Leaflet Maps Marker v3.0 is available

Posted on 27 November, 2012

Category:

Free-Version Releases
Attention: this is not the changelog for the latest stable version 4.28 (see related release notes)

“Reduce to the max” was the focus of the development for v3.0. Beside feedback from the support forum, I also made several interviews with power users which gave me very valuable feedback on how to improve the handling of the plugin.

As a main result, I implemented a simplified editor which gets activated by default and only shows the most common map option on marker and layer maps. Beside that I also simplified the marker/layer list view by default and implemented lots of usability improvements.

One personal request: as WordPress added a new review feature for plugins hosted on wordpress.org, I kindly invite you to leave your opinion about my plugin at http://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/leaflet-maps-marker.

If you want to keep up to date with the latest Maps Marker development, please follow @MapsMarker on twitter.

And now let´s get into the hightlights of v3.0:

option to switch between simplified and advanced editor

By the default, the new simplified editor is enabled for marker and layer maps. This simplified editor focuses on the fields you really need for creating a map and hides all other optional options, resulting in a slicker and more usable interface:

If you want to be able to set all available options, you can always switch to the advanced editor by clicking on the link “switch to advanced editor” above the table:

You can also set the editor by going to Settings / Misc / General Settings and changing the option there:

Regardless on how you change this setting, the advanced editor will look like this:

I hope that this simplification will help especially new users in getting their maps online more quickly 🙂

Anyway: if you have any further suggestion on how to improve the interface, please let me know!

address now also gets saved to database and displayed on maps

The second highlight of v3.0 is that beside latitude and longitude now also the location/address gets saved to the database:

This info automatically gets added to the popup text respectively directions links:

If you dont want the address to be automatically added here, please go to Settings / Directions / General direction settings and set the option “Attach directions panel with address to popup text on each marker” to no:

 

If the marker is also part of a layer with a list of marker below the map, the address also gets added by default to the list:

If you dont want the address to be displayed there, please go to Settings / Map Defaults / List marker settings and deactivate the checkbox “Address”:

The address also gets displayed as a column on markers and layers list view:

Please be aware, that for markers created with >v3.0, this field is currently empty. If you would also like those old markers to have an address, you will have to update each marker manually.

Hungarian translation

Thanks to István Pintér,  http://www.logicit.hu, Leaflet Maps Marker is now also available in Hungarian. As with all other translations, this translation gets loaded when you WPLANG constant in wp-config.php is set to hu_HU.

If you want to change the language of the plugin manually, you can do this by going to Settings / Misc / Language Settings and selecting the desired language:

layer control box is not opened by default on mobile devices anymore

I made an important change to map defaults: till v3.0, the layer control box which allows users to select other basemaps was opened by default on mobile devices:

With v3.0, the layer control box now behaves exactly like on other devices – showing the selected state (hidden/collapsed/expanded). This was necessary as especially most parts of small maps were hidden through the expanded controlbox.

Translations updates

Thanks to many motivated contributors, v3.0 comes with the following translation updates:

Updated translations

If you want to contribute to translations, please visit http://translate.mapsmarker.com/projects/lmm for more information.

Other changes/optimizations

  • show info on top of Maps Marker pages if plugin update is available
  • optimized TinyMCE popup (new with links to add new marker and layer maps)
  • changed position of delete marker and layer buttons
  • optimized use of WordPress Transients API (saving less rows to wp_options-table)
  • optimized plugin active check for higher performance (use of isset() instead of in_array())
  • set jQuery cache for layers to true again for higher performance
  • shrinked plugin´s total size by 700kb by moving screenshots to assets-directory on wordpress.org
  • top menu now displays correctly if you are on add new or edit-marker or layer page
  • use of checkboxes instead of radio boxes if only one option is available (yes/no)
  • updated screenshots for settings panel
  • optimized backend pages for iOS devices
  • optimized marker and layer list tables on backend

Bugfixes

  • marker count on layers lists was wrong for multi-layer-maps (thanks photocoen!)
  • warning messages for WordPress 3.5beta3 when debug was enabled
  • layout of the preview of list markers on layer maps in backend was broken
  • some links to the new settings panel from backend were broken
  • layout of map panel was broken on preview if empty marker/layer name was entered
  • shortcode form field could not be focused on iOS
  • list of assigned markers to multi-layer-maps was broken when more than 1 layer was checked
  • zooming on layer maps on backend was broken on WordPress < v3.3

Outlook – my plans for the next release

I am currently working hard on preparing a pro version with even more features like adding markers from frontend, marker clustering, gpx support and more. More details about this version will follow soon.

Full changelog (show previous changelogs)

option to switch between simplified and advanced editor
address now also gets saved to database and displayed on maps
Hungarian translation thanks to István Pintér, http://www.logicit.hu
show info on top of Maps Marker pages if plugin update is available
layer control box is not opened by default on mobile devices anymore
optimized TinyMCE popup (new with links to add new marker and layer maps)
changed position of delete marker and layer buttons
updated Polish translation thanks to Tomasz Rudnicki, http://www.kochambieszczady.pl
updated Japanese translations thanks to Shu Higash
updated Italian translation thanks to Luca Barbetti, http://twitter.com/okibone
updated German translation
optimized use of WordPress Transients API (saving less rows to wp_options-table)
optimized plugin active check for higher performance (use of isset() instead of in_array())
set jQuery cache for layers to true again for higher performance
shrinked plugin´s total size by 700kb by moving screenshots to assets-directory on wordpress.org
top menu now displays correctly if you are on add new or edit-marker or layer page
use of checkboxes instead of radio boxes if only one option is available (yes/no)
updated screenshots for settings panel
optimized backend pages for iOS devices
optimized marker and layer list tables on backend
marker count on layers lists was wrong for multi-layer-maps (thanks photocoen!)
warning messages for WordPress 3.5beta3 when debug was enabled
layout of the preview of list markers on layer maps in backend was broken
some links to the new settings panel from backend were broken
layout of map panel was broken on preview if empty marker/layer name was entered
shortcode form field could not be focused on iOS
list of assigned markers to multi-layer-maps was broken when more than 1 layer was checked
zooming on layer maps on backend was broken on WordPress < v3.3

Please let me what you think of this new release. If you have any issues, please see this page on how to get support. If an important feature is missing, please add your feature requests on Github. I am also looking for more translations – if you would like to contribute a new one, please visit this page for more information. And of course I´d very appreciate your review for my plugin on wordpress.org 😉