HTML Storefinder Version 5.0 Implementation Guidelines / Software Development Kit (SDK)

• Introduction

  • Who should read this document?
  • Assumptions
  • Scope of document
  • Copyright
  • Limits on geocoded data
  • Terminology

• What is HTML Storefinder?

  • Geographic coverage
  • Standard features
  • Service enhancements

• Technical Overview

  • How HTML Storefinder works
  • How Client Zone works
  • How geocoding works
  • How HTML Storefinder templates work

• Implementing Storefinder

  • Logging in to Client Zone
  • Customizing your templates
  • Working with templates
  • Editing places.htm
  • Editing browse.htm
  • Using field values to display images
  • Requesting alternative templates
  • Integrating Travel Directions with HTML Storefinder
  • Making HTML Storefinder multilingual

• Frequently Asked Questions

Introduction

What is HTML Storefinder?

HTML Storefinder is a 'Where's my nearest?' search service that allows users to enter a postal code, address or place name to view their nearest stores or outlets as icons on a map. It works from a table of addresses based on your company's own database of locations and is available for many countries and in multiple languages (as detailed in the section on Making HTML Storefinder multilingual).

Users can view the icons on the map and view details of the nearest or most appropriate stores (outlets or dealers), such as the address, telephone number and web address with the distance from the entered address or postal code.

Geographic coverage

Multimap provides maps of most of the world, although map coverage varies by country and region.

Street-level mapping

We currently provide street-level mapping and geocoding for over 35 countries which are listed below. This list is not exhaustive and is being continually updated as new countries are added. If required, please contact your account manager for the latest update. If you discover that you are not able to search for streets in a country, please contact your Multimap account manager. Your account may need to be activated to access that country.

Countries indicated with an asterisk (*) in this list are included in Multimap's 'pan-European' coverage option.

If the country you are interested in is not listed, it does not necessarily mean it is not covered. Additional countries are being added to this service all the time, so please ask your Multimap account manager for an up-to-date list of countries.

Where street-level maps do not cover an entire country, these are the locations for which street-level maps are available:

Street-level geocoding

Multimap's geocoding is currently accurate to street level in the following countries:

Notes

Standard features

You can use filters to:

Service enhancements

You can add more features to HTML Storefinder to make it even more interactive, automated or compatible with your needs:

Please contact your Multimap account manager if you are interested in any of these service enhancements.

Technical Overview

HTML Storefinder consists of the following elements:

• your table of addresses, which contains store details and information that you wish to include, such as opening hours;
• Multimap's geocoding service, which assigns geographic coordinates to your store addresses;
• two CGI programs: places.cgi, which searches place-name data in Multimap's gazetteer databases; and browse.cgi, which searches store records in your table of addresses;
• three HTML templates, places.htm, browse.htm and browse2.htm, which control the appearance of results provided by places.cgi and browse.cgi; and
• Multimap’s geographic search and map display features, which are invoked through HTTP requests, specifically:
• geographic search requests to places.cgi; and
• map display requests to browse.cgi.

How HTML Storefinder works

There are two perspectives from which to view HTML Storefinder:

• User Interaction (how a user initiates an HTML Storefinder request and responds to HTML Storefinder results); and
• Manager Interaction (how a web manager maintains and updates the data and templates that create the service).

The User Interaction and Manager Interaction diagrams give an overview of the mechanics of HTML Storefinder from each of these perspectives.

The HTML Storefinder service is made up of two HTTP requests - one to places.cgi and another to browse.cgi. First places.cgi searches for places matching the search term entered by the user. Then browse.cgi displays map and store information, which the user can browse.

Typical case

Typically, when a user searches for a location by street, town or postal code, your places.htm template passes a request to places.cgi at Multimap. If the user has provided enough address information to resolve to a single unique location, Multimap returns one result from browse.cgi and your browse.htm template displays this result.

If the request to places.cgi does not contain enough information for Multimap to resolve the search to a single result, the software presents the user with alternatives. The places.htm template displays these alternatives and prompts the user to choose one. By default, places.cgi returns up to 15 addresses. When the user clicks on one of the suggested alternatives, the browser passes the request to browse.cgi, which generates a response based on your browse.htm template. The response typically includes a map and information from your table of addresses, such as store name, address and opening hours. By default, browse.cgi returns information about the ten nearest stores per web page.

The number of results returned by places.cgi or browse.cgi can be changed if required; for details, please see the section on Paging possible address matches. If the request to places.cgi does not match any location in Multimap's database, the software presents the user with explanatory text and prompts to try again by entering alternative or more specific information.

How Client Zone works

Client Zone acts as a password-protected extranet portal which lets you view and manage your Multimap services. For details, please see Multimap's Client Zone documentation. Specifically, Client Zone lets you:

• change the structure of your table of addresses;
• upload, geocode and edit addresses;
• edit templates;
• use your own icons instead of our default red circle;
• view your service documentation; and
• view your traffic reports.

Preview and live environments

You can change any changes made to your Multimap services in a preview environment before making them live. For an example of this, please see the section on Testing your service.

How geocoding works

To display your stores accurately on a map, Multimap must first geocode your table of addresses. This involves comparing the addresses of your stores with our extensive database of addresses and locations, and generating longitude and latitude values for each store address. We use a GeoQuality code to tell you which elements of your addresses matched records in our reference databases; for details of these codes, please see Multimap's Client Zone documentation.

Street-level geocoding

The accuracy of street-level geocoding depends on the:

• structure of your table of addresses;
• extent to which coverage is available for the country or region that your HTML Storefinder service covers; and
• amount of information that you provide in your uploaded data.

The more accurate and comprehensive your data, the more accurately Multimap can geocode your addresses. When uploading your address data, please include as much information as possible, such as building number, street name, postal code and state.

Town-level geocoding

In countries other than those listed in the section on Street-level mapping, we geocode addresses to town level. The fields required for geocoding are town and country. For example, if you have an address in Nairobi, Kenya, our geocoding tools assign the record the coordinates of the nominal center of that city.

How HTML Storefinder templates work

Templates let you build pages that match the rest of your website and provide your site’s visitors with information to help them find their nearest store.

Template structure

HTML Storefinder uses two templates, by default:

• places.htm provides a search interface for users; and
• browse.htm displays map and stores results.

The use of alternative templates is possible by embedding an additional parameter in the browse.htm template; for details, please see the section on Requesting alternative templates.

Place holders

Multimap templates contain place holders which are embedded tags that affect the functions of the underlying code. They take the form <%place.holder%>. In your live HTML Storefinder, HTML code or Multimap data replaces the place holders.

Here are some examples of different types of place holder:

When your HTML Storefinder service is live, place holders are replaced with HTML code, data generated by Multimap’s software or data from your table of addresses.

Please note that you can use place holders to pass parameter values between your templates, since their values persist across them. These values can include items of data or parts of a filename. For example, by adding the place holder <%opening_hours%> to the template result loop, information from the custom field named "opening_hours" can be displayed; for details, please see the section on Using field values to display images.

One example of using place holders might be to include your own images in headings displayed by Multimap templates;
you can add a place holder called <%form.headerimg%> and specify its value in an HTTP request, by means of a parameter whose name matches that of the place holder:

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=[clientname]&headerimg=1

If you have subscribed to the Secure version of the service, replace http in the URL with https:

https://classic.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=[clientname]&headerimg=1

This is the code that you should include at the point where you want to display the image in a template:

<h1>
Store Locator 
<img src="http://www.[myserver].com/images/multimap/head<%form.headerimg%>.gif" />
;</h1>

Before the template reaches the browser, the "<%form.headerimg%>" becomes "1". The rendered image tag therefore looks like this:

<h1>Store Locator <img src="http://www.[myserver].com/images/multimap/head1.gif" /></h1>

In the same way, you can alter the value of the parameter in the HTTP request to "2" to make the template refer to another image called "head2.gif".

Implementing Storefinder

This section describes how to integrate the HTML Storefinder service with your own website and customize its appearance. For details, please see the section on Customizing your templates. You will also need to upload and geocode your store data. Please see Multimap's Client Zone documentation for details.

Logging in to Client Zone

To log in to any of your accounts in Multimap’s Client Zone, visit:

https://cz.multimap.com/clients/cz.cgi

1. From the login page, enter the username and password of your company. This takes you to the Select a service to manage page.






2. From the Select a service to manage page, select your HTML Storefinder service.

Customizing your templates

When you have downloaded copies of the places.htm and browse.htm templates to your local computer, edit them to your own specification using any HTML text-editing tool. You can edit any of the underlying HTML to change the look of your templates, but you must leave all existing place holders intact. For an explanation of place holders, please see the section on How HTML Storefinder templates work.

You can also use WYSIWYG editors but, if you create any additional HTML code with these programs, please ensure that it does not interfere with the operation of your Multimap templates. Please do not change the name of any of your templates.

The standard HTML Storefinder search template (places.htm) contains hidden form fields for specifying the service client name and country, and user-input fields for the user to enter the street, town or postal code of a location to search for the nearest stores to that location. Your standard search request from places.htm typically contains the service client name and search parameters, as well as appropriate address terms which query your table of addresses based on proximity only. The standard results template (browse.htm) contains the same search form as places.htm along with place holders for displaying the results of the search. By default, these place holders are for the name, street, town, postal code, telephone number and distance. The data for all these fields except distance is taken from your table of addresses.

We recommend that you do not download or edit Multimap style sheets due to their high levels of complexity. Instead, we recommend that you use your own style sheets in combination with our default style sheets.

Working with templates

To implement your Storefinder templates, log in to Client Zone, then download templates to your computer, modify them (for example to request alternative templates or add your own icons), upload the revised templates and test them. You can load alternative templates by embedding an additional parameter in your browse.htm template, as described in the section on Requesting alternative templates.

Downloading templates

To download your templates:

1. From the Management Menu, File Actions section, select the Download templates and images option from the Live Environment column.
2. From the Download templates and images page, select the template you want to download and click the Download button.
3. Save the template to your computer.

We recommend you make back-up copies of your templates at this point and store them safely.

Editing templates

After downloading copies of the templates to your local computer, you can edit them using any HTML text-editing tool or program editor; please ensure that additional HTML code created by these programs does not interfere with the operation of the templates. For details, see the sections on Editing places.htm and Editing browse.htm.

Uploading templates

To upload templates from your computer or network to the Client Zone preview environment:

1. From the Management Menu, File Actions section, select Upload templates and images.
2. From the Upload templates and images page, click Browse... to find the template or GIF image file on your computer, then enter a comment on the changes to help you identify the version of the template or image in its file history.
3. Click Upload to upload the template to your preview environment. To preview any changes made, click the Preview Env link at the top of the Management Menu page.
4. To copy your uploaded template or image from your preview environment to the live environment, from the Copy templates and images to your live environment page, click the Copy button that corresponds to your template.

Testing your service

You can test your HTML Storefinder service with your data in your preview environment by entering this HTTP request in your web browser:

http://preview.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=[clientname]

This launches an HTML Storefinder ready for you to enter your search criteria.

Enter a street and town, or postal code, and click Search.

To view the active data in your live environment, use the URL:

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=[clientname].

Editing places.htm

Changing the style of your places.htm overview map

You can alter the appearance of the country overview map on your places.htm template. For example, you can use a suitable image-editing tool to change the color of the text on the map or the map itself.

To download the country overview map image, use your mouse to move the cursor onto the overview map on the places.htm template and right-click to select the map image and save it to a folder on your computer, for example:

…/images/multimap/

When you have saved the overview map to your computer, use an image editor to open it and make the changes you require, but please ensure that you do not change the map's dimensions in any way, as this may adversely affect the functioning of the clickable map. When you have finished making changes, you must then host the modified image on your own server. Please do not upload it to Multimap. If you give the map a different name from that specified in places.htm, replace the existing image name (for example, "ap_ukmap.gif") with your own and ensure the path name is correct for your new image:

<input type="hidden" name="overviewmap" value="[my_ukmap]">
<input 
  type=image 
  name="g" 
  src="http://www.[myserver].com/images/multimap/[my_ukmap].gif" 
  alt="Overview map of UK"/>

Please do not change anything except the value setting of the image and its location or path name.

Incorporating a different country overview map in your places.htm template

If you wish places.htm to show a map of a different country, please contact our Customer Support team to arrange this.

Changing map size

You can alter the size and shape of the maps returned by places.htm and your other templates by specifying different height and width parameters; these values are exposed in the code of the places.htm template and passed as parameters to the browse.cgi program:

<input type="hidden" name="width" value="500" />
<input type="hidden" name="height" value="300" />

Restricting store results within a fixed radius

You can restrict the list of store results displayed in your browse.htm template to within a specified radius. All places.htm templates contain the code to implement this, but this is commented-out by default. To enable this feature, remove the comment tags that surround the relevant sections of the template.

In the places.htm template the radius parameter, if it has been enabled, appears as a drop-down list; when an initial search is carried out, its value is passed to browse.htm.

Paging possible address matches

You can achieve paging of multiple possible address matches in your places.htm template by adding the srec (starting record) parameter to the URL strings that your template generates. This specifies the number of possible matches that each page of the template displays.

If you wish to activate this feature, contact the Multimap Customer Support team to specify the number of possible address matches you wish to show on each page of your places.htm template. You can then add code to your places.htm template at the point where you wish to show a link to the next and previous pages of possible matches, as follows:

<%if_prev CONDITION="search.prev_page_srec ne []"%>
<a href="?<%plugin NAME="querystring" EXCLUDE="srec"%>&srec=<%search.prev_page_srec%>">
Previous <%conf.places_rowsperpage%> results</a> <br/>
<%endif_prev%>
<%if_next CONDITION="search.next_page_srec ne []"%>
<a href="?<%plugin NAME="querystring" EXCLUDE="srec"%>&srec=<%search.next_page_srec%>">
Next <%conf.places_rowsperpage%> results</a> <br/>
<%endif_next%>

This example code shows 'next' and 'previous' buttons only when they are available.

If you wish to show five possible address matches per page, a search for an address returns the first five possible matches overlaid on a map, with a link below to the next set of five matches. The srec parameter is included in the Optional Additional Advanced Parameters table in HTML Storefinder filters.

HTML Storefinder filters

You can filter on any of the information for which you have fields in your table of addresses. To narrow the number of results, you can apply any number of filters to your search request.

Filtering on a particular database field works by submitting the name of the field and its expected value with the address searched. For example, you may have columns in your table of addresses called opensunday and openmonday for information on Sunday and Monday opening times. The value in each of these columns might be "Yes" or "No". To add a checkbox to your places.htm template which, when ticked, requests stores that are open on a Sunday (these are stores where the value of opensunday is “Yes”), you would need to add these input tags to the places.htm template:

<input type="checkbox" name="f_opensunday" value="Yes" /> Open on Sunday
<input type="checkbox” name="f_openmonday" value="Yes" /> Open on Monday

Please note that the “f_” part of the name is a Multimap internal term and should always prefix the field name as shown. Searches are spatial by default, except for store name searches; for details, please see the section on Store name search.

Personalizing searches using different filter types

There are two ways of filtering by using AND or OR logic in a query:

• AND logic means that, to qualify as a result, the store has to meet every condition that is being filtered. This can very quickly limit the number of results, so you should guard against 'over-filtering'; and
• OR logic on the other hand returns results that match at least one but not necessarily all conditions or filters.

By default, the Multimap filter logic is set to AND. To switch between the filter types, or to further personalize your search, please refer to the Multimap Customer Support team.

Alternative ways to implement filters

Filters are typically invoked by the means of checkboxes, radio buttons, or selection lists. Add the appropriate code to your places.htm template. Here are some examples.

Checkbox

<input type="checkbox" name="f_carparking" value="Yes" />Car park

Drop-down box

<select name="f_opening_hours">
 <option value="Sunday">SundaySaturdayMonday

Please note that, to implement this example, your table of addresses would need a column called opening_hours containing the values "Sunday", "Saturday" and "Monday".

Radio buttons

<input type="radio" name="f_opensunday" value="Yes" />Yes
<input type="radio" name="f_opensunday" value="No" />No

Using other optional advanced parameters

You can use several other parameters in requests to alter results returned. To do this, you need to configure these to your specific requirements:

Optional Additional Advanced Parameters

Store name search

You can enter criteria in the Store name search box on your places.htm template to perform a non-spatial search. A search by store name can search partial strings. For example, an input of "tim", instead of forcing the user to match the exact name of a store, will match all stores with any of these names:

• "Multimap";
• "Town Square Timepieces"; or
• "City Timber Supplies".

Please note that a store name search is not case-sensitive.

The store name search is enabled by the 'fuzzy_filters' hidden input field; the value of this field is a comma-separated list of filters on which the Multimap HTML Storefinder service always performs its store name search. In the default templates "f_name" is the only filter required.

To use a store name search on another field, append the name of the filter to your 'fuzzy_filters' hidden input field and add another text input field for that filter.

For example, the hidden input would become:

<input type="hidden" name="fuzzy_filters" value="f_name,f_town" />

and add a new input field to the form:

<input type="text" name="f_town" size="15" value="" />

You can set your templates to perform a 'fuzzy search' on any field in your table of addresses by specifying the name of that field in your 'fuzzy filters' input field and prefixing it with "f_".

'Quick search'

How 'quick search' works

'Quick search' is only available for UK searches. It is a single search field in a places.htm template that can accept town names, Ordnance Survey grid references, postcodes or street names. If you implement a 'quick search' field in your template, our systems provide similar or near matches for possible place-name misspellings when a user enters search data.

When the user enters a street, town or postcode, Multimap tries to identify the location from the information entered. If the search is successful, we show the nearest store to the search term on a map. If the search term is vague, we may offer the user several alternatives to choose from.

Implementing 'quick search'

You can implement 'quick search' form fields for UK searches only. To display 'quick search' fields on your HTML Storefinder web page:

1. From Client Zone, download the templates that contain a search form; by default, these are the places.htm and browse.htm templates.
2. Find the search form on your page which, by default, contains the following form fields:




Street: <input type="text" name="addr2" value="">
Town: <input type="text" name="addr3" value="">
Postcode: <input type="text" name="pc" value="">
<!-- hidden fields and submit button -->
<input type="hidden" name="client" value="<%map.client%>">
<input type="hidden" name="db" value="GB">

3. Replace the three text input fields with one text input field named quicksearch and delete the hidden field named db:




UK Place name or postcode: <input type="text" name="quicksearch" value="">
<!-- hidden fields and submit button -->
<input type="hidden" name="client" value="<%map.client%>">

4. If you wish to apply these changes to all instances of your search form, then make the same changes to all the templates containing the search form.
5. Upload your modified templates and activate them.

Testing your places.htm template

Test any changes you have made to your template in your preview environment by accessing HTML Storefinder from your browser, using this HTTP request:

http://preview.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=[clientname]

To view the active templates in your live environment, use the URL:

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/places.cgi?client=[clientname]

Editing browse.htm

Your browse.htm and browse2.htm templates

By default, your HTML Storefinder service shows your store data on two HTML templates:

• browse.htm shows a summary of all your search results in a list and marked on an overview map; and
• browse2.htm shows all the details of any one store when it is selected from that list.

You can customize your service to change the distribution of data between the browse.htm and browse2.htm templates.

Throughout this document, whenever we refer to "your browse.htm template" we mean a combination of browse.htm and browse2.htm.

Configuring your store results

The browse.htm template displays your store results below a map. In this template, there are place holders for name, street, town, postal code, telephone number and distance.
These represent columns in your table of addresses so if you do not have a column named "town" you can delete the place holder
<%town%>.
Similarly, if you have a column named "parking" then you can add the place holder <%parking%>.

Please note that place holders are case-sensitive and must match the spelling of your column names.

Map overlay icons

By default, HTML Storefinder results appear on the browse.htm map as small blue-colored boxes indicating the position on the map of the locations that have been found. The code that controls this in the browse.htm template is shown below:

<li class="posilayer" style="position: absolute; left: <%xpix.add(10)%>px; top: <%ypix.add(10)%>px; 
visibility: <%pix_visible%>;">
<a href="browse.cgi?client=<%map.client%>
&lat=<%lat%>&lon=<%lon%>&scale=10000				
&width=<%map.width%>&height=<%map.height%>
&f_id=<%id%>&radius=<%form.radius%>
&ovtype=<%form.ovtype%>&db=<%form.db%>
&rt=browse2" title="<%name%>"><%CurrentRecord.add(form.srec)%>
</a>
</li>

This HTML code is styled in the external CSS file that is found at:

http://classic.multimap.com/whitelabel/sfv5/default.css

li.posilayer a {
cursor:pointer;
filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src:
"http://classic.multimap.com/images/sfv5/pointer.png");
display:block;
color:#999;
text-decoration:none;
width:31px;
height:26px;
padding:7px 2px 0 0;
text-align:center;
}
html>body li.posilayer a { 
/*For browsers that support alpha transparency*/
background:transparent 
url(http://classic.multimap.com/images/sfv5/pointer.png) 
0 0 no-repeat;
}

To change these icons (for example, for your own branding purposes), download the CSS file from the URL above and replace the two URLs in the example shown above to point at an image on your own server.

When you have finished making changes, host the modified CSS file on your own server. Please do not upload it to Multimap. You must then change the reference to the CSS file in your browse.htm and browse2.htm templates to point to this modified file:

<style type="text/css">
<!-- 
@import "http://www.[myserver].com/whitelabel/sfv5/default.css";
. . .-->
</style>

Zooming and panning in browse.htm

Users can pan to the north, south, east, west or diagonally around the map that is shown in browse.htm and zoom in or out. Here is the code in the default templates that allows this:

<!-- mm :: zoom and pan buttons -->
<ul>
<li id="w" class="point"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="W"%>">Pan west</a></li>
<li id="nw" class="corner"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="NW"%>">Pan north-west</a></li>
<li id="n" class="point"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="N"%>">Pan north</a></li>
<li id="ne" class="corner"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="NE"%>">Pan north-east</a></li>
<li id="e" class="point"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="E"%>">Pan east</a></li>
<li id="se" class="corner"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="SE"%>">Pan south-east</a></li>
<li id="s" class="point"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="S"%>">Pan south</a></li>
<li id="sw" class="corner"><a href="browse.cgi?<%plugin NAME="browsepanning" DIRECTION="SW"%>">Pan south-west</a></li>
</ul>

Customizing distance output

The <%dist%> place holder shows the distance of the store from the search point (for example, distance from the entered postal code). By default the displayed value is in miles or kilometers, depending on your default browse.htm template. You can customize this output by adding qualifiers to the <%dist%> place holder.

Distance customization qualifiers

Notes

The qualifier marked by asterisk (*) is active by default in all Storefinder services except those configured specifically for Great Britain and the United States.

Testing your browse.htm template

Test any changes you make to your template in your preview environment by accessing HTML Storefinder from your browser, using this HTTP request:

http://preview.multimap.com/clients/browse.cgi?client=[clientname]

To view the active templates in your live environment, use the URL:

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/browse.cgi?client=[clientname]

Using field values to display images

Field values can be used to display specific images within the browse.htm template. For example, a table of addresses may contain the field carpark. This field may contain either “no” or “yes”. In the browse.htm template, each record is displayed in the results section, between the <%begindetail%> and <%enddetail%> tags.

To use the field value, add an <img src=...> tag with the same name as the field in your table of addresses:

<img src=http://www.[myserver].com/images/parking_<%carpark%>.gif>

The tag <%carpark%> is rendered as a "No" or a "Yes" value, so either one of the following images is selected for each record:

• http://www.myserver.com/images/parking_no.gif
• http://www.myserver.com/images/parking_yes.gif

When a user searches for a store that has a car park, the appropriate image is displayed. No image is displayed for stores that are not marked as either having or not having a car park. To prevent a blank image marker being displayed, you can either ensure "Yes" or "No" is entered in your table of addresses for every record, or you can add the appropriate code to hide the default blank image marker or show a blank field where no value exists in the carpark field.

Requesting alternative templates

A request to places.cgi loads the places.htm template by default. Similarly, a request to browse.cgi loads browse.htm. To create 'printer-friendly' pages that print the map or route to a store, you can request alternative templates that contain only the details you wish to show and upload these alternative templates via Client Zone. To request the templates, pass an rt (return template) parameter in the query component of the HTTP request.

Here is a standard request to browse.cgi which loads browse.htm:

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/browse.cgi?client=[clientname]&lat=51.5184&lon=-0.111

This is a request to browse.cgi including the rt parameter, which loads alternate.htm:

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/browse.cgi?client=[clientname]&lat=51.5184&lon=-0.111&rt=alternate.htm

You can use this method to render templates you are testing or to preview or print additional templates. This is also the way in which the default browse.htm template requests the browse2.htm template. Although it is possible to request an alternative template to places.htm, if places.cgi discovers the query is invalid, or if a query produces ambiguous results, places.cgi attempts to load places.htm and ignores any previous rt parameter.

Integrating Travel Directions with HTML Storefinder

You can combine an HTML Storefinder service with an HTML Travel Directions service to use the location of a store as the end point of a route. To return travel directions to a specific store record in your HTML Storefinder service:

1. If you do not have an HTML Travel Directions service already, ask your Multimap account manager or the Multimap Sales team to create one for you and provide you with its Client Zone service name, login details and password.
2. Download your HTML Storefinder browse.htm template and open it with any text-editing software.
3. Ensure that any <%startcomment_tdlink%> and <%endcomment_tdlink%> place holders surrounding that section of code have been removed.
4. Upload your updated browse.htm template to your HTML Storefinder account in Client Zone.

When users click on the link for a store, the HTML Travel Directions service's aproute.htm template appears with the store's address details contained in the fields for the route's end point.

For illustrated examples of integrating the HTML Storefinder and Travel Directions, please see the pages on these two services on Multimap's Business Services website.

Making HTML Storefinder multilingual

If your HTML Storefinder service has been configured to be multilingual, the language that your templates use depends on two factors:

• the name and contents of the .strings file that has been made available to you; and
• the lang parameter in your service's requests to places.cgi.

This default language is English, but the service supports ten languages altogether:

The list of languages we offer is continually expanding but you can also provide your own translation at any time, if preferred. To change the language in which Multimap delivers your HTML Storefinder service, or to let it deliver a number of language translations:

1. Ask your Multimap account manager or the Multimap Sales team to configure your service for the relevant language and for passing parameters between templates.
2. When this has been done, use the lang parameter to specify a language whenever you use a URL to request your templates.

Please ensure the name of your lang parameter matches the prefix of a .strings file that you can see in your Client Zone account (such as "en.strings" or "fr.strings"; note that the file's extension must only be ".strings"):

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/aproute.cgi?client=[clientname]&lang=en

http://classic.multimap.com/clients/aproute.cgi?client=[clientname]&lang=fr

The two lower-case letters that make up the .strings file-name prefix and the lang parameter value should correspond to the correct ISO 639 two-letter language code.

Please note that these two-letter codes must be specified in lower case.

Frequently Asked Questions

<img src="http://www.[myserver].com/parking_<%parking%>.gif" alt="parking: <%parking%>">