Store Locator Plus® was recently updated to further improve the performance of the application. In addition the user experience for location categories has been updated, addressing shortcomings in the category legend rendering methodology.
Performance Improvements
After implementing security patches requested by the plugin management team over at WordPress.com, we noticed several administrative pages on our plugin as well as on our SaaS service were running slower than usual. After an extensive performance analysis of the underlying code, we were able to isolate the change and improve performance of that module by several orders of magnitude, saving up to 15 seconds per locator settings page request.
Time to execute the subquery improved from approximately 11 seconds to < 1 second. Memory consumption for that routine dropped from 5.4MB / request to 1MB / request.
Category Legends On By Default
Rendering the name of a category next to the category legend is now enabled by default for new accounts. This was not the case in the past which left the UI showing category markers but not telling users what the markers represent.
Before February 2023 the category legend was always rendering by default with no text. This has changed as of the latest release.
Category management for locations is provided in the Professional level account. WordPress users will need to purchase the Power add on.
In the latest update to Store Locator Plus® we have patched some odd behavior in the location category user interface. When listing locations on the administrative interface there was some confusion over the graphics in the categories column for a location. We have updated the interface with an interim patch while we continue work on on overall JavaScript and React based administrative UI across the platform.
Location Category Clarification
Locations that are assigned to more than one category will show the map marker that would be rendered for the location as well as any category legend icons that would show up on a map. While most users set both these to the same setting for their preferred user interface, we are showing the setting with a different map marker (the pin that drops on the map) and legend icon that is a block color that matches the pin.
Location category user interfaces are part of the Professional level subscription or with the Power add on for WordPress plugin users.
Location List Pagination
The location list pagination setting was not being honored and was always forcing each page to render 25 rows. This has been patched and the location interface will now show the number of rows set under screen options.
This patch also fixes the top-of-table checkbox not being honored during export to CSV where it was exporting all locations not just those checked when clicking “Apply” in the action bar.
Export locations is available to Professional level subscribers. For WordPress users you need the Power add on to export locations.
WordPress Legacy Plugins Require Manual Intervention
In the latest release of Store Locator Plus® for WordPress, site administrators that keep the following plugins installed will need to remove them before upgrading to the latest 2023.X releases of the WordPress plugins. Keeping the following plugins installed when upgrading to SLP 2023.X plugins may cause a website to critically fail.
These plugins have been end-of-life for more than five years, many are a decade old and do not have the latest security features. They should not be present on any live WordPress site.
The following plugins, if present on your self-managed WordPress site should be uninstalled permanently if they are present:
- Pro or Store Locator Plus® Pro
- Tagalong
- Store Pages or Pages
- Contact Extender
- Directory Builder