Google Maps
Importance of Google maps to initialize search
Directory theme provides with various location based features. To enhance the location based capabilities of the Directory website the theme comes with integrated google maps. The maps are definitely more expressive and attractive than plain text.
Type of Google maps
Google maps are categorized in several available options taken into account:
Homepage maps
Homepage Google maps in Directory theme are clear and are used to show the listings of the current cities. They allow the visitors to search and locate their desired Listing/Posts, through the markers on this map on FrontPage of a Website.
Map on Homepage of a Website either be a full width or be a box shaped depending upon your choice.
The screenshot shows an image of a WordPress site based on Directory theme. The map highlighted screenshot is available with the pinpointing markers locating the Listings/Posts assigned in New York City. It is also accompanied with category box, Zoom In (+) Zoom Out (-) buttons, and lastly, the buttons to switch orientation from map view to satellite view.
Category Page map
Maps on category pages alike the one on Homepage works similarly to locate all those Listings in that particular category with the help of pinpointing markers.
In the above image, the Category page map is used to indicate the Listings/Posts assigned in “Places” category, located in New York City.
Detail Page map
The detail pages of the website can also accommodate map that shows a marker where the listing exists.
Map on Detail pages are used to be displayed with the help of a tab. These Detail page maps possess many different roles such as Get Directions: Direction to navigate from a random place to the Listing, View Large Map: To see the map in full screen.
Map Markers of your own choice
The map markers indicate the exact location of the listing. The default map markers can be changed and category wise markers can be set. You can download the free set of map markers to change the look of the maps. This makes it easy to distinguish between the categories of the listings on the maps itself.
Marker clustering
This is another optimization technique for Maps. By default, the maps will be shown overlapped whenever there are more than one listings very close to each other. Clustering is a technique which helps in preventing from confusion due to overlapping of markers for such listings. With the help of Clustering, you can easily find out the number of Listings located at a place without getting confused.
Clustering Effect Clustering Disabled
Responsive maps
These days, Mobile is the most important source to visit a Website. Therefore it is very important to have mobile friendly maps. The site should work well on all the devices therefore the maps are responsive. The significance of making the maps mobile friendly is that the performance remains unaffected, regardless of the device.
All In One Map
All in one map as the name suggests is a full page map occupying full length and breadth of the page to show all the Listings/Posts on the website irrespective of the city selected.
Maps don’t just add beauty to the website but they’re comprehensive and easy to understand. They help the viewers get a precise idea about the exact location of the listing and even lets them have the navigational details.
Display any location using the Google Map Location widget
Maps are a very presentable way to show the address. Therefore, Templatic’s Directory WordPress theme comes with a map Google map location widget that will let you display your location through maps.
The widget is mainly used for displaying the address of business on the contact us page. But this is not its limitation, it can be used for any purpose where you want to display a static location on the map.
The specialty of this widget is that it works perfectly in any widget area.
Configuring the widget
Like any other widget in WordPress, this widget also starts working by dragging and dropping it to the required widget area and applying the following settings.
Title: The title that appears above the map.
Address: Full address of the location you want to show on the map. On entering the correct address the widget will show a map with a marker at the location.
Map Height in pixels: To change the height of the map you can adjust this pixels.
Map zoom factor: This lets you set the zoom factor, value set to 19 will show the map in full zoom while 1 will show the normal map, without any zoom.
Select Map Type: This will show the type of map to be displayed. You can choose between road map, that is a pictorial format of map, or the satellite view map.
How it Google map location looks on the front-end?
Use
There are many situations when you would like to display a place, a static address on the website. For this the widget, T → Google Maps Location can be used anywhere on the website.