A Christmas present of sorts – some bleeding edge software for you! I’ve used some of my holiday break time to start implementing a few features I’ve been eager to add to the Geo Mashup Plugin. I’ve made a lot of changes in this one that will need some testing, so I’m going to release it in beta to begin with and leave 0.5.2 available as a stable version (See the home page for links to both). Now onto the goodies:

• The plugin is now hosted on a Google Code Project Page. I’m hoping this will improve stability, and provides some new services.
• The Geo plugin is no longer required. Instead, a small searchable Google map is used to specify the location for a post. Details:
• While in beta at least, you should be able to go back to using 0.5.2 and the Geo plugin without data loss (no promises though – try it at your own risk).
• You can specify a location by entering coordinates, clicking the map, entering an address, or entering a place name.
• Your old preset locations should still be present as searchable place names.
• Markers now have titles that appear when moused over.
• The map page template is no longer required to have the <?php wp_foot(); ?> template tag. It still needs <?php wp_header(); ?> before the </head> tag.
• Lots of internal reorganization.

I have many ideas for more features, so let’s get these tested and stable!