• The bug preventing the database from being created is FIXED.
• The Search function correctly searches Name, Description and Tags (but not Category yet).
• You can now choose an address format for the “city” line. There are seven different format options.
• The page now scrolls up to the map when you click on a result in the list.
• Changing a location’s address in Quick Edit forces you to re-geocode before saving the changes.
• “No Results Found” is now a translatable string.
• A location’s phone number now has a “Phone:” label in the info bubble as well as the results list.

A huge thanks to all my beta testers and translators. I’ve been keeping the translation files updated with each beta release, so please send me your .po files once you’ve translated them.

For the benefit of anyone using the beta, here are the bugs I’m aware of:

• Tables aren’t created on install (this is a BIG one; it’s first on my list to fix)
• Distance conversion/calculation error—differs from Google’s distance estimate when kilometers are used
• Search for keywords not working properly (FULLTEXT error)
• “No Results Found” is not being translated
• Need to add options for the display order of address elements (i.e. putting postal code ahead of city for certain countries)

I’m hoping to pound through all of these this weekend, so we’ll see how it goes.

Please check out the Beta Testing Forum if you want to participate.

[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.

SimpleMap Support Forums are now live! Click on the “Forum” link in the header to get to them. You can post in the forums without having to register, but you will have to provide your name and email address. I will leave the comments open on the SimpleMap page for now, but I strongly encourage anyone with a support-type question to post in the forums. This is my first time hosting or administering a forum, so please bear with me as I learn the ropes!

A huge thanks to Simple:Press Forum for making this possible. The plugin is so easy to use! It even gave me a couple of ideas for improving SimpleMap’s usability.

In light of this, I am working on a support forum for SimpleMap. I’m using the awesome Simple:Press forum plugin for it. I’m extremely impressed with Simple:Press so far—I’ve seen my husband set up other forums in the past, and this install was so much easier than any of those. The level of control and customization blows me away, especially for a completely free plugin!

That little donation module in the top-right corner of the Simple:Press site is a pretty great idea. I might be adding something similar soon… we’ll see.

Check out the demo!

Reference: MapIconMaker v1.1 Reference
Source: mapiconmaker.js

You can look forward to some truly great marker customization in SimpleMap 1.2!

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I was going to change the way Categories work a little. Right now the category name is actually what’s inserted into the database record for a location. In the categories table, each category has an ID number, and I was going to link to that from the locations database instead. That way, when you change the name of a category, it will be changed across all the locations in that category. I could also let the user reassign those locations to a different category automatically.

This would make matching the category in a search a little more painful to code. It also still limits each location to one category.

My mission with SimpleMap is to keep it really simple… like I’ve said in a blog post or two, I won’t be adding any major features for a while after I release 1.2, because I want to make this plugin as streamlined as possible before it gets any bigger.

Would adding a Tags field, like you mentioned in your email, be a little too busy? I like that it would allow another search dimension, and that it would be unrestrained as to what you type in it (multiple tags, huge phrases, numbers, wouldn’t matter). My only concern is making things too complicated.

Then again, WordPress uses both categories and tags for posts, and people using this plugin already use WordPress. So I think I’ve answered my own question.

That being said, I’m nearing a point with SimpleMap where my work on it will be a little more sporadic for a while. I’ve been working on it almost every night, and as I get closer to being done with 1.1.4 (and closer to starting 1.2) I feel that soon, there will only be bug fixes to worry about for a while. After 1.2 I don’t plan on adding any more major features. 1.2 will definitely bring more functionality to the location categories, including the ability to assign custom map markers for each category and to hide/show certain categories on your map.

In the relatively near future, I’m considering either opening up SimpleMap’s issue tracker to the public, or adding a support forum, so that there’s a more organized way of keeping questions, answers, bugs, and fixes online. I may not be developing new features for SimpleMap after 1.2 (at least not for a while), but I will still provide support as best I can.

The reason I’m thinking so seriously about this is because I’m starting another project. It’s something big, something involving WordPress that’s bigger than just a plugin. I am hoping to have it done by January 2010, or at least in beta by then. It will be a paid service, and it has a very specific target audience in mind, so a lot of the people using SimpleMap might not necessarily be interested in it. Anyway, it’s huge, it’s exciting, and it needs my time and attention if it’s ever going to get done. I’m working with my husband on it, and it will ultimately be a Barrett Creative product.

I don’t want to give much more away, so that’s it for now. Rest assured that you will see sneak peeks of the new project every now and then… and I will still be here for any and all SimpleMap questions. I do plan on concentrating on it as much as I have been until 1.2 is released. 1.1.4 is close enough to done that it should come out this week.

What I have planned for the next release, so far, is the following:

• Make latitude & longitude directly editable in the Manage DB screen
• Prevent address from overwriting manually entered latitude & longitude
• Fix bug where choosing a state of “None” messes up the directions link and shows in the map display
• Add ability to enter custom state/province values (this might replace the existing drop-down list)
• Fix/prevent all issues with displaying the map overlays (info bubbles, markers, etc.) that are caused by a theme’s CSS
• Fix sizing of the info bubble so it expands properly when a location name takes up more than one line
• Add ability to automatically load all locations, regardless of distance from the default location
• Add ability to change the number of results returned (currently it is limited to 20), including choice to have no limit
• Add new phrases to the main translation file (.POT file) and include new translations with the official release

Also, the ability to add a location by clicking on the map (instead of entering an address or latitude/longitude) might be coming in the next release. WebMago has volunteered to write this code for the plugin, so whether it’s in the next release will mostly depend on timing.

One issue I won’t be addressing in the next release will be the performance of the plugin when importing large CSV files (more than 200 records). I’ve already poured a lot of hours into trying to figure out a new solution, and I ran into a dead end. (Anyone who might have ideas on this—I would LOVE to hear from you! Let me know if you’d like to help or offer some advice, and I’ll give you more details on where I ended up with that code.)

Are there any other bugs people have found, or any other features that could be better than they are? I welcome any and all feedback!