Gillian

Hi Ian

I have been getting around to raising this issue myself, as sometimes I don’t want to specify a place name but rather simply specify latitude and longitude co-ordinates. I have struck the same difficulty that Rob reports, whereby the co-ordinates entered are not faithfully returned (in one case, a point I wanted to place in the middle of the Pacific ended up on the Australian mainland!)

In the previous map plug-in that I was using (Google Map Shortcode) there was a checkbox (unselected by default) next to where one could enter the latitude and longitude directly (as opposed to entering an address). Ticking this checkbox asked the plug-in to “Verify this latitude and longitude using Geocoding. This could overwrite the point address.” By leaving the checkbox unticked, exact latitude and longitude co-ordinates can be entered and returned. Ticking the checkbox, however, can result in an error (eg the address can’t be located) or incorrect location being returned.

Does your plug-in verify the latitude and longitude using Geocoding (or similar), and is this why the point address that Rob and I (and other people, from earlier threads here) are specifying is being over-written (sometimes by many degrees, especially where no landmarks/towns are nearby)?

If so, would it be possible to implement a similar checkbox to that above in your plug-in?

Thanks in advance for looking into this.

Many thanks for correcting my muddled understanding, Ian – much appreciated.

It is all working properly now ??

Happy New Year!

Hi Ian

I have tried to set up an alternative default icon following your instructions at the end of the FAQ, but I can’t get it to work. I expect that I either haven’t got the pathing to my new default icon correct, or I’m inserting the URL in the wrong place. Would you mind confirming where and how the “full URL to the new icon” should be put in the function?

Using your first example in the FAQ, I thought the URL should go in the function’s “return get_bloginfo” line, like this

return get_bloginfo( 'stylesheet_directory' ) . 'https://www.mydomain/images/mydefaulticonname.png';
but the icon is not found and so the marker doesn’t appear on the map.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Ridgididgi

A great idea if feasible – I spend a reasonable time when creating each placemarker just browsing/searching the media library for and inserting the custom marker I want, a simple paste into a URL field would certainly speed things up.

Hi Ian

Thanks for your troubleshooting and advice.

Although my theme uses the max-width property I don’t actually have any display issues with your plug-in so I haven’t needed to modify your style.css file.

I had a look in the files for my other map plug-in but couldn’t readily see where I could put a “max-width: none” rule and after a while playing with possibilities I gave up in favour of concentrating my efforts on continuing the migration to your plug-in.

Then I can just go back to waiting anxiously for the next version which will include shortcode arguments to specify the map center and zoom, so that my individual maps don’t all have to start from the one view ??

Ridgididgi

Hi Ian

That is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious ??

It’s all working now, many thanks. It would be great to have the ability to include shortcodes in the custom post in an upcoming version of your plug-in.

For your info, the shortcode I wanted to include pulls data from the database so that a number (and its related percentage) is automatically updated in the info box as new entries are recorded in the database. The shortcode works fine in a page, but returns a zero (and divide by zero error for the percentage operation) in the placemark post. I got around that difficulty by using the Shortcode Exec PHP plug-in and creating two more shortcodes (one for the count and one for the percent) and then using the “echo do_shortcode” command to call up the respective original shortcodes.

I’m sure my convoluted solution isn’t optimal, but at least it works so I’m happy ??

Many thanks again for your great support and a belated Merry Christmas!

Ridgididgi

Hi Ian

Many thanks for the code ??

I created a child theme and included the code in the child theme’s functions.php file, but unfortunately all my placemarks disappeared ??

Help! I have temporarily disabled the child theme’s functions.php file to get my placemarks back in the meantime.

Ridgididgi

I have a similar problem, but with a different Google map placemark plug-in, which is why I am in the process of switching to Ian’s plug-in since it doesn’t exhibit the problem.

As you can see from this example page (scroll down to below the graph), if you click on any placemarker the pop-up box looks almost identical to Evelyn’s (including the dirty smears at the bottom of the box and just outside the box, and the inability to close the box). If you click on a second and subsequent placemarker then the preceding box closes but there is no way you can close the final info box (short of refreshing the page).

You’ll also see that my map has further problems which Evelyn’s fortunately doesn’t exhibit – the scroll ladder is obscured (but still works if you manage to position your mouse in the right spot) and there are regular vertical grey bars on the map (no info is lost in the gaps, the edges have just been “pushed apart”).

I suspect the issues may be due to a Javascript conflict somewhere but am not competent to troubleshoot it so decided to cut my losses and start again using Ian’s plug-in which not only doesn’t have these problems but is much better supported.

I’m just posting regarding Evelyn’s issue particularly with the info box (which looks identical to my issue with a different plug-in) in the hope that it might help Ian track down Evelyn’s issue.

Ridgididgi

Many thanks, Daniel ??

I followed your suggestions yesterday and now my nightly backup is working again.

Merry Christmas, and thanks again for your prompt support.

Hi Ian

Many thanks for your prompt response and for letting me know the timeframe ?? I had checked out the TODO file but just wasn’t sure how long it would be before 1.5.3 might arrive ??

I’ll keep plugging away at re-creating my hundreds of place markers and look forward to being able to specify a different centre and zoom for each map in due course.

Cheers

Ridgididgi

Hi Ian

I have recently switched to your great Google Map Placemarks plug-in because the previous map plug-in that I spent a month or more populating with many place markers over nine different maps did not play nicely with a theme upgrade. The plug-in author didn’t respond to a request for advice (the maps now have vertical bars down them and the scroll ladder and info boxes are messed up) so I decided to cut my losses and start again with another Google map plug-in.

After checking out a few different possibilities (all of which work properly with the theme), I settled on yours and I like it very much – with the categories and the ability to better format the info box it is also more versatile than what I was using before.

As I prefer Terrain view I did the workaround of editing the functions.js file as you suggested in an earlier thread – thanks for the tip ??

My one remaining issue is a biggie – I really need to specify the map center, zoom, etc through shortcode arguments, otherwise I can only display one “whole world” map each time, rather than displaying an individual zoomed-in portion on each different page.

While I’m waiting for this feature to be added, I am happy to keep going re-creating all my place markers but was wondering how far up your “To Do” list the shortcode arguments are, or alternatively, whether it might be possible for me to get this functionality now by adding some code somewhere?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

Many thanks, Daniel – no log (zip) errors now ??

Hi Daniel

I just installed and tested the development version and .. it works!!!

I ran both my jobs (database table check and database backup & email) and both worked.

After clicking on “Run Now” the screen went blank for a few seconds and then showed the log (on a black background) showing the job details and that ot completed successfully. My jobs both take very little time so I guess if the database was bigger I would actually see the log being created, rather than just see the end result.

One error was thrown up in the second log (database backup & email) but it didn’t apparently affect the outcome – this is the relevant section from the log (I replaced my server name with XXXXX):

2011-07-17 14:50.03: Database Dump done!
2011-07-17 14:50.03: Add Database Dump to Backup list: XXXXX.sql 18.89 MB
2011-07-17 14:50.03: 1. Try to create backup zip file…
2011-07-17 14:50.03: [ERROR] Zip Status: 0
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Backup zip file create done!
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Backup archive file size is 1.55 MB
2011-07-17 14:50.04: 1. Try to sending backup file with mail…
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Send mail with PHP mail
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Creating mail
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Adding Attachment to mail
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Send mail….
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Mail send!!!
2011-07-17 14:50.04: Job done in 3 sec.

I hope this feedback helps. Thank you so much for your continuing efforts to squash the bugs – it is great to have your latest version working at last ??

Just tested version 2.0.3 BackWPup. Still the same problem… ??

Ditto ?? – see my longer post here

Hi Daniel

I just installed your latest version 2.0.3, deactivated abailey’s interim patched version 1.7.8, re-activated your version and tried an on-demand simple job (database check) which normally completes in only a few seconds.

Using IE8, the screen went white for about a minute, then the old black screen came back – the only difference being that the two percentage bars read 0% instead of the 100% that they read with the earlier “2” versions.

After a minute or so with neither the black screen nor the 0% changing, I tried to switch to the Logs view but the page wouldn’t fully load (it started to load but never completed). I also had the same non-loading issue with my website itself.

I switched to Firefox 5 and was able to load the Dashboard – I aborted the job which showed as still running after several minutes. The Log consequently showed an error (user aborted) for the job.

It appears that the black screen problems are still not fixed, as least as far as my site is concerned. I have de-activated version 2.0.3 again and gone back to abailey’s patched version 1.7.8 which works flawlessly.

I hope the above feedback re my test helps squash any remaining bugs.