v3.5.2 – important icon directory changes & Bengali translation – is available

Posted on 09 February, 2013

Category:

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

Directory paths that can be changed – especially by moving a WordPress installation – should not be saved by default into the database. Period. Most support tickets I received recently were somehow related to this and so with v3.5.2 (and as preparation for the pro version), I am changing this now.

Important: if you changed your marker icon directory/url and/or your default marker shadow image under Settings / Map defaults / Default values for marker icons , you will need to change your custom settings manually again.

I am sorry for this inconvenience, but this change is needed in order to prevent further issues. Please see below for details.

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, on Facebook or Google+

And now let´s get into the highlights of v3.5.2:

added option to use default or custom marker shadow URL

With previous versions of Leaflet Maps Marker the marker shadow url was stored once into the database when installing the plugin. This created problem when moving the site from a local environment to a production environment as manual changes were needed afterwards.

With v3.5.2 I added a new option which is set to “use default shadow” for all (new and existing) users and uses the shadow image from the default plugin directory. If you want to use another shadow image, you have to set this setting to “use custom shadow” first and then enter the URL into the form field below:

shadow

If you don´t use a shadow image for your marker icons and deleted the shadow URL in previous versions, you don´t have to do anything – even if marker shadow option is set to “use default shadow” and no shadow url is entered, no shadow image will be used for your markers.

removed option for custom marker icon directory

The same problem occured with marker icons URL and directory, which I made read-only again:

default-icon-dir-marker_anon

With v3.5.2, this directory and url is again retrieved dynamically from the current WordPress installation. Setting these options to custom values again will probably be a feature of the pro version.

I just wanted to reduce the need for manuel edits for most users (as feedback has shown, that most users are not changing these options, but many are testing the WordPress installation on a local machine first, before going live – which caused the many related support tickets I talked about before).

Important: if you changed these settings, you have to copy your marker icons directory to the default directory again (usually /wp-content/uploads/leaflet-maps-marker-icons/) – otherwise the markers won´t show up in your maps!

Bengali translation

Thanks to Nur Hasan, http://www.answersbd.com, Leaflet Maps Marker can now also be used in Bengali. If you installed a Bengali version of WordPress, the language file gets loaded automatically. As always, you can also go to Settings / Misc / Language settings and change the language you would like to use within the plugin there.

Outlook – my plans for the next release

I am still working on the pro version. Please subscribe to this blog (via RSS or Email) or follow @MapsMarker on twitter if you want to stay up to date. Integration of Google Adsense for Maps for example is already finished – see this post for a preview. Next on my task list: marker clustering & support for web apps for fullscreen maps.

Full changelog (show previous changelogs)

Bengali translation thanks to Nur Hasan, http://www.answersbd.com
added option to use default or custom marker shadow URL
removed option for custom marker icon directory

How to download / update 

You can download the latest version here. The easiest way to update is to use the WordPress update process: login with an user who has admin privileges, navigate to Dashboard / Updates, select plugins to update and press the button “Update Plugins”. Alternatively you can also download the current version here, unzip the package and overwrite the plugin´s files on your webserver.