Location page seems useless as is. How can I make it better?

This topic contains 15 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  Kathy Long 4 years, 8 months ago.

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  • #540530

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    Check the location page out. This is straight out of the box: https://supportyourtown.online/location/

    There is potential here but there are some big problems that make it unusable as is.

    1. I like that you can see all categories and subcategories. But I don’t like that the subcategories make the row so tall and it leaves all the white space under categories to the right. Is there a solution for that without complicated coding?

    2. I added some event categories and they are grouped in with the place categories with no title to differentiate them. Is there a way to separate them with a heading that says “Events”?

    3. And the biggest problem is this. This will show all listings in the entire database. That does not serve anyone. They need to first sort by location, but when you sort by location, you don’t see all the categories, you just go to the listings. So is there a way to sort by location and then stay on this page and see all available categories and subcategories for that location?

    #540540

    Kor
    Moderator
    Post count: 16516

    Hi Kathy Long,

    Thanks for your post.

    1. You can create multiple “GD > Categories” shortcodes and filter it for example.
    Place Category and Place Sub Category and display one at each line. https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs-v2/design/gd-categories/

    2. Create a new “GD > Categories” shortcode and display only Event Category with a custom title.

    3. Yes, you can filter it by location https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs-v2/design/gd-listings/

    #540554

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    thanks, Kor. Please excuse my ignorance but these instructions are not complete enough for me to understand: https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs-v2/design/gd-categories/

    Scratch this. I just found it. That’s the shortcode builder on the page. Might be helpful if you said that for novices like me. 🙂

    #540560

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    Ok, this is starting to make more sense to me, but I still have questions and I don’t think I’m explaining them well.

    As to my #3, you said, ” Yes, you can filter it by location https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs-v2/design/gd-listings/

    That is actually not what I wanted to know. So let me describe what I’m trying to do to see if that will make more sense.

    I would like a page that lists just categories. The Location page did that but it showed them for ALL locations. No visitor will want to see all locations, making the Location page that was set up during the installation virtually unusable UNLESS before you get to this page, you will have them filtered by location.

    I have seen directories that can detect where you are when you get there, or let you set your location and then everything you do after that point is for that location. That’s necessary because no user wants to see everywhere!

    So how can I get a page of categories that are dynamically sorted OUT by your location when you land on that page?

    Does that make sense? If there is no way to do set location first, having any links to categories is useless, unless I’m missing something.

    #540562

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    Let me try to make my concern simpler.

    The biggest problem with this software that I see now is this. I can’t find a way to sort by location and category.

    What is the point of having categories if it pulls up all your listings that you might have all over the world?

    You can only search by keyword and location, at least the way this theme was set up..

    That makes absolutely no sense to me. You wouldn’t leave out that functionality. it’s pretty much a useless directory if you did, so I think it must be me. I’m missing something. Thanks for your help.

    #540564

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    It’s slowly dawning on me that maybe your software was only designed to be used in small areas like one city or one county. Maybe that’s why you can’t set your location and sort by category that way.

    Hoping I’m wrong. Looking forward to your reply. Thank you!

    #540602

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Hello,

    the location page is a template.

    In city A, it should show listings and categories in City A.

    In city B, listings from City B.

    So, you add GD Listings to the page, one for each post type, and set the location filter to enabled on each one so the gd listings shows City A and B dynamically.

    The Archive page is similar, but, only shows on post type at a time.

    #540754

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    Thanks, Alex. I figured out how this had to work last night. For what I’m trying to accomplish, it may be best for the businesses anyway. Just more work for me, but that’s fine!

    Please tell me how to filter by location. It’s not in my filter options when I use the shortcode generator.

    #540877

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Sure it is!

    See the screenshot and https://wpgeodirectory.com/docs-v2/design/gd-listings/

    #540917

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    Alex, there is literally no location filter in my gd_listings shortcode builder. There are no post IDS either. I just read down below how to add the parameter manually though. I’ll do that.

    Screen Shot 2020-04-17 at 10.55.39 AM.png

    #540918

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    Since I have to add the filter manually, I also need to set the location manually. There is no field to select the city, or looks like, add the city slug. How do I do that manually? I tried this but it had no effect:

    [gd_listings post_type=”gd_place” post_limit=”15″ add_location_filter=”1″ sort_by=”az” title_tag=”h3″ layout=”3″ view_all_link=”1″ bottom_pagination=”1″ hide_if_empty=”1″add_location_filter=”1″ city_slug=”4,5,20,21″]

    #540919

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    If you need to log in to see this for yourself, I left the login credentials in another post. Do you have that still?

    #541006

    Alex Rollin
    Moderator
    Post count: 27815

    Try clicking the blue button to see the advanced options?

    #541034

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    That was the advanced options! You can see “Filters” there and that it’s opened. It stopped at Posts to show. And notice under General in my picture. It stopped at Title.

    I went and tried again and then the filters and general attributes were there. Saved it. Checked in the browser to see if there was any effect. There was not. Went back to try again and now all the attributes are missing again.

    We’re talking about gd_listings here, right?

    If so, it’s buggy.

    Maybe you can help me do this manually then. Next question coming up.

    #541035

    Kathy Long
    Expired Member
    Post count: 71

    OH shoot! I was wrong. The 2nd time through I didn’t open the advanced. THey are all there!

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