Spotmap

Description

Spot does not offer the storage of points free of charge for long term. That’s where Spotmap comes into the game:
Your WordPress Site will store all positions ever sent. It checks for new positions every 2.5 minutes.
It supports different devices (They can even belong to different accounts).

The map can fetch new points autmatically without relaoding the entire Post.

?? Support of Gutenberg block editor. Just type /spotmap and open the settings on the right.

Currently only the GPX colors cannot be cahnged individually inside the block settings.

With a shortcode you can add an embedded map to your post or page. By default it will show all positions ever sent.
If needed the map can show a subset of the data. i.e. the last weekend getaway.

Next planned features (Not necessarily in right order):

• grouping of points (partially implemented)

• support of other tracking devices (Garmin InReach, …)

• Translatable version of the plugin

• Full support of the Spotmap block for Gutenberg

• delete/move points from the Dashboard

• export to gpx files

?? If you feel like this plugin is missing importants part, let me know. Maybe I have some free time to change this fact. ??

Screenshots

Blocks

This plugin provides 1 block.

• Spotmap

Installation

After installing the plugin, head over to your Dashboard Settings > Spotmap. Add a feed by selecting findmespot from the dropdown and hit “Add Feed”.

Now you can enter your XML Feed Id, a name for the feed and a password if you have one. Press “Save”. A few minutes later WordPress will download the points that are present in the XML Feed.

In the mean time you can create an empty map with the Shortcode:
[spotmap]

If you use the block editor Gutenberg, you can search for a block named ‘Spotmap’.

?? Congrats! You just created your first Spotmap. ??

If you use the Block editor make sure to select the map and click on the settings icon in the top right corner, in order to see all settings related to the map.

If you use the shortcode,check the Additional attributes section.
?? If you need help to configure your map, post a question in the support forum. ??

Additional attributes

If you add new maps, check the FAQ

To fine tune the map, there are some attributes we can pass with the shortcode:

Note: all the Default values of the attributes can be changed in the settings in Dashboard. This comes in handy, if you use several maps on the blog, and you like to configure them all in one place. Of course you can still use the attributes to overide the default values.

Map

• maps=opentopomap will show only the opentopomap as map. Default "openstreetmap,opentopomap".
  If you create a mapbox API Key and store it in the settings page. You can choose other map types as well: mb-outdoors,mb-streets,mb-satelite
  Use it like this: maps="mb-satelite,mb-streets,openstreetmap" This will show a satelite image as the selected map, but it can be changed to the other two maps (mb-streets, openstreetmap).

• map-overlays=openseamap can be added to see the openseamap overlay in the map. (You need to zoom in quite a bit).

• height=600 can define the height of the map in pixels.

• width=full if you add this the map will appear in full width. Default is normal.

• mapcenter=last can be used to zoom into the last known position. Default all. Can be set to 'gpx' to center all GPX files (see below for configurations).

Feeds

• splitlines=8 will split the lines between points if two points are sent with a difference greater than X hours. Default 12. Set to 0 if you don’t like to see any line.

• date-range-from=2021-01-01 can be used to show all points starting from date and time X. (Can lie in the future).

• date-range-to=2022-01-01 19:00 can be used to show all points until date and time X.

• auto-reload will auto update the map without the need to reload the page. (This hasn’t been tested much…)

• last-point will show the last sent point as big marker, to be easily found. Can also be used with a limited range of colors (yellow,red,green,black,gray,blue) like last-point=red

• feeds can be set, if multiple feeds get used. (See example below, if you have only one spot this is not needed)

GPX

The following attributes can be used to show GPX tracks:

• gpx-name="Track 1,Track 2" give the tracks a nice name. (Spaces can be used)

• gpx-url="yourwordpress.com/wp-content/track1.gpx,yourwordpress.com/wp-content/track2.gpx" specify the URL of the GPX files. (You can upload GPX files to your media library)

• gpx-color="green,#347F33" give your tracks some color. (It can be any color you can think of, or some hex values)

If there are areas where tracks overlap each other, the track named first will be on top of the others.

Note: feeds must always match your feed name.
This will show a bigger map and the points are all in yellow:

[spotmap height=600 width=full feeds="My Spot Feed" colors=yellow]

This will show a map where we zoom into the last known position, and we only show data from the the first of May:

[spotmap mapcenter=last feeds="My Spot" colors=red date-range-from="2020-05-01"]

We can also show multiple feeds in different colors on a same day (from 0:00:00 to 23:59:59):

[spotmap mapcenter=last feeds="My first spot,My other Device" colors="gray,green" date="2020-06-01"]

FAQ

How do I get my Feed ID?

You need to create an XML Feed in your spot account. (See here for more details)
Unless you like to group devices under one name, it’s good to create one feed per device, so you can manage the devices independently.
Your XML Feed id should look similar to this: 0Wl3diTJcqqvncI6NNsoqJV5ygrFtQfBB

Which 3rd Party Services are getting used?

The plugin uses the following thrid party services:
1. From SPOT LLC it uses the Public API to get the points.
2. (optionally) TimeZoneDB.com To calculate the localtime of sent positions. Create an account here. Paste the key in the settings page.
3. (optionally) Mapbox, Inc. To get satelite images and nice looking maps, you can sign up for a Mapbox API Token. I recommend to restrict the token usage to your domain only.
4. (optionally) Thunderforest To get another set of maps. Create an account here. Paste the key in the settings page.
5. (optionally) Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) To get the official Topo Maps of NZ create an account here. Paste the key in the settings page.
6. (optionally) Géoportail France To get the official Topo Maps of IGN France. Create an account here (french only). Paste the key in the settings page.
7. (optionally) UK Ordnance Survey To get the official UK OS maps. Create a free plan here. And follow this guide on how to create a project.

Can I use/add other maps?

Have you created your mapbox/thunderforest API key yet? If not this is a good way to start and get other map styles. See the question ‘Which 3rd Party Services are getting used?’ for details
If you still search for another map: Start a search here and also here.
If you have found a map, create a new post in the support forum.

I have a question, an idea, found a bug…

Head over to the www.ads-software.com support forum, and ask your question there. I’m happy to assist you! ??

Reviews

Great plugin

alpsfreeride October 14, 2022

Great plugin to track our adventure. Hope more features will come;-)

Contributors & Developers

Changelog

0.11.2

• new marker styles and options how to configure them. Changeable icons
• maps with many points will load faster
• tested with WP 5.8
• Thirdparty API options page includes many comments to better understand what each service is for.
• new initial map state added: ‘last-trip’. Zooms to the last line on the map (In the feed settings splitlines must be activated to work)

0.10.3

• added UK Ordnance Survey
• added US Geological Survey maps
• possability to hide nearby points of the same type

0.10.2

• tested WordPress 5.7
• add last-point option to show the latest position as a big marker. (Requested by Elia)
• fix reload issue of the map inside Gutenberg if no changes were made

0.10.1

Full Gutenberg Block support
added NZtopomap
added France IGN Topo map token

0.9

• new shortcode to show table of messages
• add gpx overlays
• new maps available (mapbox, thunderforest, swisstopo)

0.7

• added support for multiple feeds
• filter for certain date ranges
• added a Gutenberg Block (still experimental!)