Rocket Maps plugin for WordPress

Rocket Maps — Searchable Maps, Store Locator & Listings Directory for WordPress

The Google Maps Locator plugin has evolved into Rocket Maps — a faster, far more capable version built on a new engine. Here is what the new plugin brings:

Rocket Maps lets you build fast, fully searchable maps for WordPress and drop them onto any page with a simple shortcode. Choose your map engine — Google Maps, Mapbox or MapLibre — add markers, turn them into a filterable listings directory, and let visitors search by keyword, category, location or distance. Everything — admin panels, search forms, marker editors, CSV tools — runs on a modern React UI with no page reloads.

Live demo: maps.salephpscripts.com

Three Map Engines, One Plugin

Pick the engine that fits your project — or let visitors switch on the fly.

• Google Maps — the classic choice with Places address autocomplete, Street View, Map/Satellite toggle, rotate/tilt control and directions.
• Mapbox GL JS — crisp vector tiles, smooth rotation and zoom, and a library of polished built-in styles (Streets, Outdoors, Light, Dark, Satellite Streets and more).
• MapLibre GL + MapTiler — fully open-source rendering backed by open tiles; no vendor lock-in.

Switch engines in Settings at any time. All markers, listings, categories and search forms stay exactly where they are — only the tile layer changes.

20+ Built-in Map Styles

Every engine ships with a curated set of ready-to-use styles, selectable from a dropdown — no code or JSON required. Google Maps, Mapbox and MapLibre each have their own palette ranging from clean minimal to dark, satellite and terrain.

Markers & Marker Clustering

• Font Awesome icon markers — choose any FA icon and a custom colour per category or per individual marker.
• PNG / custom image markers — upload your own marker graphic; resize with the size slider (30–70 px).
• Image markers — use the listing’s featured photo directly as the map pin.
• Price markers — display the listing price badge right on the pin; ideal for real estate and classifieds.
• Per-category icons — React-powered icon/colour picker on the category edit screen; every category can have its own distinct look.
• Marker clustering — nearby markers merge into a numbered cluster bubble; configurable grid size and multi-level cluster styles keep busy maps clean and fast.
• Drag-and-drop source priority — choose which marker property appears first (icon, image, price) with a simple React list editor.
• Streaming batch loading — markers load in 5 000-row batches over the REST API so even maps with thousands of points open instantly; subsequent batches arrive in the background while the visitor is already panning.

Drag-and-Drop Search Form Builder

A visual React form builder lets you compose the search form field by field — no code needed.

• Keyword search — powered by a MySQL FULLTEXT index over title, description and all custom field values. Results are ranked by relevance; a debounced autocomplete dropdown suggests matches as visitors type.
• Address + radius search — “show everything within 25 km of me” with km/miles toggle. A radius circle appears on the map to show the search area.
• Category filter — hierarchical taxonomy dropdown or checkbox tree.
• Location filter — filter by any location term in the Locations taxonomy.
• Custom field filters — price range slider, list/select/checkbox, date range, opening hours availability and more — every field from your form template can become a search filter.
• “More Filters” separator — hide secondary filters behind a collapsible section to keep the default form tidy.
• Four anchor positions — top-left, top-right, bottom-left, bottom-right; falls back above/below the map on narrow viewports.
• Draggable form — a grip handle lets visitors reposition the form anywhere on the map; the position is remembered per browser.
• Configurable width — set the pixel width on desktop.
• Live results — sidebar listings and map markers update instantly as visitors interact with any filter.

Listings Sidebar & List View

• Collapsible sidebar — left or right, configurable width, open or collapsed by default.
• Listings per page — paginate results; set exactly how many cards appear per page.
• Sort listings — by date, title, price, rating, custom field value, or a random shuffle; choose ascending or descending.
• Fly-to on hover — when a visitor hovers a sidebar card the map smoothly pans and zooms to that marker.
• Marker hover effect — the corresponding map marker highlights when the sidebar card is hovered.
• Configurable sidebar fields — drag-and-drop which custom fields appear on each card.
• List below map — display a full listings grid underneath the map canvas instead of (or alongside) the sidebar.
• Listing detail page — each marker links to a full single-listing page showing all fields, a contact form and directions.

Marker Popups

• Click any marker to open a rich information popup.
• Auto-popup — automatically open the popup of the nearest / most relevant marker on page load.
• Configurable max width and height; closes on outside click (optional).
• Configurable popup fields — choose exactly which custom fields appear in the popup card.
• Directions link — one-click “Get directions” opens the native map app or Google Maps with the listing as the destination.

Custom Fields & Visual Form Builder

A drag-and-drop React form builder lets you design the listing submission form without touching code. Fields are shared across the submission form, sidebar cards, popups and search filters.

• Text — single-line text input.
• Textarea — multi-line rich description.
• Number — numeric value with optional min/max.
• Price — currency-formatted price; used in price markers and price-range search filters.
• URL / Website — clickable link field.
• Email — mailto link on the detail page.
• Phone — tel: link on the detail page.
• Image — photo upload directly from the submission form.
• File — attachment upload (PDF, etc.).
• List / Select / Radio / Checkbox — predefined option sets; multi-select supported.
• Date & Time — datetime picker with formatting options.
• Opening Hours — structured weekly schedule editor; visitors can filter by “open now”.
• Field Groups — organise fields into labelled sections on the submission form.

Frontend Submission & User Dashboard

Let your visitors add and manage their own listings entirely from the frontend — no WordPress admin access needed.

• [webmap-submit] shortcode — drop a fully-featured listing submission form on any page.
• [webmap-dashboard] shortcode — personal dashboard where logged-in users view, edit and delete their own listings, check expiration dates and renew.
• User registration & login — built-in auth forms on the dashboard page; redirect to the dashboard after login.
• Anonymous submissions — optionally allow guests to submit without registering.
• Moderation — hold new submissions for admin review before they appear on the map.
• Listing expiration — set active periods in days, months or years; or make listings permanent.
• One-click renewal — an expired listing can be renewed by the owner with a single button.
• User-controlled expiration — optionally let owners adjust their own expiration date.
• Listing status badges — Active, Expired, Unpaid, Stopped — always visible to the owner.
• Audit log — an append-only history of every lifecycle event (created, activated, expired, renewed, status changed) is stored per listing and visible to admins.

Email Notifications

• Admin notification — email alert whenever a new listing is submitted.
• Activation email — sent to the listing owner when a listing goes live.
• Pre-expiration reminder — configurable number of days before expiry; prompts owners to renew.
• Expiration notification — sent when a listing expires.
• All email templates are fully customisable in Settings.
• Built-in email delivery test tool to confirm your server is sending correctly.

Contact Form

• Built-in contact form on every listing detail page — visitors can message the listing owner without revealing the owner’s email address.
• Contact Form 7 integration — paste a CF7 shortcode to replace the built-in form with your own.
• Optionally restrict the contact form to logged-in users only.
• Google reCAPTCHA v2 and v3 — anti-spam protection on both the contact form and submission form; version and keys configured in Settings with a built-in test tool.

Categories, Tags & Locations

• Hierarchical categories — create nested category trees; each category gets its own marker icon and colour via a React picker.
• Tags — flat tagging taxonomy for flexible cross-category grouping.
• Locations taxonomy — separate hierarchy for geographic regions (e.g. Country → State → City) used in the location filter and address display.
• Categories, tags and location terms are all full-text-indexed so keyword search spans taxonomy names automatically.

Address & Geocoding

• Google Places autocomplete on every address field — starts geocoding as soon as the visitor types.
• “Get my location” button — one-click GPS geolocation fills the address field automatically.
• Manual coordinate override — pin a location on the mini-preview map when the address isn’t enough.
• Configurable address format — drag-and-drop token builder (Address Line 1, Address Line 2, City, ZIP, Country) controls exactly how addresses are displayed in cards, popups and the detail page.
• Country restriction — lock address autocomplete to a single country for regional directories.

CSV Import & Export

• Full CSV import — upload a CSV to bulk-create or update listings; processing runs in chunked REST API batches so large files don’t time out.
• Image import — attach photos from URLs or local paths during import; duplicate detection prevents re-importing the same file.
• Geocoding during import — addresses are geocoded automatically as rows are processed.
• Opening hours import — structured weekly schedule data is parsed from CSV and stored correctly.
• Session-based progress — a live progress bar shows import status; sessions are resumable if the browser is closed.
• CSV export — export all listings (with images as URLs) to a CSV for backup or migration.
• Demo content import — one-click import of pre-built maps, pages and form templates bundled with the plugin.

Map Configuration Panel

Every map has its own dedicated settings panel with eight organised metaboxes:

• General — map width, height (pixels or %), listings limit, sticky scroll (map stays on screen while the page scrolls), loading spinner, auto-geolocation.
• Starting Point — set a fixed camera position and zoom, or auto-fit the viewport to show all markers; configurable radius filter with visual circle; save-and-follow (browser storage or URL).
• Map Style — choose from all built-in presets for the active engine.
• Controls — toggle fullscreen button, camera/rotate control, Map/Satellite switcher, Street View pegman, mouse-wheel zoom, touch dragging (one- and two-finger), center-on-click, zoom-on-click, locations counter (configurable text), min/max zoom bounds.
• Search Form — drag-and-drop React builder, position, width, drag-handle toggle.
• Markers — drag-and-drop source priority list; FA/PNG size slider; advanced per-engine rendering tweaks.
• Clusters — enable/disable, grid size, multi-level cluster styles.
• Popups — enable, auto-open, close-on-click-outside, max width/height, field selector.
• Sidebar & Listings — enable, position, width/height, open-by-default, per-page count, sort order, fly-to/hover effect, field selector.

Colour Customisation

• Global colour palette in Settings covers: primary colour, secondary colour, link colour, link hover colour, button primary/secondary/text colours.
• Optional gradient on buttons for a more polished look.
• All colours are applied via CSS custom properties — they cascade through every frontend component automatically.

Shortcodes

• [webmap id=”N”] — embed any map by post ID or slug; accepts width, height, geolocation and other per-embed overrides.
• [webmap-submit] — frontend listing submission form with auth, reCAPTCHA and file upload.
• [webmap-dashboard] — user’s personal listings manager (list, edit, delete, renew, check expiry).

Performance Architecture

• REST API backend — every frontend operation (search, marker load, popup data, listing CRUD) goes through a clean versioned REST API; no legacy AJAX handlers.
• Streaming batch loader — initial config payload carries the first batch; the React map requests additional 5 000-marker batches in the background without blocking interaction.
• Info-batch endpoint — full popup payloads for multiple markers are fetched in a single request when a cluster is opened, not one-by-one.
• FULLTEXT search index — a dedicated wp_rmaps_search_index table with a MySQL FULLTEXT index powers relevance-ranked keyword search without scanning postmeta.
• React frontend — the map, sidebar, search form and all admin panels are built with React; DOM updates are minimal and efficient.

Setup Wizard & Migration

• Step-by-step install wizard — on first activation a guided 4-step wizard walks through engine selection, API key entry, first map creation and demo import.
• One-click demo import — import a fully-configured demo map, its WordPress page and form template in seconds.
• Migration from Web 2.0 Google Maps — a dedicated one-shot migration path upgrades all markers, categories, listings, custom fields, settings and saved options from the legacy plugin without data loss.
• Diagnostics page — built-in tools to test API keys, reCAPTCHA configuration, email delivery and the search index.

Translation & Compatibility

• Translation-ready — ships a complete .pot file; every user-facing string passes through gettext; load your .mo file and the whole plugin is instantly localised.
• WPML compatible — language-dependent IDs are resolved through the WPML and Polylang filters so multilingual sites work out of the box.
• Fully responsive — the map, sidebar, search form and dashboard all reflow gracefully on phones and tablets.
• WordPress 6.0+ and PHP 7.4+.

What’s Included

• Rocket Maps plugin (all features above).
• Companion rmaps-theme — a clean, dark/light WordPress theme pre-wired to the plugin (engine switcher in the header, Buy-plugin CTA, feature grid on the front page); ready to use as a demo site or starting point.
• Demo content JSON (maps, pages, form template) importable in one click.
• Full documentation site bundled with the plugin.
• 6 months of item support.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.0 or higher.
• PHP 7.4 or higher.
• An API key from your chosen map provider:
  — Google Maps: browser key (required) + server key (optional, for server-side geocoding).
  — Mapbox: Mapbox access token.
  — MapLibre + MapTiler: MapTiler API key.
  Keys are stored on your server only and are never sent to us.

Changelog

 1.4.0 - August 31, 2026 = * New: every email in Settings, Email notifications now has its own Subject line you can edit, and its own switch to stop sending it. Leave a subject empty to keep the built-in one. The [tags] work in the subject as well as the body. * New: the Images field is now "Images & Videos" - attach a YouTube or Vimeo link (short or long form) alongside your photos. Video previews show a play icon in the listing gallery and open in the same lightbox as images, now with a built-in player. * New: CSV import/export now carries video links and captions the same way it already does images. * Improvement: the Email notifications tab is easier to read: each email now has its own heading, with its on/off switch and timing setting grouped under it. * Improvement: no admin screen loads an icon from an outside server any more. Those icons were emoji, which WordPress swaps for images hosted elsewhere; they are now drawn from the icon font the plugin already ships. * Fix: the radius slider in the search form showed as a bare circle with no track on themes that strip the native styling from form controls (Hueman and others). It now draws its own track and handle, so it looks the same whatever the theme does. * Fix: the quotes around a listing title no longer arrive as " in the activation email subject. * Fix: server replies now read as a plain sentence with a status code and a pointer to the error log instead of raw HTML, on every admin screen and on the front-end listing and contact forms. * Fix: the Edit Listing screen now saves everything you set on it, including plugin boxes such as Yoast (rich text ones too), the permalink, Author, Published on, Discussion settings and a status change made in the Publish box. * Fix: after logging in from the front-end submit form, you stay on that page instead of being sent to the Dashboard page. * Fix: the "Forgot password" email link now opens your own reset-password page instead of the default WordPress screen. * Fix: migrating from the old plugin now also brings over any videos attached to a listing, including their captions - a one-time catch-up covers sites that had already finished migrating before this update. * Fix: a map label built from text pasted out of Word, a PDF or another site now wraps normally - the non-breaking spaces such text arrives with left the label no point to break at. * Fix: an Address field that collects only the location dropdowns - with "Enter address fields" switched off - can be submitted again. It answered "Address is required." no matter what you picked, because the check still asked for a street line the form did not offer. * Fix: the Search and Reset buttons in the search form fill their slot again. A theme that resets button widths (Hello Elementor and others) shrank them to the width of their own labels. * Fix: the current page in a listings pager takes your own colour instead of a fixed blue. * Fix: on the Settings screen the Purchase code field stays above its support line and the "Check for updates now" button; another plugin styling the field could pull them up alongside it.  = 1.3.3 - August 25, 2026 = * Improvement: the "Maps Reset" tool's destructive options (listings/maps/templates, or everything) now require typing DELETE to confirm, on top of the existing warning. * Fix: logging in, registering, resetting your password and logging out now work correctly on a site with no separate Dashboard page. * Fix: a migrated custom field (or list option) whose icon was an uploaded image no longer shows a broken icon - the fix now also cleans up sites that were migrated earlier, and covers the per-option icons of list fields (dropdown, radio, checkbox), not just the field's own icon. Affected fields fall back to no icon.  = 1.3.2 - August 21, 2026 = * New: a "Listing status" box on the Edit Listing screen lets you pause a listing - hiding it from the map without expiring it - and resume it any time. * New: an option to convert imported images to WebP during CSV import (in the import step) - WebP files are typically 25-35% smaller than JPEG; skipped automatically if the host's image library can't write WebP. * New: set a specific expiration date - or "Never" - for any listing right on the Edit Listing screen. Your choice overrides the site's expiration setting; leave it on "Default" to follow that setting as before. The "Listing status" and "Listing Info" boxes are now merged into one. * Improvement: a listing's status now shows as a coloured badge on the Edit Listing screen and in the listings table. * Improvement: filter the listings table by the "Paused" status. * Improvement: the Listing history now records expiration-date changes, whether made by hand or automatically. * Improvement: pause or resume a listing from your front-end dashboard too, and the "Change expiration date" screen now uses the same Default / date / Never control. * Fix: search form fields keep a consistent height regardless of the active theme. * Fix: paused or expired listings no longer stay visible on the map after being re-published from Quick Edit, a bulk action or another plugin. * Fix: map marker coordinates are sent to the browser at normal precision again (some server configurations were appending a long trail of decimal places). * Fix: the Opening hours field again shows a green "Open" / red "Closed" badge, with correctly coloured day labels, on listings and in map popups. * Fix: the Edit pencil next to a listing's title (in map popups, in the sidebar and on listing cards) is shown again to signed-in users who can edit that listing - the public map's cache-friendly requests were dropping the sign-in check. * Fix: a listing that has expired can no longer be paused or resumed (from the Listing status box or the front-end dashboard) - an expired listing must be renewed. Pausing an expired listing used to hide its expired state, and resuming could put it back on the map past its expiration date.  = 1.3.1 - August 19, 2026 = * New: an "Always load front assets" option (Settings → Advanced → JavaScript & CSS) loads the map's JavaScript and CSS on every page, so a [webmap] shortcode placed in a page-builder header, footer, widget or dynamic template (Divi, Elementor and similar) that is not part of the page's own content still shows the map - no more hidden helper section on every page. * Improvement: after an update, the migration wizard opens automatically when there is legacy data to migrate. * Fix: toggling the "Enable automatic user Geolocation" switch on the Edit Map screen now activates the Save button. * Fix: creating a listing no longer reports a false "is required" error on a custom field that is already filled. * Fix: map markers no longer disappear when another plugin or theme also loads Google Maps on the page. * Fix: map search form fields keep their border and full width regardless of the active theme. * Fix: HTML in a field's Description (help text) now renders on the listing form instead of showing as raw tags.  = 1.3.0 - August 11, 2026 = * New: label-type map markers (the Rating chip and field-value labels) now take per-source background AND text colours - set them in Edit Map → Markers (the same colour control the dots use); background default white, text default #333. The Opening hours label gets two backgrounds - one for Open, one for Closed. * New: an alternative HTML marker mode - map markers rendered as real DOM elements instead of on the canvas, switchable in the Markers "Advanced" panel (canvas stays the default). * Improvement: the reCaptcha settings page now lists which forms reCAPTCHA protects - Login / Register / Lost-password, listing submission, "Contact this listing" (map popup / sidebar) and anonymous star ratings. * Improvement: listing cards, map popups and the map sidebar lead with the photo as a cover image - flush to the top edge, rounded top corners, softer card corners. * Fix: the rating field's "Icon size (px)" box in the search-form builder now accepts any value you type - it no longer jumped to the maximum when you typed a smaller number such as 20. * Fix: migrating a custom field whose icon was an uploaded image no longer produces a broken icon - such fields fall back to their default icon. * Fix: a label marker’s connector “tip” no longer detaches or collapses to a sliver at steep/diagonal angles - it now hugs the pill’s rounded corner cleanly (canvas and HTML markers). * Fix: the on-map search form's collapse toggle is now shown only in full-screen - where its folded/expanded state is remembered - so leaving full-screen returns the form to expanded instead of leaving it stuck folded on the page. * Fix: the search form's Radius slider spans the full form width now, aligned with the other fields (its stray side padding is gone). * Fix: "Show radius circle" now works on the live map, not just the Edit Map preview - drawn at load from the map's own "Show markers in radius" radius, moved to a visitor's address + radius search, and framed by the camera when it is wider than the saved zoom. * Fix: when a cookie-consent plugin (for example Avada's Privacy option) holds back the Google Maps script, the map now says it is waiting for consent - and loads once cookies are accepted - instead of "Google Maps API key is not configured". * Fix: an enabled "Content" field shows on listing cards and map popups again. On some sites it was silently dropped even though the listing editor still showed it. * Fix: the listings pager no longer shows the theme's bullet points in front of the page numbers. * Fix: words no longer break in the middle at the end of a line. The 4-line trim on text fields used a legacy CSS box that ignored word-wrapping rules (most visible in Firefox); it now trims by height, so text wraps at spaces. Pasted text is also cleaned of invisible characters that force breaks, and the directions panel is covered too. * Developer: the shared listing-field markup (cards, map popups, sidebar) now carries neutral `…-listing-content__*` class names alongside the historical `…-popup__*` ones. Custom CSS keyed on the old names keeps working - they are kept as deprecated aliases.  = 1.2.5 - August 6, 2026 = * New: a Globe projection option for Mapbox and MapLibre maps (Edit Map, next to the map style) - the map shows a 3-D globe when zoomed out and flattens to the normal flat map as you zoom in. * New: a one-click front-end self-test that checks your maps and listings work on the live site, so problems caused by other plugins (caches, optimizers, security plugins) show up even when wp-admin looks fine. * Fix: in the setup wizard, the map step now opens the map already created during setup for editing, instead of starting a blank new one (which left you with a duplicate). * Fix: the rating marker's text size (the px next to "Rating (score + reviews)") now actually resizes the label on Mapbox and MapLibre maps, and markers stay locked to their spot while the globe rotates. * Fix: the map no longer shows a false "Google Maps API key is not configured" notice when the key is set. On sites where Rocket Maps was the only plugin loading Google Maps, it was accidentally removing its own map script along with any conflicting ones; it now keeps its own, so the map displays. * Fix: a website address can be entered without "https://" on the listing form, and an email pasted with a stray space is no longer rejected as invalid. * Fix: long text on listing cards and map popups now wraps at word boundaries instead of breaking words at random characters. * Fix: the admin reminder about a missing Google Maps API key now shows its bold text and settings-page link correctly instead of raw HTML tags. * Fix: in the listing-form builder, a field's chosen icon now shows in the Field Properties panel right away, instead of looking blank until you re-select it. * Fix: in the listing-form builder, grabbing a field and dropping it back in the same place no longer leaves it dimmed.  = 1.2.4 - August 4, 2026 = * New: a listing's images can be reordered by dragging their handle in the editor - the first image (or the one marked as the logo) is the main image. * New: the on-map search form gains a collapse/expand toggle beside the drag handle - both shown by the renamed "Allow form drag and toggle" option (Edit Map → Search form). * Fix: on the listing form, choosing a different main image (logo) - or reordering the images - now takes effect on the front. The front-end listing renderer was still reading a pre-rebuild image key and ignored image/logo edits made in the new editor, so the main image "stuck" on the first image; it now reads the current image order and the chosen logo.  = 1.2.3 - August 2, 2026 = * New: a "Map language" setting - show Google Maps place labels, Places autocomplete and the geocoder in a chosen language (e.g. English), independent of the site language. * Fix: when the search form is placed on the page separately from the map, its Locations / Categories dropdowns now open above the map instead of being hidden behind it. * Fix: the public map no longer breaks with a "Cookie check failed" (403) error on cached pages or after a long-open session - its read-only data is now fetched without a REST nonce, so full-page caches and expired sessions can't stop it loading.  = 1.2.2 - August 1, 2026 = * Improvement: the Submit button on the front-end listing form now shows a loading indicator while the listing is saved (matching the map editor). * Fix: the admin Settings screen now loads its section icons and styled dropdown (select) controls correctly - a packaging issue had left some bundled admin styles and scripts missing. * Fix: the Listing Locations screen now shows the correct number of listings for each location instead of always showing 0. * Fix: the address "restrict to a single country" setting now defaults to "Worldwide" instead of a blank selection.  = 1.2.0 - July 29, 2026 = * New: built-in star ratings - visitors can rate listings, and the average rating shows on markers, the map popup, the sidebar and listing pages (no separate add-on needed). * New: a "Custom" colour palette - editing any colour on the Customization tab switches the palette to Custom automatically, so your own colours are kept. * New: guided upgrade from the Google Maps Locator plugin - a one-time welcome screen introduces Rocket Maps and runs the data migration, keeping all your purchase keys active. * New: theme-aware Settings controls, and a "Depth" option for category / location term filters in the search form. * Improvement: smoother panning and zooming on large maps (cached projections and better marker-overlap handling). * Improvement: new maps inherit your default map settings, and map duplication now respects user capabilities. * Fix: when a map provider API key is not configured, the "map can't load" notice now appears immediately instead of several seconds later. * Fix: colours on a fresh install match the Default palette; a migrated site keeps its own colours under the Custom palette. * Fix: the form builder keeps the map, markers and panel in sync when using undo / redo.  = 1.1.0 - June 9, 2026 = * New: 10 Google Maps and 10 MapLibre map style presets (colourful to dark). * New: branded rocket marker icon and a matching map starting-point marker. * Improvement: faster marker loading on maps that use a listings limit. * Fix: list / select / checkbox field values not showing in listings, popups and search. * Fix: duplicated markers and gallery images on some listings. * Fix: MapLibre style switching in the map editor's live preview. * Fix: search-form fade animation and minor UI polish.  = 1.0.0 - June 1, 2026 = * Initial CodeCanyon release.