I made some incredible progress on version 1.2 over the weekend (I used a couple of vacation days from work, so yesterday was really the end of my weekend). The ability to have multiple maps with only specified categories is DONE. I haven’t fully tested it yet, but that’s what a beta is for! The shortcode for displaying a map with all categories will still be the same:

[simplemap]

If you want to show only specific categories, you just need to do this:

[simplemap categories=4,12]

…where 4 and 12 are the ID numbers of the categories you want to show. The ID number of a category is automatically generated and will be shown in the Manage Categories screen for easy reference.

Also, categories are just better in general now; if you change a category’s name, it will update it in all the affected locations. It’s not perfect yet, but it’s much better than it used to be.

Tags are done, as is the ability to search them. The search now looks in the name, description, category, AND tags.

I found a great CSV processing class that should improve that functionality tenfold. Hopefully my beta testers will help confirm this!

In order to get these changes out there, I’m not going to include custom map markers in 1.2. They are next on the list and will come in 1.2.1. I’m really pushing myself on this and I’m hoping to get the beta out in the next day or two. Keep in mind that the beta should NOT be used in a production environment, because there’s no guarantee that it’s free of bugs and defects.