Work continues on the Store Locator Plus and family of add-on packs.   In the past few days I’ve done some extensive “under the covers” edits that will have a notable impact on the user interface.    These changes will likely cause some of the built-in themes as well as many customized CSS rules that users have put in place to break.

After nearly a year of dealing with legacy HTML design, that is rather poorly constructed, I decided it was time to stop fighting ghosts from the past.    Along with a myriad of new filters, hooks, and shortcodes to assist third party developers I’ve made fundamental changes to the default page structure to eliminate hard-coded tables and styles in favor of responsive-friendly div tags and stylesheets.

Store Locator Plus 4 HTML Changes

What was changed in the most recent series of edits?

• The map area is no longer wrapped inside of table, tr, td, and tbody tags.
• The map height and width no longer have inline styles to set the height and width, instead an inline style rule is created and put into the header of the page page which allows the Pro Pack Custom CSS entry to get some precedence over these rules if desired.
• The remove tagline functionality is no longer an inline if/then process, speeding up map rendering.
• The map div and map tagline use an [slp_mapcontent] and [slp_maptagline] shortcode to make it easier to customize the map area layout with Enhanced Map and/or Pro Pack.
• New hooks and filters have been added to make it easier for 3rd party add-on packs, like Enhanced Mapp and Pro Pack, to manipulate the map page layout.

You can learn a bit more about what was changed in this video:

As a developer with several WordPress plugins hosted at the WordPress Plugin Directory, I often have questions on how I should be maintaining those repositories.   This past weekend I was having multiple problems with publishing an update to the Store Locator Plus plugin.   That plugin repository has been around for several years and has 102 versions as of this weekend.    When I cleared the repository directory and cloned from the server it crashed nearly every time.

If you are not aware of how Subversion works, one key element is that each tagged version and each branch includes a complete copy of the plugin.    Every time you publish a new version of your WordPress plugin you create a new directory under the tags subdirectory named for your current stable release.    If you have a version 0.1, 0.2, 0.3… 1.0 you can easily end up with 10 copies of your plugin, one full copy for each release of the product.

Sample of Older SLP Tags

As you can imagine, when you get up to version 3.11.8 over the course of several years of development you can end up with a lot of copies of your plugin.  The images, the code, the CSS, the JavaScript.  It is all there.    It is kind of cool to be able to go into each tag directory and instantly re-create a specific version with everything you need in one folder.   It is also a big waste of disk space and bandwidth when you are on version 3.11.8 and nobody has used or even looked at version 0.9 in 28 months.

You can help reduce the disk space and bandwidth that your plugin consumes by cleaning up your old/obsolete versions.   After posing a question to the WordPress plugin team, I got a quick response back from Otto suggesting that I keep several recent versions as a point of reference for other developers but delete the older version that no longer serve a purpose.   That purpose includes general shared knowledge/examples for other developers.  In other words, keep some previous versions for people to learn from or revert to.  Remember, this is a shared community space and your needs/wants/desires should be balanced with what is good for the community at large.

I am assuming the WordPress servers can easily handle the disk space usage and probably the bandwidth.   However everyone that clones your repository gets all the obsolete “garbage”.  This consume their disk space and uses up  more of their bandwidth and the WordPress server bandwidth than is necessary.  Every time someone makes a copy of the repository this effect is multiplied.    In addition the scripts, whether interactive or general maintenance such as the WordPress server backup scripts, need to work harder as more and more cruft builds up in the repository.

So what is the bottom line answer?

Delete your old obsolete tag directories.  Only keep what you deem reasonable.   Keeping at least the last few versions intact seems to be prudent.

Hopefully this posts helps other plugin developers maintain their plugins with some input from the WordPress plugin team.

Enhanced Results, the add-on pack that brings more controls and settings over the map area of Store Locator Plus, was patched today.    The patch resolves an “undefined object” error that can occur on various sites depending on the number of plugins installed and the order in which WordPress initializes the plugins.   The error can manifest itself in multiple ways.  WPMU based sites seem to be especially vulnerable.

A common error code:

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /home/wpmu/wp-content/plugins/slp-enhanced-results/slp-enhanced-results.php on line 278 Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /home/wpmu/wp-content/plugins/slp-enhanced-results/slp-enhanced-results.php on line 278

To install the patch:

• Login to your CSA account.
• Download the latest version of Enhanced Results.
• Login to your WordPress admin panel.
• Deactivate and delete the Enhanced Results plugin.
• Go to add new plugin, add new, upload the zip file you just downloaded.
• Activate.

All your settings and locations will be retained.

Sample Of Enhanced Results Settings

Enhanced Map, the add-on pack that brings more controls and settings over the map area of Store Locator Plus, was patched today.    The patch resolves an “undefined object” error that can occur on various sites depending on the number of plugins installed and the order in which WordPress initializes the plugins.   The error can manifest itself in multiple ways.  WPMU based sites seem to be especially vulnerable.

To install the patch:

• Login to your CSA account.
• Download the latest version of Enhanced Map.
• Login to your WordPress admin panel.
• Deactivate and delete the Enhanced Map plugin.
• Go to add new plugin, add new, upload the zip file you just downloaded.
• Activate.

All your settings and locations will be retained.

Enhanced Maps – some of the additional settings

If you’ve been following my blog you’ve notice that I’ve recently started putting hashtags in parenthesis in my post titles.    Why they heck would I clutter up my post titles with that bit of ugly?  The simple answer is that I am using Jetpack to help “socialize” my blog on Charleston Software Asssociates.

Jetpack will automatically publish your WordPress blog posts to Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, and Tumblr.    It is a great way to keep followers at those social network sites updated on what is going on without  having to login and post at each site.  Jetpack takes care of that for you.   I also like the fact that it keeps my blog posts in sync with my social media.  Less work and a consistent message.   A winner.

CSA Posts On FaceBook

It also turns out that I’ve been seeing a lot more posts on Facebook lately with the hashtags listed.    They are now automatically hot-linked to a summary of any-and-all posts made by other people that referenced the same hashtag.   Yes, this can lead to a lot of garbage posts in the hashtag thread.   However there is a lot of good content in there as well and it makes for a great tool to discover new things.    Like other people you’ve never met discovering the blog posts you just wrote.

WordPress Hashtag on FaceBook

So how do you get hashtags in your auto-generated Jetpack listings at Facebook and Twitter?   Easy.  Put a typical #<tag> hashtag reference in your page title.    Sorry, Linked In is a bit behind the curve here… no direct hashtag support there. Yet.

I made the mistake on my first couple of test posts.  I used hashtags directly in the title itself.   Works great, but it clutters my blog directory and listings.  It also looks ugly.     Turns out Jetpack has a “Custom Message” setting that hides, somewhat discretely, over in the “Publicize” section of the Publish panel.

Expand the Custom Message and it should show your initial title that you entered when creating the post.    Add your hashtags there and, I am making a big assumption here, it will publish the message that you entered there as the content on the Facebook and Twitter sites along with a link to the original article with a hashtag-less title.   The best of both worlds.

Not using WordPress and Jetpack to manage your blog and social media yet?  You may want to check it out.   WordPress is a juggernaut that will be hard to stop in the online publishing space.

The Pro Pack enterprise management add-on for Store Locator Plus was patched today.    The patch resolves an “undefined object” error that can occur on various sites depending on the number of plugins installed and the order in which WordPress initializes the plugins.   The error can manifest itself in multiple ways, typically with an error on the $this->plugin->debugMP() method call.

To install the patch:

• Login to your CSA account.
• Download the latest version of the Pro Pack.
• Login to your WordPress admin panel.
• Deactivate and delete the Store Locator Plus Pro Pack plugin.
• Go to add new plugin, add new, upload the zip file you just downloaded.
• Activate.

All your settings and locations will be retained.

Store Locator Plus version 3.11.8 had a minor patch release today.   The patch addresses an issue of saving a checkbox setting on the admin panel when the setting appears in more than one location, such as multiple add-on packs.    The problem with saving a checkbox value does not happen under normal circumstances, however incompatible base plugin and add-on pack version can cause issues until the add-on packs are upgraded.

Version 3.11.8 of Store Locator Plus addresses this issue.

Store Locator Plus version 3.12 and add-0n pack development continues as part of some custom update for a customer.

After adding some new settings to various add-on packs I realized the Map Settings page on the admin panel was getting much too long. I don’t know about you, but I was sick of spinning the scroll wheel on my mouse for 10 minutes just to change a map icon.

One of the most visible new changes is the revised admin panel. I tried to keep as much of the old admin panel intact as possible while adding a new sidebar navigation to the admin panel. If you use themes from WooThemes you’ll immediately recognize the general user experience.

Along the way I realized that the wpCSL framework that manages much of the admin interface was using a lot of inline styles and hard-coded JavaScript. WordPress has a built-in system for loading that sort of thing. There is also a specific methodology to getting CSS and JavaScript to only render for the admin pages you control, so I made sure the framework was upgraded to manage this according to the latest WordPress coding best practices.

Though the changes are not major functional updates, the method for making the framework aware of which pages the plugin “owns” changed. That means changes to ALL of the add-on packs. When Store Locator Plus 3.12 is released the add-on packs will be upgraded as follows:

• Pro Pack v3.12
• Enhanced Search v1.0
• Enhanced Map v1.0
• Enhanced Results v1.0
• Store Pages v3.10
• Tagalong v1.1

Here is a video that shows the current development version for the upcoming Store Locator Plus version 3.12, showing off the new admin interface.  It is not 100% complete yet, but functional enough to get a good idea of what is coming.

I am continuing to work on new features for the upcoming Pro Pack version 3.12 scheduled for release later this month/early July.   Here is what I’ve been coding over the past 24 hours.

Locator Layout

This is a new feature coming to the Pro Pack that provides an easy admin entry to change the general layout of the Store Locator Plus page, or more accurately the [SLPLUS] shortcode output.      The typical shortcode renders something like this:

<div id="sl_id">

... the search form HTML on top ...

... the map HTML in the middle ...

... the results HTML down below ...

</div>

While this works for most people, there are some really cool interfaces designed by graphic design agencies that apparently have a better eye for design than coders… or at least a better eye for design than I do.     In the past changing the page layout was a chore.   Yes, you can force the output to bend way out of the norm by using creative CSS layers but it is a notable challenge.

The latest code edits to Pro Pack will help make that task easier.   The new Locator Layout field defaults to the standard layout described above, but it now uses new [slp_search],[slp_map], and [slp_results] shortcodes within a text entry that will determine the order in which the search form, map, and results are rendered.   It also allows for more extensive modification so you can create directly addressable HTML elements that make it easier to bend the CSS to create the right layout for your site.  For example:

<div id="sl_div">
<div id="sl_map_div">[slp_map]</div>
<div id="sl_map_src">[slp_search]</div>
<div id="sl_map_res">[slp_results]</div>
</div>

Pro Pack 3.12 Locator Layout With Changes

This change moves the search form below the map:

Pro Pack Layout – Search Below Map

Here are some quick examples of what we can do with this new technology.   Start by creating a custom Locator Layout, then craft the related CSS override rules right on the Pro Pack tab, something like this:

Pro Pack Custom CSS and Layout Rules

I decided I didn’t like how the standard results looked in the new narrow space beside the map, so I enabled Enhanced Results.   The version here is the current “out of the box” version 0.8 release.    I used Enhanced Results to change the format string, eliminating the middle table cell and combining it with the location name like this:

Enhanced Results Without Middle Table Cell

Now my location search page looks like this:

Pro Pack Layout Side-By-Side

This is all done using the upcoming Store Locator Plus 3.12, upcoming Pro Pack 3.12, and current Enhanced Results 0.8 releases with admin page settings only.  No custom code or CSS tweaks “behind the scenes”.

Keep in mind this is all preliminary pre-release stuff and a glimpse of what I’ve been working on.  The final version may vary from what is shown here, but the concept will remain the same.

So there you have it, a glimpse of what I’ve been coding the past 48 hours.

The Store Locator Plus Pro Pack that was being sent out by the Charleston Software Associates server was not up-to-date.   The version that was online was 3.11, NOT the patched 3.11.2 release.

If you are using the Pro Pack you should log into your account on the CSA website and download the new Pro Pack.      To replace Pro Pack version 3.11 on  your site:

• Login to the WordPress admin panel.
• Go to the list of active plugins.
• Deactivate & delete the Store Locator Plus Pro Pack.
• Go to plugins / add new.
• Click the upload link.
• Browse files to select the slp-pro.zip file you downloaded from the CSA website.
• Install and activate.

Your Pro Pack settings will be retained.