the great benefits you’ve had for many years. Additionally, new addon features are now available, many of which topped users’ request list for a while.
Changes
All addons, labeled v2.0 or higher, are official WordPress plugins, meaning that they are much easier to install and update than ever before (much less FTP needed now).
Additionally, it more tightly integrates into WordPress’s platform. This allows Store Locator to take advantage of WordPress’s ongoing security enhancements with each new update.
The previous way of installing and updating addons — via our Addons Marketplace — will not be available to new users since WordPress’s admin plugin interface now provides the installation and updating functionality for the base plugin and addons.
Now, Addons Platform Lite v2.0 — which powers all Store Locator addons, just without the Addons Marketplace — will be provided with Store Locator v4.0+.
New Benefits
So many new benefits for developers and their clients exist, but here a some important ones of note:
Fully PHP 7 Compatibility:
PHP, just like WordPress, Store Locator, Google Maps, and any other platform, continues to evolve year by year. PHP 7 is the latest iteration of PHP, thus, stay on top of the eventual shift of web hosting over to PHP 7+. This PHP 7 compatible Store Locator helps accomplishes this nicely.
Still on PHP 5.2? Store Locator still supports that too currently. Would suggest bumping up your PHP version to at least PHP 5.3+, with PHP 7.0+ being preferable, however.
Custom Ordering of Location Results:
One of the many great features provided by the Power Options addon. A popular request that is available for your benefit.
New Addons:
Power Options, as previously mentioned, incorporates several new heavily requested features that give you more power to customize your Store Locator just as envisioned. Developer Console, similarly, provides the tools and guidance to create custom addons that can change & enhance the way that one’s Store Locator operates.
Painstaking effort and thought has gone into building Store Locator v4.0+ based on feedback — the responses from users so far have been positive as it has helped provide the benefits, functionality, and compatibility needed to serve their clients’ needs.
Confident it will do the same for you. There are even more new benefits in the works, so more improvements are coming.
Dynamic Text Translating:
WPML 3.2+ and Polylang plugins provide dynamic text translating — Store Locator v4.0+ integrates with both.
Dynamic translating essentially is being able to translate customizable texts in a plugin’s settings. For Store Locator, these customizable, translatable texts can be found on the MapDesigner admin settings page.
Many Map APIs – Update WordPress Store Locator for Smooth Operations
New Year, Resolved Issues — Update WordPress Store Locator
New Year ’16
Over the Holidays …
Too many maps can cause problems sometimes
WordPress Store Locator v3.85 and later resolves this problem for pages specific to Store Locator, so once you’ve updated, everything should be fine again.
Download Here or Update Via Your WP Admin Dashboard
Store Locator v3.7 — Improvements With Custom Post Types & Page Builders
Custom Post Types / Statuses / Page Builders
As WordPress becomes more advanced, so do the techniques employed by theme & plugin authors.
To keep in step, noticed that custom post types, statuses, and page builders were sometimes causing some users’ maps not to show up at times by preventing the WordPress Store Locator‘s javascript from loading. Store Locator v3.7+ should fully fix that now.
Download Here or Update Via Your WP Admin Dashboard
Now, all should be fine — if your map is sometimes not loading, make sure to update! The latest version is now v3.8 as of this writing.
Store Locator Addon Notice: Save Template Before Updating Location Pages
Location Pages Users: Save Template File (location-template.php) Before Updating If It’s Been Modified
If you have already made modifications to your ‘location-template.php’ file, save a copy of it to your computer before updating to Location Pages v1.1, released today. It will become ‘location-sample-template.php’ moving forward and will be used as a default template for first-time users.
After this update, your template’s HTML & template shortcode will be stored in the Store Locator’s database, but still modifiable from your Location Pages admin interface.
Great Feedback
Great feedback from our addon users, Early Access members, and regular/non-members in recent months — it has really aided in the development of new addon features and learning what users are looking forward to. Just released WordPress Store Locator v3.5 today, with many base Store Locator and major addon updates as a result.
Tutorial: How to Use File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
Using FTP
Not everyone using the WordPress Store Locator plugin & its addons are highly technical — and that’s okay. WordPress is an online publishing tool that makes life very easy for both highly-technical developers and non-technical users alike. Likewise, the aim has always been to create a Store Locator that also follows in the mold of WordPress’s ease of use.
After helping a number of users to use File Transfer Protocol (FTP), in order to get their addons up and running, decided to share this tutorial that has been shared with them — and hopefully it will help many others.
How to upload folders/files to your website (CSV Importer addon example)
1) You will need to use FTP to upload folders & files to your website. FTP is “File Transfer Protocol” — It’s how you can upload and download files from your website’s server (“server” is the remote computer hosting your website’s files so that it shows up online as a website)
2) Easiest way to get FTP: Use the browser, FireFox, and install the FireFTP addon: http://fireftp.net/ (you can also go to “Tools > Add-ons” from within FireFox and then search for “FireFTP”)
3) To log into your website using FireFTP (in order to upload folders & files), click the blue seahorse icon that shows up near your browser’s address bar. Then, from the drop down menu, choose “Create an account…”
4) Then, you will need to create an account for your website using the FTP login credentials for your website (might need to ask your website host about this, or if you use cPanel, the login might be the same for FTP)
(Note: Steps 5 & 6 pertain directly to the CSV Importer addon)
5) Once successfully connected, you will see the files on your computer on the left side of the screen, and the files on your website’s server on the right side of the screen. You will want to take your unzipped folder ‘/csv-xml-importer-exporter/’ and upload it to ‘/{your_WordPress_root}/wp-content/uploads/sl-uploads/addons/’ using the Green Right Arrow in the middle (use the Left Arrow to download files from your website to your computer)
6) After successfully uploading to the “/addons” folder, go to your Store Locator admin Dashboard, and activate the CSV Importer using the key you received in your email (in your case, you will see the CSV Importer under “Activation Keys” instead of the Addons Platform). Paste your activation key here, and click the “Activate” button. Now you can go to Locations > Add, and perform your CSV import … but make sure to review the CSV Importer documentation beforehand.
Store Locator v2.13: Fixes Blank Admin Area Experienced By a Select Few
Blank Store Locator Admin Area Fix
The latest version of the WordPress Store Locator (version 2.13) addresses a blank admin area experienced by a select few of you when trying to access your Store Locator’s admin.
Seemed to be caused by having certain functionality unavailable or turned off on your server (cURL or file_get_contents), but should now display the admin properly even with those functions off.
Stay Tuned
More Store Locator updates to come in December, stay tuned — and don’t forget to keep your Store Locator updated!
Important: Update To Store Locator v2.x, Which Uses Google Maps API v3!
Update to Store Locator v2.x!
Update to Store Locator v2! Important!
It is mandatory that you update to v2 of the WordPress Store Locator, because it uses Google Maps API v3.
Older Store Locator versions use Google Maps API v2, which is being shut off soon.
Older Versions Will Not Geocode Your Locations Anymore
In fact, Google Geocoding API v2 seems to already be off. No further questions concerning geocoding errors will be answered for those of you using old versions before Store Locator v2 (geocoding: giving your locations latitude & longitude coordinates).
If your plugin folder is ‘wordpress-store-locator-location-finder’ (stopped at v1.2.37):
- Deactivate
- Rename the folder to ‘store-locator’
- Then reactivate the plugin so that you start seeing updates in your WordPress plugins admin panel!
This renaming notification is in your admin panel. You will not lose your locations.
Just like keeping WordPress up-to-date, keeping your Store Locator up-to-date is crucial, due to changes to external services/APIs such as Google Maps.
Announced This Twice So Far, Don’t Hesitate — Update!
August 2013 Recap: Good Feedback, Downloads, and Addon Usage
Good Feedback & New Addons Debuting
Yes … I Can Hear You Clearly
Great to see how these products are helping users to enhance their client or their own websites by presenting the Store Locator to their website visitors.
Continue to Rate Us! Tell Us How Great the WordPress Store Locator Is!
Go to our plugin page, and tell us in a review & rating — we would like to personally thank each one of you! Ratings help us to improve WordPress, and continue development.
And of course, you can always contact us or view the documentation if you have any issues or questions! In fact, let us know what you are looking forward to in future releases!
Some of Best Feedback Thus Far (Public & Private)
your helping us keep our lights on!
Date: Aug. 8th, 2013
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Date: Aug. 7th, 2013
Date: Aug. 26th, 2013
Have something great to say too? Tell us what you think!
Important: Make Sure to Update to Store Locator v2.1
Update to Store Locator v2.1
Important: Make sure to update today to Store Locator v2.1 (you can do so from your ‘Plugins’ admin page, or download the latest here).
Details
It has improved transitioning into using Store Locator v2 for all users (both those of you currently using Store Locator v1 and those who are already using an earlier Store Locator v2), so that there is even better display of your locations on your Store Locator page.
Also remember, Google Maps API V2 (used by Store Locator v1) is anticipated to be discontinued by Google by November 19, 2013, so it’s important to soon be using Store Locator v2, which uses Google Maps API V3. Any questions/problems, make sure to make contact via the contact page.
100,000+ Downloads & Back With WordPress Store Locator 2.0
Greetings All
Good to be back with WordPress Store Locator Version 2.0 — LotsOfLocales™. A great deal of work and feedback from many of you went into this product after learning many lessons since our launch date back in December 2008 — five years have certainly flown by.
100,000+ Downloads
Additionally, the Store Locator plugin recently reached 100,000 downloads on the WordPress plugin directory! In the same vein of celebrating the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin’s achievement of being the first WordPress plugin to reach 1 million downloads, also took a few screenshots to commemorate — however, simply completing all to-do’s for version 2.0 was reward enough.
More to Come
More to say in upcoming days, one of them being that it will be required to upgrade to WordPress Store Locator 2.0 (which now uses Google Maps API V3) quite soon, due to the fact that Google may be fully discontinuing Google Maps API V2 by November 19, 2013.
Lastly, all systems …
- Upgrade purchases
- Documentation
- Discussions / Forums
- Customizations / Custom-coding
… are either already up and running or should be by early this week. Currently updating details to reflect many of the new features brought to you by version 2.0 of the WordPress Store Locator. All the best … and enjoy it!
All Gray / Blank Map Issues Should Now Be Fixed! + Enjoy the Holiday Season
Gray Maps Should Be A Thing of the Past
Made many fixes in version 1.2.33 of the Store Locator plugin for the many of you that have been experiencing trouble with gray / blank maps.
It should be 100% fixed now, if you find otherwise, say so here in the comments! Otherwise enjoy. More fixes coming, hoping to speed up development during the Holiday Season.
Go to Store Locator Download Page
Translations
Lastly, the translation template has been updated. Please provide a translation if you create one for your plugin. Here’s the template:
[download#13#nohits]
Leaving you with this! …
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