WordPress Plugin: GeoLinkr

Screenshots | Download latest Version (1.0)

Changelog

  • 1.0 (30/03/07): initial version

Description

I have played around with Google Maps and their great API for a while and even used it for the online part of my diploma thesis. The API almost encourages the creation of mashups and visually displaying geodata, that is already available on the web, using Google Maps. I really love this stuff.

To describe the idea behind GeoLinkr, I have to back a little further. When I set up this block, I had in mind being able to reach the biggest audience possible, therefor I had chosen the English language. In the About section, I have written about where I come from, in which town I studied etc. But I realized, that a maybe quite big number of visitors does not really know where Dornbirn or Vienna are actually located. Where are they on a map? How can I tell my users where a specific, and maybe small and unknown town in my home country (or anywhere else) is located. The answer: show them a map! How? Use Google Maps! And so the idea for this plugin, eventually called GeoLinkr (following the naming trend that Flickr started) was born.

Functionality

Say, you are writing a post and are mentioning your home town in there. You would like to show where your home town is located on a map that is immediately displayed on your page (no linking to a map on maps.google.com). With GeoLinkr installed, you simply markup the name of the town with a link, setting the rel-attribute to “geolinkr” and you are done!

I know, a picture says more than 1000 words, so here is a little demo: I have studied in Dornbirn, Austria, but was born in Vienna. I have been to New York City, Vancouver, Philadelphia, but also to Mistelbach, Austria, where my mother is from.

Click on the links above and see what happens. With JavaScript enabled, an overlay map will get displayed, showing you the respective location. With JavaScript disabled, you will get redirected to a page providing additional info, specified in the href-attribute of the link.

Installation

  1. Download the zip-file and extract the content to wp-contentplugins.
  2. Login to your WordPress AdminArea and activate the plugin in “Plugins > Plugins”
  3. Go to “Options > GeoLinkr” and click on “Update” to initially activate the basic settings for the plugin
  4. And you are done!

Usage

It does not matter whether you are writing a post or a page, the procedure how to create a geolink on your page is always the same.

  1. Obviously, create a post/page with some text that includes the name of a city or town (e.g. Los Angeles)
  2. Wrap this string in anchor-tags and set the rel-attribute to “geolinkr”
  3. You could also set the href-attribute to a webpage the user will get redirected when JavaScript is not enabled. If you don’t want to, you can set it to “#”
  4. That’s it

If you go on and click on the link you just created, a GeoLinkr Box will pop up, displaying the map and also providing a link to the alternate webpage for further info

Customization

In the Admin Panel of the plugins, which can be found at the backend in “Options > GeoLinkr”, you can set a couple of parameters, which are self-explanatory, I guess.

Tested on

  • Firefox 1.5x
  • IE 6

Credits

Credits go to Lokesh Dhakar & Sean McBride, as their Lightbox project served as a great example when developing the overlay effect for this plugin.

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