Experiences/Issues Using My Own Map

  • Resolved jamroller

    (@jamroller)


    9 years, 9 months ago

    Traveling this weekend, so I thought I’d try out my own map. Not happy with the experience. Using 2.0 beta. Here is the site:

    https://www.destination-bbq.com/sc-bbq-map-locator/

    Couple of questions/comments/observations:

    1) At the beginning of the day, on my iPhone, I did NOT allow current location to be found when asked. That left me stuck for the rest of the day without the option to find my current location. I had to know and type in the local zip code (or town names) to use the map.

    There needs to be a button that allows the user to find his current location on demand. Is this possible?

    2) Does the plugin actually find the user’s exact location, or does it simply find the zip code in which the user is in? It is not helpful to a driver to get directions from some random starting point within his current zip code. Directions need to be built from his precise location…especially when traveling in an unfamiliar area.

    I tested this in Atlanta, GA. Using both my laptop and my iPhone. I used both the hotel wifi and the cell phone connection. In all cases, the map did not find my current location and started me several miles away in the middle of some neighborhood. When I simply typed in the zip code 30339, it put me right back in that same neighborhood, so I guess google sees that as the center of that zip code.

    The address I am at is: 6345 Powers Ferry Rd, Atlanta, GA 30339
    The address the map started me from is: 3042 Loridan Way SE, Atlanta, GA 30339

    I also tried handing off the directions to Google by checking the box in the settings, but the starting info was the same (which, I guess, isn’t surprising). However, if I simply used google maps, it was able to find my current location precisely on both the iPhone and the laptop with both the hotel wifi and the cell signal.

    3) If I allow the map to find my current location, why does it not go ahead and find the locations in my area? I would expect that to be the default behavior. It is not intuitive to say OK and then to have to click search to find the locations in my area. My experience in Atlanta was that I clicked OK to find my location and, on loading, the map showed markers in my hometown area of Charleston, SC. (See this screenshot) Only when I clicked Search did the locations near me show.

    Thanks.

    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/wp-store-locator/

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author Tijmen Smit

    (@tijmensmit)

    1) The phone / browser does remember your choice, which make sense. But it would indeed be nice to have a button to trigger it again. I will see how and where I can add one.

    2) The location is determined through the Geolocation API, so it relies on information from your browser. This gives the store locator a set of coordinates that is used to start the search. But the Geolocation API isn’t always accurate.

    I did test the Google Map on my phone, and I noticed it activated GPS to determine my location. So, I guess there is setting / option somewhere that I left out of the script that influences the accuracy, which makes the store locator location request less accurate then when Google Maps tries it. I will look into this.

    3) It should go ahead and start a search, if it didn’t then it probably had a problem figuring out your exact location. But I will test this as well on a few devices.

    Thanks for the feedback ??

    Thread Starter jamroller

    (@jamroller)

    Thank you for the feedback.

    While I believe #1 is important, I would argue #2 is critical.

    I personally was trying to find a restaurant to try during our recent trip. I was VERY frustrated by the inability to find my current location because of #1 above. I even went into the iPhone’s settings and cleared the history and website data, but nothing I did solved the problem of #1.

    I found later that it would not have made any difference because of the issue outlined in #2. I’ll say again that #2 is a big deal to the end user.

    I love your plugin and have said many times I am eager to pay you for the premium version, but if #2 remains a problem, I will have to consider looking around for other options because I think it is imperative that the directions provided be as location specific as possible. Anything less is pointless.

    In the heat of the moment, especially when driving through unfamiliar areas, the current information provided to drivers is inadequate…not to mention extremely frustrating.

    As for #3, I would tell you that I thought it worked as one would expect, but the screenshot you see was basically the same result I got on the iPhone on the cellular network. So both the laptop and the phone — on two different networks — yielded the same result. Note: I was using Safari in both cases, however. I did not try a different browser on either.

    Again, I thank you for a great plugin and your very responsive support. I am really looking forward to the public version of 2.0 and, beyond that, the premium version, but I do sincerely hope these issues can and will be addressed as soon as possible.

    Thanks again.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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