Embed Google Maps (with your own API key) or OpenStreetMap/Leaflet maps via shortcode or Gutenberg block.

A simple, intuitive Google Map / OpenStreetMap plugin that installs as a Gutenberg block and a shortcode. Packed with useful features — geo-mashup of posts, KML overlays, marker icons, address geocoding — and fully free and open source. No subscriptions, no SaaS, no telemetry.

Slick Google Map lets you embed maps using either:

• Google Maps — requires your own API key (configurable per-site).
• Leaflet / OpenStreetMap — no key required, free tile service.

Features:

• Insert maps via the Slick Google Map Gutenberg block (with a multi-marker repeater) or the [slick_map] shortcode.
• Classic Editor users get a Slick Map media button above the editor that opens a dialog with the same repeater.
• Marker geo-mashup — aggregate every post/page that has lat/lng custom fields onto a single map.
• KML and GPX overlays — drop a track or boundary onto any map. KML works on both providers; GPX is Leaflet-only.
• Address geocoding — write address="Vienna, Austria" instead of coordinates. Geocoded once per address and cached for 30 days. Uses your Google Geocoding API key if set, falls back to Nominatim/OSM otherwise.
• Coordinate formats — accepts decimal (48.2082) and DMS (48°12'29.5"N) in any marker.
• Marker icons — bundled set of 13 modern SVG pins (default, restaurant, lodging, cafe, bar, museum, airport, rail, shop, camera, mountain, castle, religious), plus your own URL. Legacy filenames from the 2014-era plugin are auto-aliased.
• Map controls — toggle the zoom / map-type / street-view / scroll-wheel / drag controls per map.
• Layers — Google bicycling and traffic overlays on demand.
• 45° aerial tilt — passed through to Google as tilt: 45. Only takes visible effect on vector Map IDs, or on satellite/hybrid view over the specific cities where Google has 45° aerial imagery. No effect on raster maps or on Leaflet.
• Custom Google styles JSON — for branded maps without cloud-styled Map IDs.
• Wiki-style links in marker titles: [[https://example.com|Display text]] becomes a real link.
• Compatible with WordPress page caches — no per-visitor state in the rendered HTML, no AJAX side-effects.
• No fixed-cost dependencies — Leaflet / OSM is free; Google Maps is pay-as-you-go with a generous monthly free tier (≈28k map loads/month at no charge).

History:

Slick Google Map 1.0 is a rewrite of the original plugin version 0.3, which was itself a fork of the Comprehensive Google Map Plugin by Alexander Zagniotov (2011–2014). Version 1.0.0 is a complete rewrite for WordPress 6.4+ and PHP 8.1+ — see the "Parity & rewrite" section below for what changed.

Insert a map via the Slick Google Map Gutenberg block, the Slick Map media button in the Classic Editor, or the [slick_map] shortcode. Optionally aggregate posts/pages that have lat/lng custom fields onto a single map ("geo-mashup"), and overlay a KML or GPX file.

[slick_map lat="48.2082" lng="16.3738" zoom="13" height="400px" provider="leaflet"]

Geo-mashup of posts and pages:

[slick_map mashup="post,page"]

KML or GPX overlay:

[slick_map kml="https://example.com/track.kml"] [slick_map provider="leaflet" gpx="https://example.com/hike.gpx"]

KML works with both providers; GPX requires the Leaflet provider (Google's Maps JS API does not natively render GPX).

Markers with addresses and custom icons (nested [marker] children):

[slick_map zoom="6"] [marker address="Vienna, Austria" title="Home"] [marker lat="52.5" lng="13.4" title="Berlin" icon="https://example.com/star.png"] [/slick_map]

Each [marker] accepts address (geocoded once and cached) or explicit lat/lng, plus optional title and icon.

The icon attribute accepts either an https://… URL pointing to your own image, or one of the bundled short names: default, restaurant, lodging, cafe, bar, museum, airport, rail, shop, camera, mountain, castle, religious. Legacy filenames from the 2014-era plugin (1-default.png, museum_naval.png, hotel_0star.png, …) are auto-aliased to the nearest modern equivalent.

For geo-mashup markers, set a marker_icon custom field on each post to override the default pin for just that post.

Toggle Google's built-in UI: zoomcontrol, maptypecontrol, streetviewcontrol, scrollwheel, draggable (all default true).

Google-only overlays: showbike="true", showtraffic="true".

45° aerial tilt: tilt="45". Only takes visible effect on a Google vector Map ID, or in satellite/hybrid view over cities where Google has 45° imagery. Ignored elsewhere.

Custom Google map styles JSON: styles='[{"featureType":"poi","stylers":[{"visibility":"off"}]}]' (ignored when a Map ID is configured — cloud styling takes precedence).

Marker lat / lng values accept either decimal (48.2082) or DMS form (48°12'29.5"N).

Marker titles support [[https://example.com|Display text]] to embed real links, or [[Plain Page]] for unlinked highlighted text.

When a Google Maps API key is configured the plugin uses the Google Geocoding API (same Cloud project as Maps; enable Geocoding API alongside Maps JavaScript). Otherwise it falls back to Nominatim/OpenStreetMap. Results are cached in a 30-day transient per address, so each unique address is geocoded at most once.

Using the Google provider loads scripts and tiles from maps.googleapis.com. Using the Leaflet/OSM provider loads tiles from tile.openstreetmap.org and the Leaflet library from unpkg.com. Choose the provider that matches your site's privacy posture.

1. Upload the plugin to /wp-content/plugins/slick-google-map/.
2. Activate via Plugins.
3. Go to Settings → Slick Google Map to choose a provider and, if using Google, paste your API key.
4. Strongly recommended when using the Google provider: also create a Map ID in the Google Cloud Console (Google Maps Platform → Map Management → Create Map ID → type: JavaScript) and paste it into Google Map ID. Without a Map ID the plugin must fall back to the deprecated google.maps.Marker, which logs a console warning on every page load. With a Map ID set, modern AdvancedMarkerElement is used and the warning disappears.

Version 1.0.0 is a complete rewrite of the 2015 codebase. The old plugin's PHP and JavaScript were written against WordPress 3.6 and PHP 5, used the long-retired Google JSAPI loader, geocoded addresses on every page view, shipped 300+ marker PNGs of mixed provenance, and had several unauthenticated AJAX write paths in wp-admin. Re-issuing it as-is on a modern stack was not viable, so the codebase was rewritten from scratch around the same shortcode vocabulary.

What you keep. Posts written against the very old [google-map-v3 ...] shortcode still render. The plugin registers google-map-v3 as a back-compatibility alias that maps the still-useful attributes (width, height, zoom, kml, maptype, addmarkermashup, addmarkerlist, maptypecontrol, zoomcontrol, streetviewcontrol, scrollwheel, draggable, showbike, showtraffic, tiltfourtyfive, styles) onto the new renderer. The Google provider is selected by default for these legacy shortcodes, the old addmarkerlist="addr{}icon{}desc|..." packed format is parsed transparently, and the most-used legacy icon filenames (1-default.png, museum_naval.png, hotel_0star.png, …) are aliased to the bundled modern SVG set.

What's gone for good. Some features can't come back because the upstream services or APIs disappeared:

• panoramio — Google shut Panoramio down in November 2016.
• pancontrol — Google removed panControl from the Maps API in 2017; there is no flag to set anymore.
• google.maps.KmlLayer — deprecated April 2026; replaced internally with a fetch + KML→GeoJSON renderer.
• The old https://www.google.com/jsapi loader — retired by Google in 2017; the modern loader requires a user-supplied API key.

What's not yet back. Marker clustering, directions/routing, geolocation marker, and marker drop/bounce animations are reachable from the rewrite but not yet wired up. See PARITY.md on GitHub for the full, categorised list (restored / new / missing-but-doable / deprecated-by-upstream / deliberately-dropped) plus a migration cheat-sheet.

What was dropped on purpose. The sidebar widget (Classic Widgets is in long-term legacy mode), the saved-shortcodes admin library (it was the largest single security surface in the old plugin), and the 300+ marker PNG library (replaced with 13 modern SVGs plus a legacy-filename alias map) — see PARITY.md for the rationale on each.

Sign in to the Google Cloud Console (https://console.cloud.google.com/), create a project, enable Maps JavaScript API (and optionally Geocoding API), then Credentials → Create credentials → API key. Restrict the key to your site by HTTP referrer. Paste it into Settings → Slick Google Map → Google Maps API key. The Maps Platform gives you a ~$200/month free credit, which is roughly 28,000 dynamic map loads — enough for most personal sites at no cost.

Only if you want to use Google Maps. The plugin ships a Leaflet/OpenStreetMap provider that requires no key, no account, and no billing. Pick it in Settings → Slick Google Map → Default provider, or per-map with provider="leaflet".

Without a Map ID, the plugin falls back to google.maps.Marker, which Google deprecated in February 2024 and logs a console warning for. Creating a Map ID (Google Cloud Console → Google Maps Platform → Map Management → Create Map ID → JavaScript) and pasting it into the plugin settings lets the plugin use the modern AdvancedMarkerElement and the warning disappears.

The safest option is plain decimal (43.6387194, -116.2413513). The plugin also accepts DMS forms:

• 43°38'19.39"N, 116°14'28.86"W
• 43 38 19.39, -116 14 28.86
• 43.6387, -116.2413 (semicolon also works as separator)

If you provide an address="…" attribute instead, the plugin geocodes it once and caches the result.

Yes. The legacy shortcode is registered as a back-compat alias. The most-used attributes pass through to the modern renderer; obsolete ones are silently ignored. See PARITY.md on GitHub for the per-attribute mapping.

Yes. The rendered HTML is fully static (a <div> with a data-sgmp JSON payload). Map and tile loading happens in the visitor's browser. WP Super Cache, W3 Total Cache, LiteSpeed Cache, and similar all work without configuration.

The saved-shortcodes admin and the TinyMCE Quicktag are gone (replaced by the Gutenberg block and, for Classic Editor users, a media button above the editor). The sidebar widget is also gone — use the block. See "Parity & rewrite" above and PARITY.md for the full list of dropped features and the reasoning.

• Norbert Preining

• Alexander Zagniotov — thanks for the original work, released under GPL.

• Honza Rameš

Complete rewrite for WordPress 6.4+ / PHP 8.1+. Old [google-map-v3 ...] posts keep rendering via a back-compat alias; the sidebar widget and saved-shortcodes admin are gone. See the "Parity & rewrite" section of the description and PARITY.md on GitHub for the full migration notes.

Map output on a published post

Settings page — provider, API key, defaults

Geo-mashup of posts/pages with lat/lng meta

Gutenberg block in the editor

Classic Editor "Slick Map" media button + dialog

KML overlay on the Google provider

KML overlay on the Leaflet/OSM provider

Marker popup with linked post title

Shortcode usage example

• Complete rewrite for WordPress 6.4+ / PHP 8.1+. Old codebase replaced by a small PSR-4-style src/ tree with declared types and ABSPATH guards.
• New Gutenberg block (sgmp/map) with multi-marker repeater; legacy TinyMCE button removed; Classic Editor gets a "Slick Map" media button with the same repeater.
• Google Maps now requires a user-supplied API key (Settings page). New Leaflet/OpenStreetMap provider as a key-free alternative, switchable per-map.
• Modern Google Maps loader (inline bootstrap + importLibrary); AdvancedMarkerElement used automatically when a Map ID is configured.
• Server-side address geocoding (Google when key set, Nominatim/OSM fallback) with 30-day per-address transient cache.
• KML overlays now rendered via fetch + inline KML→GeoJSON parser → google.maps.Data, replacing the deprecated KmlLayer.
• GPX overlays on the Leaflet provider.
• 13 bundled SVG marker icons; ~50 historical PNG filenames aliased to the modern set; per-marker icon="…" accepts URLs or short names.
• Wiki-style links and DMS coordinate parsing.
• Map control toggles (zoomcontrol, maptypecontrol, streetviewcontrol, scrollwheel, draggable), Google bicycle/traffic layers, tilt, and custom Google map styles JSON.
• HTTPS upgrade for http:// overlay URLs on SSL pages — fixes mixed-content blocks on historical posts.
• All form/AJAX entry points dropped or protected with nonces + capability checks. All DB queries use $wpdb->prepare(); all output is escaped.
• Removed legacy JSAPI loader (google.com/jsapi) which Google retired in 2017.
• PHPUnit test suite (56 tests, 145 assertions) and a GitHub Actions CI workflow that runs the tests on PHP 8.1 / 8.3 and enforces README.md ↔ readme.txt sync.

• Fix support for parsing (nearly) arbitrary coordinate formats.

• Allow editing of saved shortcodes.

• Initial fork: rebranding the 9.1.2 release of the Comprehensive Google Map Plugin, removing MMpro export code and renaming the widget.

composer install   # install dev dependencies
composer test      # run the PHPUnit suite
composer readme    # regenerate this README.md from readme.txt

Source layout under src/:

• Plugin.php – entry point, wires sub-modules
• Options.php – settings DTO with sanitize() as the trust boundary
• Admin/Settings.php – Settings API page
• Admin/ClassicEditor.php – "Slick Map" media button + dialog
• Frontend/Shortcode.php – [slick_map] renderer
• Frontend/LegacyShortcode.php – [google-map-v3] back-compat alias
• Frontend/Assets.php – script/style registration, Google bootstrap
• Geo/PostQuery.php – geo-mashup query (prepared SQL, transient-cached)
• Block/Block.php – server-rendered Gutenberg block

This file is generated from readme.txt. Edit that file, then run composer readme.