Display Category Icons on Maps and in Results

Power add-on required if king the WP SLP plug-in or available with the MySLP SaaS Professional Level Plan

Add Icons to your categories under your Categories Manager. Select under Settings/View the Default with Legend below if you wish to show the icons represented for individual categories.

Under the Settings/Results check off the box to show category icons.

Search Form Labels

 Set the Labels for the Search Form

The label that will be displayed in front of the Search form box on your locator page can be changed under Settings/Search in the Appearance section Label. If none are set, a blank box will appear on your site. The “Address” Label you enter will appear in front of the search box. The “radius” information indicates to the site visitor that this is the radius (whatever radii you entered in the search form  for radii options.

Consider this label as  a help text tool for the site visitor to assist them as to what  to enter in the box.   Label Examples:  zip code, city, street, or a combination such as  address / zip code.  The more detailed the better. We find address and zip code to be the most useful hint.  If you leave this label blank nothing will appear in front of the search form box and your site visitors will be guessing what to enter to start their search.

Additional Search settings and labels are available with MYSLP Professional or Enterprise level or the WPSLP self managed with the   Experience or Premier add-ons.

With the WP Add-ons or the MYSLP SaaS professional level plan and higher you will find additional help search boxes such as Address Placeholder.

Results Layout Shortcodes and Attributes

Changing the results layout is a feature provided for Professional level accounts. Users of the self-managed WordPress plugins will find this in the Experience add on.

Default Format

The default format for the results string uses the numerical encoding for the various data elements that can be rendered.   This default string format is present in the base Store Locator Plus plugin.  You can reset  to the default at any time by deleting the entry in the Results Layout field under  Settings/Results/Appearance and saving the settings.

Where to find the Store Locator Plus for WordPress Plug-in versions and updates

WordPress Plug-in Log-in

For the WordPress SLP stand alone (do it yourself) plug-in , the latest update to the Word Press base plugin normally appears in your WordPress site Plugin menu for auto update

To check your version against what is currently available  please see the site home page under Support/Versions

The WordPress Store Locator Plus base plug-in is again available in the WordPress plug-in directory.    If you purchased an add-on  you will  need to log into your WPSLP account and download it manually the first time you use it.

ALWAYS BACK-UP your site immediately  before updating any Plug-ins.

How to manually update.

Most Common “What Should I Buy” Questions

Some of the most common features requested are included with either the Plug-in for WordPress using add-ons OR a higher level plan if you use the all inclusive (but separate from the plug-in) Store Locator Plus Software as a Service (SaaS)

MySLP to WPSLP Comparison

Advanced is comparable to the basic Store Locator Plus plugin.

Professional is the Power level (excluding SEO Pages) plus the Experience add on.

Enterprise is the Professional level plan plus the Premier subscription features, functionality  and  support services.

Read below for answers to these questions and check out our other “What To Buy” articles.

Locations Panel: Manage Locations

The Locations panel in Store Locator Plus is where you add, manage, edit and/or delete locations.

Bulk Actions and Filters

SLP Locations panel has a bulk  tab with drop down actions and  other filters that can be applied .   If you have a large number of locations, bulk actions can be a very useful tool. If you have more locations than can fit on the display, you can set the display filter to show more locations. You may also use filters to display and manage non – geocoded locations, or show locations with certain properties. The display can be adjusted to suit your needs but configuration constraints and/or server constraints may effect your outcome.

Not all Bulk actions will appear if you have only the base plugin installed.  Bulk action filters for removing Tags, performing Exports, geocoding all uncoded, and bulk categorize certain locations will  be shown only if you have  the WPSLP Power add-on or  Professional or Enterprise  level Plans for MySLP

The default number of locations that will be displayed on the admin user Interface is 10. Selecting a large number to display can be useful to view or manage but if your server capacity cannot handle it or changes and you go back to manage locations months or years later and try to access your locations panel, you may see no locations panel. If you see the wheels churning on your computer with no results this could be the reason. If you are not sure of the capabilities of your server, browser and various other factors that effect memory, and inhibit loading and displaying fields, err on the side of caution and set the Filter Display locations back to a manageable size before leaving the panel. If you are migrating servers from a “heavy duty” server to a less robust server, or if your memory becomes an issue you will need to reset the display to a manageable number.  See Troubleshooting for more info.

Map Panel Settings

Under the menu for SLP / Settings /Map  :

The settings contained in the map panel will change the functionality of the map domain, center map, zoom and appearance.

The following settings are available to manage functionality for both WPSLP stand alone plug-in and MySLP SaaS managed service..

At Startup

  • Center Map:   This is where you enter an address, or a state, or a location or  a specific latitude and longitude to be displayed as the initial focus for the Map.   If nothing is entered in this box , the default will be the center of the United States .   Google map has determined the center of  United States to  be somewhere in Kansas.  Example:  See Google Localizing the Map:  The geocodes “Toledo” based on the default region (US) to “Toledo, Ohio”  or  one which biases results based on a region set to ES (Spain) to “Toledo, Spain.
  • Center Latitude Fallback: Center Longitude Fallback:  These are the latitude/longitude settings  that will be called if the Google server is “busy” or offline and not able to geocode or “call” to load your locations.  If you reset to blank it will fill in with the Center latitude/longitude of the map domain you have chosen.    You can have a different Lat/long fallback  then your map domain or center map if you  choose.    An image of your fallback will  be displayed