[Steven Zahm]

@ Susie

Add the [connections_form] shortcode to your thank you page. On the Connections : Settings page under the Display tab you can disable the submit new entry List Action section.

I think that should do it.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Eileen

You can use the category shortcode option. It’ll load the results with the selected category, but when a user selects a category it overrides the shortcode options.

Hope that helps!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Laura

Like I mentioned to Heather… I’d need a temp admin account so I can take a look to see why.

Login details can be sent via the contact link at the bottom of the page. In the message, please paste a link to this forum thread so I can relate the two.

[Steven Zahm]

@ josh901

Oh, sorry forgot the link.
http://sandbox.connections-pro.com/geo-prototype/

Not much to see yet honestly, most work is under the hood. It may or may not be working, throwing errors and such when/if you visit.

Here’s some nitty gritty details of what I’m doing…

First I researched…

As part of my research I looked at what others, my competitors if you will, were doing and how they were accomplishing it. What I learned was that they all are not doing it right … well, in my opinion at least. They’re all using AJAX to handle requests and updating the map without having to have the page refresh which is great for user experience which is exactly what I was planning to do myself.

But things break down after that…

To verifying degrees they all include a multitude of third party javascript libraries which is itself is not bad, I do too with Connections. The thing is WordPress also ships with many javascript libraries (which are also third party in many cases) that do the same function. What this means to you is they include things making their plugins “heavier”. The goal should be, if WordPress ships with it you should use it to keep things as slim as possible.

Overall it’s pretty minor, but wanted to point it out.

On to other things I’ve found…

Basically others used one of two methods to load data in the map. The one group loaded it embedded in the page as the page is being created. The other group loaded it in the map after the page has loaded via AJAX. The former is really, really, really bad. The more data you have the slower the page will load. It simply will not scale. The later is not only the better way, it really should be the only way.

Those that did it with AJAX, to my surprise was not returning data back as JSON. Basically they were returning back pre rendered HTML segments which may or not be combined with more HTML segments hard coded within the javascript. What this means it makes it next to impossible for users to tweak the design unless they’re very skilled in HTML, PHP and JavaScript. My solution will be to use JSON with no hard coded HTML within the javascript. This will make it a lighter and faster solution.

You may or maynot know what JSON, if you do not, it is basically a simple easy to read way to structure your data that is very widely supported. Within the JSON spec there are sub-standards, one being GeoJSON. This is simply a specific way to format geo data, for example, data from a directory. It so happens that Google Maps supports this natively. The spec is actually really sparse, basically only supporting name, latitude and longitude for feature points (a directory entry). It does have a properties value where more data about the point can be added. This is where the rest of the entry data will be stored in my GeoJSON responses. The rest of the entry details will adhere to the JSON-LD spec. This is basically a way to represent http://schema.org data within JSON which is backed by all the search giants. By utilizing both GeoJSON and JSON-LD standards not only makes it easier for me to do other things I have planned but also makes Connections compatible with the large ecosystem of other web apps that utilize them.

So… that how I’m planning on handling AJAX requests… now, how to display it…

Like I said the others are returning pre rendered HTML and combining it with hard coded HTML within their javascript. My plans are to use a JavaScript templating engine. Guess what? WordPress just happens to ship with one built in which is used throughout the admin. What is great about this I can use the templating API I built for templates in Connections to register and load the javascript templates. This makes is easy to for me to add and even offer new templates customize the map info windows and results in the future. This also make it easier for a user to tweak any part of what I’m building using methods I’ve already documented for custom CSS and template override files.

Long and detailed response, I know … and that was just the birds eye view!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Roger

No problem!

If you have moment, I would truly appreciate a review as they really do make a difference. Many thanks in advance!
https://wordpress.org/support/view/plugin-reviews/connections

[Steven Zahm]

@ Aisha

Yes, you need the Form extension and if you want those individuals to be able to maintain their own entries as well, you need the Link extension.

Hope that helps!

[Steven Zahm]

@ Luci

I just took another look … that should work, but I have one other recommendation. On the pages which just show the featured entries, you should also add the home_id shortcode option. Set the ID to the page ID of the Directory page. That way when you click on the names in the featured entries, the links will resolve to the business directory page. This should be better as it would avoid the possibility of pages being marked as duplicate content.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Fabrice

No problem… apologies for the breakage. There other planned changes, but nothing that should break anything like this. Just some internal processing logic.

[Steven Zahm]

re: larry

huh … that’s a bug, I wonder when that broke. You should be able to activate any of the templates under the type. I’ll log this issue and track down the bug and get it fixed.

[Steven Zahm]

@ Iain

Ok, I applied the fix and that seems like it has done the trick.

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