Manually Updating WordPress Plugins

Posted by lcleveland in WPSLP

This post is for our Store Locator Plus™ WordPress plugin users that are updating WordPress plugins.   Users of our fully managed service do not need to worry about this sort of thing — you’ve earned yourself some extra break time, go ahead and grab an second cup of coffee this morning.

Always use automatic updates

Most WordPress users should perform “inline” or automatic updates.    When logged into WordPress go to the Dashboard | Updates and click “Check Again” to check if there are updates to the Store Locator Plus™ plugins.    If there are, updateStore Locator Plus™ first.

If you do not see updates for our add ons, re-check with the WordPress Dashboard | Updates | Check Again AFTER updatingStore Locator Plus™ to the latest release.

Sometimes the WordPress updates servers or a third party server is slow or the network connection fails when checking for updates of premium add ons.    We have written a workaround for this failure whereStore Locator Plus™ checks directly with our servers, bypassing the standard WordPress update cycle, whenever a new version is installed.

Except when instructed otherwise

If you have received a beta release (prerelease) of our add ons or theStore Locator Plus™ base plugin, follow these instructions to ensure you do not lose any settings.    We recently discovered the using the WordPress “Activate Plugin” button after manually updating a plugin does NOT load plugins into memory the same was as the automatic (inline) updates or in the same manner as the plugins bulk actions activate action.   That means theStore Locator Plus™ environment may not be loaded after a manual plugin upload and it may reset your settings to the default values.     This happens to explain why some third-party premium plugins outside of theStore Locator Plus™ ecosystem sometimes white-screen after install but work fine from that point forward; other developers have told us to “refresh the screen and it will be OK” for this very reason.

The “do not nuke my settings” manual update process:

  • Deactivate the plugin
  • Delete the plugin
  • Go to Plugins | Add New
  • Select Upload
  • Upload the beta release zip file we sent you
  • DO NOT click the Activate button
  • Go to Plugins on the sidebar
  • Check off the plugin you just installed
  • Go to bulk actions and select activate

 

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Scheduled Imports Included in Locator Updates

Posted by lcleveland in MySLP SaaS, Store Locator Plus, WPSLP

The July release of Store Locator Plus™ has been completed and includes a number of updates such as the scheduled imports patch for our Professional and Enterprise level users.   We’ve included a number of changes in the location processing engine as well that helps improve browser memory consumption as well as performance for sites with larger lists of locations.    These updates are already online for our MySLP users.

You’ll find similar patches and updates in our WordPress plugin version 4.9.17.

Scheduled imports patch

This patch addresses and issue where the import scheduling form was not being processed, preventing changes to the import file location, interval, or time at which the import runs.    New sites could not schedule imports and had to import location CSV files “by hand”.  The patch addresses the issue.

Schedule imports are provided at theProfessional and Enterprise levels and are part of the WordPress Power add on.

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Google Maps API Prices Increase 9,000%

Posted by lcleveland in Map Software, MySLP SaaS, Store Locator Plus, WPSLP

How much did the Google Maps API prices increase?  The  true cost is hidden for many users of the ubiquitous Google Maps API as Google is weaning you onto a potential 9,000% price increase by giving everyone a $200 per-month credit towards API billing through September 2018.   For many API users the true sticker shock will come when that $200 credit expires.

Google Maps API Prices Increase by 9,500% for our account in September.

Our fully managed locator service has already seen the impact.   When the $200 credit expires our expenses will increase 9,570%

Up until July 2018 most users were able to get by with no official Google API key at all.   Those that started a site in the past year needed an API key but likely fell under the “free usage limits” and never saw a bill; even if they enabled the older “Pay-As-You-Go” system under Google.

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