Dave Sabol

I am getting ready to go on the road and wanted to make sure that I had my newly established blog ready for the trip. One of the first plug-ins I searched for was a geocoding / mapping module so I could not only tag and track my travels. Instead of starting off in the usual locations (WordPress Plug-in DB or WordPress Codex), I decided to google the keywords to see what came up.

I was pleasantly surprised that at the top of my list was the newly released GeoPress. From the minute I saw it, I knew that the developers (Andrew Turner, Mikel Maron, and originally developed by Ravi Dronamraju) knew what they were talking about and had themselves a great addition for my site (If you don’t believe me visit either of their sites). Their plug-in basically does everything a mapping application should do and a whole lot more like embedding a dynamic map (Google Maps, Yahoo Maps or Microsoft’s Live Local Search - your choice), Microformat adr and geo output, and adding GeoRSS to your RSS output.

GeoPress is a tool to help you embed geographic locations into your blog posts, and also include this information in your RSS/Atom syndicated feeds using the GeoRSS standard.

Here is an example:
INSERT_MAP

There are a whole lot more features, but their site does a much better job describing it concisely. Needless to say, I decided to download it and give it a try. The site stated that it was as simple as downloading the zip, uploading it, activating it in your plug-ins screen, grabbing a either a GoogleMaps API or a Yahoo Developer key, configuring the settings, and you were off and running. Well, I can say for the most part, that was true. It was really easy to download, and get set-up, but getting it working right wasn’t. Now don’t get me wrong, this has more to do with documentation of using the hooks the right way…nothing with the application per se, so it shouldn’t diminish the coolness or usefulness of this plug-in.

What impressed me more than the functionality itself was how willing Andrew was to give me a hand, figuring out what I did wrong. We traded a few emails and he solved 90% of my troubles. I think we did unearth a bug, but that’s to be expected, especially since it hasn’t been around for that long.

All things considered, setting it up was pretty easy, but where this plug-in shines is in its ease of use. To begin using GeoPress, all you have to do is write a new post and enter a location name / address in the appropriate fields. Then you press enter, or click the Geocode button to verify on the map that this is the appropriate location. Additionally, you can click on the map to set a location. Once you save your post, the geographic location is stored with the post entry. If you are using a GPS unit or happening to have your coordinates handy, you can enter latitude and longitude, then enter into the address field provided by the plug-in.

I can’t wait to really leverage this as an integral part of my daily writing both when I’m home and on the road.