Our custom built Google Map Sidebar & Post Widget allows you to pinpoint on a Google map the most recent locations that you have identified in your posts. With this widget, you can display a “global” Google map for all your trip locations in your sidebar, and display a single Google map for one location within a post.
Global Map Sidebar Widget
For each post that you have entered a geographic location or street address for, the Global Google Map Widget will display that location on a Google map in the sidebar of your site. This feature allows your readers to see all of the places that you have visited! They can also click on a map point in your sidebar and link right over to the post it is related to. You can set the height of the map, and name the widget.
This widget can be found in the APPEARANCE > WIDGETS area and configured there.
Fig A: TB Global Google Map sidebar widget controls
To change the title displayed, go to the widget itself, add it to a sidebar, and enter a title to display. The widget may be titled with any title you choose. Then click SAVE.
To change the number of locations featured, go to the widget itself, add it to a sidebar, and enter a number of locations that you would like to feature. The widget will display any number of locations you choose. Then click SAVE.
To change the height of the map displayed, go to the widget itself, add it to a sidebar, and enter the desired height that you would like to in the “Height of Map” section.
This widget may be added to multiple sidebars.
In-Post Map
In an individual post, you can enter a geographic location like “Athens, Greece” or a street address (really any information Google can use to pin point a location) and display a map of that location within the body of the post.
To feature a location, edit the post and in the column to the right labeled “Enter Address Related to Post”, enter a valid geographic location. Next, copy and paste the short code indicated in the instructions: into the body of your post where you want the map to be displayed. A map will appear at the bottom of your post with the featured location. This same location will now also appear in the Global Map Widget in your sidebar.
Here is an example of a map inserted into the body of a post:
Recommended Use: Use this widget to display all the stops along your trip. Create a post for each stop, and enter the geographic location for each stop in its respective post by .
>> To learn how to setup widgets click here
Feature Tour
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Can I set the Google Map widget to have satellite as the default view setting? I often prefer that to the map look.
brgds
Fredrik
You certainly can, tho you will need to get your hands dirty with some code, but I’ll try to make this easy.
You will need to edit the Google Maps script in our theme, which is locate in theme_root/scripts/gmap.js on line 39, change “mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.ROADMAP” to “mapTypeId: google.maps.MapTypeId.SATELLITE”
For more option, visit http://code.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/javascript/tutorial.html#MapOptions
This is a great theme — thank you! Just wondering if there is a way to embed the post widget into a page? i.e. I’d like to have a page showing a google map of all my posts.
That is a great idea, but not something the widget can do yet. However, we can add that to a list of feature improvements for the next update which is coming soon. Thanks!
You’re theme is super! I’m using it now for a week on my Dutch Travelblog about France. But i’ve a problem with displaying the Google Map widget in the primary menubar. After installing you’re theme (1.3.2.) it has worked for a few days but is now shows only a gray area!
Already installed a fresh gmap.js. The map in an article works fine
brgds Ruud
Hi Ruud,
The widget should be working, try deleting and adding the widget again. We have also put a new version of the theme out, so download it and see if that fixes it.
Thanks
Hi,
i’ve tried delating and adding but this does not work. I’ve made a fresh install form the theme 1.3.3 as described on your site for an upgrade, but it still does not work.
Are there settings in the database, which controls the mapresults for the menu widget? And if so, where can i find them? I’ts a strange problem because it has worked fine for several days.
By the way, with the update i’ve lost my Dutch translation. Maybe in a future update something tot care about?
I hope you can help me with Google widget problem
thanks!
Hi Ruud,
When adding the widget, you’ll notice that the second field is where you set the number of locations to show on the map.
So there you will be able to limit the number of results. Because of a bug in the map, you can’t display more than 11 results, so make sure to limit to 11 at the most.
We are working to fix the limit issue.
Thank you for you’re response. I’ve set it to 11 and it seems to work. See also my direct mail
I’m having this same issue on TravelingLowCarb.com
I just submitted a support message about it. I have tried both of those solutions. Just upgraded to the new theme version today – no fix…
Hi Lynn,
There is a bug with the maps that only allows it to show 11 results at a time. So while we try to fix the issue, please change the settings in the widget to display 11 results at the most.
Thanks and for for the inconvenience.
Hi there – I love your theme! Thank you. I’ve managed to get individual maps in my posts fine but they don’t seem to show up on the global map – it just says locations not found. I tried removing the widget and putting it back again and ticked the featured widget box against the posts – any ideas please?
Try installing the latest version of the theme, we recently improved the google maps widget.
Hi, first I want to say that I like your template. Also the description to create a travel-website is great. Few comments:
- I noticed that if you do not press enter after entering the address, the address is not stored.
- is it possible to use options with [tb_google_map] e.g. [tb_google_map zoom=....] or [tb_google_map maptype=terrain]. especially the zoom would be handy in some cases.
It is not possible to use options with the Google Map widget at this time, but we may add this feature in a future update.
Reason you need to press enter is to save the post, otherwise it won’t save the address, we can work on having it as an ajax call in the future, but since most meta boxes save with the post, I believe it should be fine for now.
As for the options, you can set height and width for now, adding the zoom and maptype are excellent suggestions and we will try to include in future updates.
Thanks for your feedback and support
Hello, thank you for the nice widget! When I enter a normal street address it works fine. But a friend will start a sailing-tour and it will be necessary for him to enter the coordinates (longitude and latitude). Which syntax should we use?
You can enter it in degrees, minutes, seconds, or in decimal form. For more examples on how to do this, here is the site that you can visit to find this information:
http://www.mikestechblog.com/joomla/misc/gps-category-blog/93-how-to-enter-latitude-longitude-gps-coordinates-google-maps-article.html
Is there a way that I can use the short code [tb_google_map] but have the map zoomed out a bit? I’d like it to show more of the area rather that having it zoomed in so much… I read lots of forums, but nothing seems to help. I tried to update the theme, but it warned me that all my customizations made would be lost if I updated and I have made a LOT of changes so… plus I didn’t even know if that would fix the problem… any ideas/suggestions?
Hi Lindsay,
Unfortunately there no options in the shortcode to change the zoom level, tho we are currently working to add new options which will be available in the next update. Tho since you’ve made several customizations, you might want to download the theme and manually move your customization over to the new version so you dont lose any work you’ve done and can still enjoy all the new features.
You can edit the main javascript file that controls most of the map settings. In /scripts/gmap.js is where you want to change that. On line 48 is where you can control the zoom for single entry maps. Currently its 14, so change that until you find the one that works for you.
Hope this helps.
All the best,