Overlays – Create Markers, Lines and Shapes with a:
- Title
- Image (Media Library or link to external image)
- Description (Rich text editor, HTML supported)
- Type (defined in Settings)
Import
- GPX
- KML
- GeoJSON
- EXIF (Image location metadata)
- Elevation data (adds an interactive profile chart for Lines with elevation data)
Meta – Add extra information to your Maps; these are customisable form inputs that allow you to add additional content to your Maps.
Types – Set options to visually distinguish between Overlays (colours/icons etc.), then select it when using the Editor.
Collections – Group Maps together and display multiple Maps at once. Create complex Collection hierarchies to suit your needs and associate Maps with multiple Collections.
Submissions – Allow registered users, or guests to create Maps from the front-end of your site. You can control who can Submit Maps, what editor features are available and whether submissions should be approved before they are published.

Displaying Maps

Embed your Maps using the [Waymark] Shortcode, or link to the Map Details page.

Shortcodes
- Display a single Map, or a Collection of Maps anywhere that Shortcodes are supported.
- An optional Shortcode Header displays the Map/Collection title, a link to the Map Details page and any Meta.
- Display a Marker defined through the Shortcode.
- Display a Basemap only, without any Overlays by providing centre and zoom parameters.
Basemaps – Uses OpenStreetMap by default, with support for multiple raster tiled/”slippy” Basemaps. You can switch Basemaps using the Overlay Filter.
Overlay Filter – Allow the user to filter which Overlays are currently visible on the Map.
Export
- (Optionally) Let anyone Export Maps into GPX, KML and GeoJSON formats through the Shortcode Header or on the Map Details page.
- Works on mobile devices.

Customising

Built to be flexible, Waymark has lots of Settings and Types provide one place to control how Overlays (Markers/Lines/Shapes) are displayed.

Marker Icons can be provided as:
– Font Icons (Ionic Icons v2/Font Awesome v4)
– Simple Text, or Emojis (i.e. 🏕️, 🚩, 📸).
– Custom HTML (good ol’ <img src="https://example.com/icon.svg">, or a more complex structure). So you can pretty much create any kind of Icon you want.

For developers:

Most elements can be styled using CSS and have sensibly named waymark- classes.
WordPress integration:
- Maps are stored using the custom post type waymark_map.
- Collections use the waymark_collection Taxonomy.
- Embed Maps using the [Waymark] Shortcode anywhere they are supported, or dynamically using the do_shortcode(["Waymark"]) function.
Geographical data is stored in GeoJSON format. Types are specified using the type Property, i.e. {feature: { geometry: { type: 'Point', coordinates: [0, 0] } }, properties: { type: 'Alert', title: 'Bridge Removed!' }.
Specify which GeoJSON feature properties to store when importing (Settings > Overlays > Properties). These can be automatically appended to the Overlay Description, or accessed programmatically via the layer.feature.properties Object.
Maps are displayed using the Leaflet JavaScript library, which is bundled with Waymark and can be extended using the waymark_loaded_callback callback function.

User Examples

Development

Note: Docker, Node.js and NPM required.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/opengis/waymark-wp.git

# Navigate to the Waymark directory
cd waymark-wp

# Install the dependencies (or pnpm/yarn install)
npm install

# Start WordPress at http://localhost:8888 and rebuild assets on change
npm run dev

Help

The help site is a Nuxt 4 app in help/, built with @nuxt/content. Node 24.15 or newer is required.

cd help
npm ci
npm run sync-assets
npm run dev

The local preview runs at http://localhost:11003. To build the static site for GitHub Pages:

NUXT_APP_BASE_URL=/waymark-wp/ npm run generate

Assets

Styles and scripts are compiled from Less and JavaScript sources into the minified bundles enqueued by the plugin — edit the sources, not the build output:

assets/ — the plugin CSS (compiled from assets/less/) and JavaScript, served as the front and admin bundles.
waymark-js/ — the bundled Waymark JS library powering the Viewer and Editor: sources in src/ and libs/, built into dist/.

Translations

Waymark uses the waymark text domain, with the translation template at languages/waymark.pot.

JavaScript strings are mirrored in Waymark_Lang, the JavaScript language defaults and the documentation demo config, so update all three when adding or changing a string.
npm run i18n:check verifies that the PHP, JavaScript and documentation language defaults stay in parity, and that waymark_php_lang keys are both localised and read.
npm run grunt rebuilds the POT and compiled assets after source changes.
Stable Type and Meta keys are internal identifiers, not translated labels. They are used in Shortcodes and CSS and must not be translated.
Translations ship through WordPress.org language packs.

Testing

Three suites cover the plugin — JavaScript unit tests (Vitest), PHP integration tests (PHPUnit) and browser end-to-end tests (Playwright). The PHP and browser suites run against the disposable wp-env tests instance at http://localhost:8889; the development instance is never touched. The wp-env environment (npm run dev) must be running first.

# JavaScript unit tests (Vitest, jsdom) — Viewer, Editor and description sanitisation
npm run test:js

# PHP integration tests (PHPUnit against the WordPress test library)
npm run test:php

# Browser end-to-end tests (Playwright/Chromium) — login, Maps, Markers, responsive admin layout, front-end
npm run test:e2e

# Run all three in sequence
npm test

# One-off: prepare the tests container (after a fresh "wp-env destroy")
npm run test:php:setup

All three suites also run automatically in CI on pull requests and pushes to master.

wp-env pins PHP 8.3 to match the plugin’s declared floor. WP_ENV_PHP_VERSION and WP_ENV_CORE override the PHP and WordPress versions — useful for testing a release candidate or a newer PHP:

WP_ENV_PHP_VERSION=8.5 WP_ENV_CORE=WordPress/WordPress#trunk npm run test:php

npm run test:php:lint checks PHP syntax at the floor. CI exercises both boundaries — WordPress 6.4 with PHP 8.3, and current WordPress with PHP 8.5 — while the browser suite runs on current WordPress only.