Setting Up GeoPlaces v4

Initial Setup & Configuring Homepage

1) Upgrade from GeoPlaces v3 to GeoPlaces v4

If you are already using GeoPlaces version 3 theme then you must upgrade it with the latest version following here mentioned steps,

Things to consider before upgrading:

1. GeoPlaces v3 and v4 are very different themes, this is not a simple update!
2. Before you attempt this please backup your whole site (theme files + database) in case anything goes wrong. You will lose all your widget settings and content, make sure you backup that content somewhere.

• Begin the upgrade by downloading GeoPlaces v4 from the member area
• This is the point of no return. Make sure you have everything backed up. Steps that are coming will remove all your widgets, theme settings and customizations
• Go to Appearance -> Themes and activate the stock Twenty Eleven theme
• Unpack and upload GeoPlaces v4. You can backup the old theme files by renaming the folder to something else (like GeoPlaces_old)
• Go to Appearance -> Themes and activate GeoPlaces v4
• In GeoPlaces v4 there is a special post type / taxonomy for Places. Right now all your places are listed under Posts (they are shown as regular blog posts).
• Continue getting the site back to normal by creating cities, tweaking widgets and theme options. Good luck!

Upgrade to the latest Responsive version of GeoPlaces (4.3.0)

When you follow the upgrade procedure as said above, it will give you the latest design and functionality of the theme but in case, if you have upgraded your theme before the responsive version 4.3.0 has been released then you should follow these steps too,

Upgrading to the latest responsive version of GeoPlaces will not be as tedious as the previous versions because there are no major structural changes this time. We have mentioned all the updated files for this version in a file called change_log.txt which is located in the theme root. You need to connect to your server using an FTP client like FileZilla and update the files mentioned in the change_log.txt file. For detailed information on how to upload or edit files using FileZilla click here.

Most of the changes have been done in the CSS files and you guys must have also made some changes in the CSS files here and there so if you don’t want to loose those changes, you can merge both the files by comparing the code in these files by using a tool such as this.

Backing up your original files is always advisable before you replace them 🙂

2) Installing and Activating GeoPlaces

Here’s a step by step installation guide for Geo Places theme where we will explain how you can do the basic setup of this theme.

Upload Geo Places theme under wp-content/themes directory and then Activate the theme from your WordPress admin panel > Appearance > Themes. Installing this theme is just like any other WordPress theme. For further details, please click here.

 

 

3) Auto-install dummy content

If you want to autoinstall the dummy data then just click on “Yes insert sample data please”. Theme will be activated & completely installed with some added dummy content and categories by default so you can start using it right away.

If you wish to delete the dummy data that we populated in your site then you can remove it by clicking on Yes Delete Please!

Note: Do not edit the dummy data because in case you delete it, your modifications will be lost. Always insert fresh data.

4) Basic Settings

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Basic Settings and take a thorough look at all the flexible options available to you. Do the settings as per your wish and then save them.

5) Advanced Settings

To setup advanced options, go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced Settings. Here you will be able to setup email notifications, custom fields, add/edit cities and price packages, set individual price-weightage for each category, configure payment options and even block IPs.

6) How do I setup various widgets in their respective regions? (Configuring homepage and different sidebars)

We have provided some useful widgets to jazz up your geo-based theme. There are several widget locations (also known as widget regions) where you can drag n’ drop the following widgets.

Widgets	Recommended widget location
T → Login & Add place widget	Header: Right area
Custom menu/ jQuery Mega Menu	Below Header
PT → Multi city options	Below Header
PT → Google Map v3 – Home page	Front Top Banner Section
T → Featured Listings For Home Page (List view / Grid view)	Front Content
T → Advertisement Widget	Front Sidebar
PT → Recent Review	Front Sidebar, Place Listing Sidebar, Event Listing Sidebar
PT → Latest Post/Places/Event	Front Sidebar, Place Listing Sidebar, Event Listing Sidebar
PT → Google Map V3 – Detail page	Place Detail Sidebar, Event Detail Sidebar
PT → In The Neighborhood	Place Detail Sidebar, Event Detail Sidebar
Event Listing Calendar	Event Listing Sidebar, Event Detail Sidebar
PT → Latest Post/Places/Event	Blog Listing Sidebar, Blog Detail Sidebar
T → Advertisement	Place Detail Content Banner, Event Detail Content Banner, Blog Detail Content Banner
Text widget, Tag cloud, Latest Tweets, Recent posts	Pre-footer: First column, Pre-footer: Second column, Pre-footer: Third column

Homepage widget locations overview
Click on the following link to see how homepage widget locations are organized:
https://templatic.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/geoplaces4_widget_areas.png

Registration & Manage Listings (Place & Event)

1) User Sign in / Register

First, activate the ‘T → Login & Add place widget’ (as shown above). This will enable the ‘Signin’ & ‘Register’ links in the header. Click on ‘Register’ to sign up as a new user.
GeoPlaces also supports social logins. To enable that you must install the Social Login plugin. Once the plugin is installed (and configured) you should see social icons in your sign in / register pages right away.

2) How to add a Place or an Event listing?

As an admin: You can add/edit a place or an event from the front-end as well as the back-end.
As a user: One can add/edit a place or an event from front-end only.

After signing up click on “Add Place” or “Add event” to add a new Listing. Both of them can have different fields as per the requirement. Once you add a listing, you will are taken to the preview page. Users can edit back changes and finally do the payment and publish the listing.

Use the required widgets in the sidebar. There are several regions like ‘Place Listing Sidebar’, ‘Place Detail Sidebar’, ‘Event Listing Sidebar’, ‘Event Detail Sidebar’, etc. to show appropriate widgets on appropriate pages.

When user submits a place or an event on the site and if as an admin you want to verify it before getting published then this settings you can do here in “WP-admin->GeoPlaces->Basic Settings->Listing Settings”. You can select or set status for  new listings as well as expired listings.

3) How to delete a Place or an Event listing

As an admin: You can delete a listing by navigating to wp-admin > Places > Deleting the listing, just like a regular WordPress post.

As a user: One has to navigate to the Dashboard by clicking the username (on top) and then navigate to the required listing and click on “Delete”. You will be presented with a confirmation, click on “YES DELETE PLEASE!” to delete the listing.

4) Setting up widgets for Category pages (Place & Event)

So finally the listing is submitted and you can view the listing in this page. Go to the category where you submitted the listing. E.g. We have submitted the listing in “Attractions” category, therefore we clicked on “Attractions” to view that listing.
Use the required widgets in the sidebar. There are several regions like ‘Place Listing Sidebar’, ‘Place Detail Sidebar’, ‘Event Listing Sidebar’, ‘Event Detail Sidebar’, etc. to show appropriate widgets on appropriate pages.

To set the order of the listing, go to wp-admin->GeoPlaces->Basic Settings->Category Listing. Select any option of your choice in “Set Listing order for Place/Event”. Note that whatever order you choose, the featured listings will get displayed first in that order and then the other regular listings. In featured also the listings which are both featured (home & category) will be listed first then home page featured and then category page featured listing.

5) Setting up Listing detail page (Place & Event)

1. The post contents like image gallery, decription, registration text, social medias will be displayed here. The facebook like, twitter, Email To Friend, Send Inquiry,etc… all these things you can set from wp-admin->GeoPlaces->Basic Settings->Listing Detail Page Setting.
2. Use the required widgets in the sidebar. There are several regions like ‘Event Detail Sidebar’, ‘Place Detail Sidebar’, ‘Event Listing Sidebar’, ‘Event Detail Content Banner’ ‘Place Detail Content Banner’, etc. to show Different widgets on appropriate pages. You can refer the table given above for setting up widgets in the sidebars.
3. In “Event/Place Detail Content Banner” area, you can put the “Advertisement” widget to display the advertise below the post description.
4. Go to wp-admin->GeoPlaces->Basic Settings->Listing Detail Page Setting. Select “Yes” in “Enable Related Listing”. You can also set the number of listings you want to display here.
5. To enable comments, go to wp-admin->Basic Settings->Posts. Select “Yes” in “Detail Post Comment”.

User Profile

1) Author dashboard page

Authors, i.e. the listing adders on your site, will have their own dashboard after they create an account on your Geo site. They will be able to add/edit their personal information, edit/delete/renew their submissions and can view their favorite listings. To go to the authors page, they’ll simply need to click their username via T → Login & Add place widget’ on top.

2) How authors would edit their profile?

Authors would edit their personal data like profile picture, website, links to their social media profiles, etc. by clicking on their username via ‘T → Login & Add place widget’ on top. They will be taken to the Author Dashboard page.

3) How to setup custom user info fields?

You, as an admin, can specify what kind of personal data you’d like your authors to submit in their profiles. This can be done by adding custom fields to Author Dashboard pages. Simply go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > User Profiles Fields. Here you can create fields which will be displayed in the Author profile edit page which they are required to fill in.

Manage Cities

1) How to add/edit/manage a city?

To add/edit/manage a city, go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage cities. Here you can add a new city or edit an existing one. Select appropriate country, state/region and type down the city name. Then click the button ‘Set on map address’ to pin-point the city on Map. You can drag the zoom slider and set it to desired level. Note that the categories that you have selected here in “Select categories to display on homepage”while creating city, category icons of those only will be shown on the Home Page MAP of that city.

2) How to set default city?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage cities. Here, select the radio button ‘Default city:’ and choose a city from the dropdown. This city will be pre-selected when the user first lands on your website.

3) Default city showing Africa instead of the correct location?
After you create a city you must clear your browser cookies + cache for the change to take affect. Another way you can check if everything is ok is to visit your site with Incognito mode (Chrome) or Private browsing (Firefox) turned on.

4) How to enable splash page for first-time visitors?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage cities. Here, select the radio button ‘Show a splash page…’ When a visitors first land on your website, they are greeted with a splash-page with a drop-down to select the city of their choice. For the rest of their session, the selected city will act as their default city.

To learn more about Multi-city functionality you can also watch the following video

Manage pricing

1) Creating a price package

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage Price packages. Here, click the ‘Add new Price package’ link. You can create as many price packages you want.

2) How to setup individual pricing for featured listings on homepage/category pages

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage Price packages. Here, create a new price package or edit an existing one. Scroll down to the section ‘Price settings for featured listings’ Specify different pricing to make posts as featured on homepage and category page.

3) How to setup recurring payments

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage Price packages. Here, create a new price package or edit an existing one. Scroll down to ‘Recurring payments’ and specify the billing period and number of times the recurring process should occur.

Also make sure that in your PayPal account – Auto Return has been set to “on”. This will allow the user to redirect to your site(Success page) after doing payment.

4) How to manage currency?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage Currency. Here, you can add a new currency and specify its symbol.

5) How to specify category pricing? Can I have individual pricing for each category?

Yes, you can set different pricing for each category here: wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced Settings > Category settings. Choose the post-type from the dropdown to list the categories pertaining to that post-type. You can then change category icons and their pricing by editing them. Don’t forget to click the ‘Save’ icon.

6) How to select or manage payment options? (e.g. setting up PayPal)

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Payment Options. You can edit/activate/de-adtivate the available payment options.

7) How to add, edit or delete discount coupons?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Manage coupons. Add discount coupons here which are shown to your users while adding a place or an event listing.

8) Customizing the submission forms (Place/Event)

Email notifications

1) How to setup email notifications?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Email notifications and messages. Here, you can change the content of the emails that are sent to admin and users. Use the shortcode-legends specified.

2) How to setup on-site messages?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced settings > Email notifications and messages. Here, you can modify instructional messages displayed on-site like when a payment is successful. Use the shortcode-legends specified.

Miscellaneous Settings

1) How to setup mega menu ?

Mega menus are used to make regular custom menus look bit good and clean. To create it follow, these steps:

• First condition is to have at least one menu created at your back-end. So, if you do not have created then Go to wp-admin > Appearance > Menus and create and save new menu
• Now, go to wp-admin > Appearance > Widgets, Drag n’ drop the widget ‘jQuery Mega Menu’ in the ‘Below Header’ widget area.
• select your menu in the given field and fill up other fields also as per your need and save it.
• Refresh your browser to see the effect

You must create a proper structure (at least 3 tier) of menu while creating it in wp-admin > Appearance > Menus otherwise creating mega menu will be of no use as it will not be in its ideal condition.

If Event/Place categories are not available to you while creating menu then make sure that you have marked the checkboxes for that in the screen options available at top-right corner

2) How to add or delete custom fields ?

Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Advanced Settings > Custom Fields. You can add/edit and manage custom fields here with options to show them in the backend, frontend or both. Custom Fields are basically used for post attributes or fields like address, post-city, post-title, etc…

Show for categories field won’t work if “checkbox” option is selected in Basic Settings -> Add Listing Page Settings -> Category display settings.

3) How to find Category ID ?

To know the category ID, just go to Posts > Categories and hover your mouse over the category name E.g. Attractions. and notice its URL at bottom of the screen above the status bar. It would be something like id=3. This 3 is your category ID. Watch this video to understand it better.

4) Which permalink structure can I use with this theme?

To change Permalink strucutre go to Settings > Permalinks.

You can use only two types of Permalinks with Geoplaces theme.

1. Default
2. Custom Structure: In “custom structure”, you can only use “/%postname%” permalink.

Please ensure that you don’t use any other permalink, other than these two.

Bulk Upload

Bulk Upload functionality is still in beta so problems may occur. If your bulk upload fails please double-check the file you’re uploading. One stray comma can ruin the whole upload

Bulk upload has mainly two sections in it “Import” and “Export”.

A) Import

1) Import Places, events and blog posts

It is a very simple procedure to upload your desired option, follow these steps for that,

• • Select any of the places, events or posts as per your need
  • Select its CSV file from your computer drive and import it

For your ease, under these option a sample CSV file has been given, you can download it and can arrange your data in that pattern before uploading it otherwise you will not be able to have successful upload.

But this sample CSV file is for uploading just Places and not for events. To have a sample CSV file for events click here to download it and arrange your events CSV file in the same manner.

2) Import city data from GeoPlaces (older version)

If you had the cities data in your older version of this theme then you do not need to add each of them manually again. Simply use this option and get all your city data in just a single click.

For this, primary condition is to have CSV file of it. After having its CSV file, follow these steps,

• click on the Click Here text (having a link) given above in this area to drop the old city table from the database
• Now, upload your city data’s CSV file there

B) Export

A simple step to export all your data of the particular post type into CSV file. Simply select the post type whose data you want to have in CSV format and click the “Export to CSV” button.

Blog Setup

1) How to add a new Blog Post

Login to WordPress admin and click on Posts > Add New

1. Blog Post Title
2. Description
3. Geo Places Custom Settings > Detail page image position setting
4. Select a Category. Note: It should be your Blog category.
5. Select Your Featured Image

2) Blog listing page

Use the required widgets in the ‘Blog Listings-Sidebar’ region to show appropriate widgets on the blog listing page.

3) How to add a new Page and use Page Templates

Now lets add a new page. Go to Pages > Add New.

1. Enter the page title
2. Enter the page description
3. And finally select the template and click on “Publish”.

There are 8 page templates which you can use namely:

1. Advanced Search
2. Archives
3. Contact Us
4. Full Width
5. Gallery
6. Left Sidebar
7. SiteMap for event
8. Splash

Frequently Asked Questions

1) How does Claim Ownership work?

When a person clicks on “Own This Business” and submits the claim, a new entry is added to your admin dashboard. You can now accept or deny that ownership claim. If you accept you must manually create an account for that person and add that listing to his or hers account. You can create an account under wp-admin -> Users -> Add New. Make sure you assign a Contributor role to that person, otherwise you won’t be able to assign the listing to that person. You assign a listing by changing the post Author.

2) How to add Place and Event categories to my navigation bar?

You can add those while you’re creating your custom menu. Watch the following video for more information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXc1hy3z7Og

3) How to create or show the Add Event or Add Place links on my home page?

To show it on your Home Page

• Go to wp-admin > GeoPlaces > Basic Settings > Navigation Settings
• Select “Yes” for “Show Add Place Link” & “Show Add Event Link“
• Place a widget “T – Login & Add place widget” in the “Header: Right area” from wp-admin > Appearance > Widgets.
• Refresh your site
• By doing this, it will display a link at the top right corner of your Home Page
• Clicking on these links, you will see the URL extended with “?ptype=post_listing” for Places” & “?ptype=post_event” for Events

To show it in your Navigation Menu

• Just follow the above said steps except placing the Widget in above mentioned widget area at your back end
• Instead, use the links created for the Add Event & Add Place as a custom links in your Navigation Menu & add them from wp-admin > Appearance > Menus > Custom Links.
• Save your Menu & Place either “jQuery Mega Menu” or “Custom Menu” in the Below Header widget area from wp-admin > Appearance > Widgets & Save it
• Now, Refresh your site, you must be having it in your menu items.

4) How to assign one listing to 2 or more cities?

You must do this from the back-end. Open the listing in back-end and below the Description, under Select City enter multiple city ID’s

5) How to control the type (Roadmap or Satellite) of my listing/detail page map?

The type of map you select while creating a city is the type that will be applied to all your maps (homepage, listing and detail map).

6) What does “Pinpoint” button do?

Pinpoint button is displayed in category listing pages and requires the listing map to function. When you have a listing map in your Place/Event Listing Sidebar widget area and you click on “Pinpoint” the theme will focus on that particular listing on the map.

7) Which third-party plugins work with GeoPlaces?

You can use WMPL plugin to translate your theme into multiple languages. To know more about it and download the plugin, click here

8) Why isn’t the register button showing?

To display the register button you must turn on registrations. You can do that in wp-admin -> Settings -> General -> Membership

9) Should I use dummy data? Can I leave it on even after I start working on my site?

Dummy data is a great tool to see how theme content is organized and we recommend turning it on after activating the theme. If handled property dummy data can’t hurt your site. The only instance when dummy data can cause loss of real data is when you edit dummy data posts and then delete (deactivate) dummy data. To avoid this we recommend activating the dummy data under Appearance -> Themes and then going to GeoPlaces -> Basic Settings -> General Settings -> Disable Auto Install -> YES. This won’t disable dummy data, it will just hide it from Appearance -> Themes. With the area hidden you don’t have to worry about accidentally deleting it.

10) How to transfer content between two GeoPlaces v4 themes?

This is covered in our Upgrading from GeoPlaces v3 to v4 tutorial.

11) How to set up the menu to be just like on the demo site (in 3 rows)?

To set up a menu such as that one first go to Appearance -> Menus. Your item structure should look like this (screenshot from our demo site). To learn more about custom menus don’t forget to watch this short video.
Once the actual menu has been created navigate to Appearance -> Widgets and place the jQuery Mega Menu widget inside Below Header widget area. Inside the widget set the “Number of rows” to 3.

12) How to change the current city ID with a link

To change the current city without using the Multi-City Options widget or splash page simply append the following code after your domain root -> ?front_post_city_id=X with X being your city ID (can be seen in Advanced Settings -> Manage cities). The following example (link) will directly open San Francisco on the GeoPlaces demo site
https://templatic.com/demos/geoplaces4/?front_post_city_id=6

You can use this prefix to open a specific listing/category in another city as well. Simply append the prefix after your URL. Like this:
https://templatic.com/demos/geoplaces4/place/sampan-16/?front_post_city_id=6

If you experience any issues while setting up the theme please Contact Us and we’ll help you out.

13) My selected city gets change when I again visit the home page?

Let’s understand the problem in detail, when anyone visits your site and selects (suppose) London from the cities that you have on your site, then again from the same city option, he selects New York and visits some of the listings of that particular city and hits “home” to head over to home page but strangely, the city selected i.e. New York changes to “London”!

This kind of problem arises when you have any kind of cache plugin activated on your site as it stores the cache and cookies it will not let you keep the city selected that you chose after choosing the first one. So, to avoid it you should keep your cache plugin deactivated and if you are already facing this problem then along with deactivating, you should also clear the cache and cookies as well.