Personal Review Maps for your Blog or Site
We here at The Beer Mapping Project have been working around the clock to bring you our latest new feature.
We now have a system that will allow you to have a map to your latest review sitting right on your blog or site (as long as it can accept html code and an iframe). The process is so simple, even my mother could do it!
If you want to take a look at what a personal review map might look like, you can scroll down to the bottom of the right column on this site where you can find a map displaying the most recent review on the site. This map looks exactly like the map that you can get to place where you wish.
If you want to set up one of these maps, all you have to do to start the process is click the button on your review list page. The following image displays what the button looks like on my review list:
Once you have clicked the button you are faced with a couple of options. The first is “displayed name”. If you have a blog where everyone knows you as “Steve” and your username here is “Sir Lageralot”, you can change the displayed name on your map to be “Steve” so your blog readers will know who is doing the reviewing on the map.
The other options control the zoom level (might want to select medium or far if you review mostly in rural areas) and the type of map selected (terrain is a cool option). Selecting these once will determine how the map will be viewed on your site.
If you want to see an example of how the options are tweakable, you can click here to see my map tweak page.
Once you have the map edited, all you have to do is copy the code from the form and paste it where you want it on your site. The code and the example map update automatically when changes are made to the options. But you can push the “Update Code” button if it makes you feel better (note: the button is a fake and it actually does nothing, other than reassure people that something is happening).
Please enjoy these maps, do with them as you will and support craft beer!
Examples of these maps in the wild (drop a link to your blog in the comments and I will link it here)
- The Beer Hall (map is in the right sidebar)
- Sports Beer Wine Life Maybe Not In That Order (scroll down to bottom to see the map)
- The Beer Nut (map is in the left sidebar)
March 1st, 2008 at 10:23 pm
This is probably a dumb question and I am probably missing something but how do you get the map to point to the place you reviewed. If I copy the code to my blog site it shows the map you generated. Also do you see this being a per blog post thing or one per site showing your last review.
March 1st, 2008 at 10:49 pm
Nevermind I figured it out. I really like this functionality and I will probably use it on my beer trip posts. Also to let you know there is an extra
that causes it to not post at blog spot. It is right after the #CCCCCC tag.
title=”International Brewery Maps”>Brewery Maps | <a href=”http://beermapping.com/city-beer-maps/” style=”font-family:arial;
Matt
March 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 am
Matt, I’m confused by what you posted. I’m wondering if wordpress (the blog we’re on now) stripped out some of the content of your post.
I will try to contact you via email to see if you can let me know what broke on blogspot. I do have access to a blogspot blog where I can test so I can try that tomorrow.
March 2nd, 2008 at 9:33 am
For anyone following this, I was able to determine what was stripped from Matt’s comment above (a ‘< /a>‘) and I have corrected the issue. I then sent the code through the W3 markup validation service and the code came up green (I should have done this first).
I have also added a couple more options to the location maps (not the personal review maps that we are discussing here). I may make a post about them soon.
March 2nd, 2008 at 1:44 pm
Works like a charm. I’ve added it to my sidebar on The Beer Hall. This is really a cool way to help people promote BeerMapping and to encourage them to post more reviews. Cheers!
March 5th, 2008 at 5:07 am
I’m in. Great stuff, thanks.
March 5th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Nice.
Formatting doesn’t seem to want to play nice with my theme, though. I’ll have to monkey with it a bit.
March 5th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Al,
If you let me know what the problems are, perhaps I can help?
Most of the important stuff is marked as !important in the inline css. Everything else can usually be dependent on your own css.
I guess if your stylesheet is globally adding padding to images or iframes or something you might have an issue. But everything else in the css of these maps is fairly simple.
March 5th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I really like this kind of stuff and will be adding it to as many places as I can on my website. Am excited to take it out for a spin.