Store Locator Plus 4.9 and PHP Compatibility

Posted by lcleveland in Store Locator Plus, WPSLP

For our MySLP users, these types of issues do not affect you. All of the MySLP servers are running PHP7 with the latest security patches. Ahhhh, the benefits of using a managed service. Sit back and relax, PHP compatibility is one less issue to worry about.

For our WordPress plugin users

Store Locator Plus for WordPress version 4.9 has some PHP compatibility issues. It currently will only run on sites that are using PHP version 5.4 or higher.

An update to SLP , Power, and Premier 4.9.1 are in development that will restore PHP 5.3 compatibility. Those updates are slated to be release by the end of November, 2017. Experience is not impacted by this issue.

PHP 5.2

For our PHP 5.2 users, unfortunately we can no longer support that release of PHP. We are using a new architecture based on a PHP function that was added to PHP in February 2012. That change in SLP 4.9 means sites using PHP 5.2 can no longer use PHP.

PHP Recommendations and History

For all users it is recommended you upgrade to PHP 5.6 at a minimum. There are dozens of security patches in PHP between each point release (5.2 => 5.3 => 5.4, etc.) some of which are significant.

For reference, here is the PHP Version Release History. Supported until means the last date the PHP language was fixing problems and patching security holes.

Version	Latest	Supported until
5.2	5.2.17	6 January 2011
5.3	5.3.29	14 August 2014
5.4	5.4.45	3 September 2015
5.5	5.5.38	21 July 2016

If your host is not allowing you to upgrade to a newer release or a WordPress plugin or theme breaks on PHP 5.6+ you should ask why. WordPress (and Store Locator Plus) run perfectly well on PHP 7 which is the current recommendation from WordPress due to the notable performance improvements in version 7.

Store Locator Category Checkboxes

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

Store Locator Plus adds the ability to select categories of locations using checkboxes with the Premier add on and Power add on installed.

For WordPress plugin users, you will need an active Premier Subscription to enable the new feature. It will also require SLP, Power, and Premier to be updated to version 4.8.4 or higher.

MySLP Enterprise level users will be getting these updates in the 17.10 upgrade to the service later this month.

Premier + Power = Category checkboxes with 4.8.4

Store Locator Styling

Posted by lcleveland in MySLP SaaS, Store Locator Plus, Web Presence, Weebly, WPSLP

Proper styling of your store locator is one of the key components in creating a solid user experience on your site. All of the Store Locator Plus® offerings include access to our pre-defined library of CSS styles.

Clients that are using the Professional or Enterprise level of service also get the added advantage of advanced page structure layouts. The page structure are changes to the underlying HTML that is output on the page, providing the skeleton for the locator layout. Moving the search results to the left or right side of the map instead of below it, for example. While you can accomplish this with CSS rules alone, it takes a lot more CSS customization if the underlying HTML structure is pushing a significantly different layout.