This guide is for whoever sets up the map, without writing code. You get a published map with its list, readable categories and the settings that matter most.
The short version takes a few minutes: add three activities, put [mentora_map] on a page, publish. The steps below explain each part.
1. Add an activity
Go to Activities → Add activity. Write a name, then the address, and press the button that looks it up. The marker lands where the address is. If it lands in the wrong place, which happens with generic addresses, drag it: what you drag is what gets saved.
The coordinates come from Nominatim, OpenStreetMap’s address service. It is called only from the administration, while you edit or import, never from your visitors’ browsers.
The activity screen is divided into tabs:
| Tab | What goes in it |
|---|---|
| Details | the activity’s own web address, and its categories |
| Contacts | phone, mobile with a WhatsApp switch, email, website |
| Business details | company name, legal form, VAT and tax code. Shown on the activity page with Pro |
| Opening hours | one line per day, with as many ranges as you need |
| Links and documents | a menu, a booking page, a PDF. Shown on the site with Pro |
| Media gallery | photos, videos and documents: nine in the free version, unlimited with Pro |
| Custom fields | your own fields, with Pro |
Each contact appears on the card only if it is filled in, so there are no empty rows.
Publish, then add two or three more so the map has something to show.
2. Give the categories an icon and a colour
Go to Activities → Categories. Each category can have an icon from five sets, or your own SVG, a colour, and a parent, because categories form a tree.
On each activity, one category is the main one: its icon and colour are what the marker takes. A map where every marker looks the same is hard to read; one where a restaurant and a hotel look different reads at a glance.
3. Put the map on a page
Open a page and add the Activities map block, or write the shortcode:
[mentora_map]Publish. The map and its list appear side by side, and stay in step: click a marker and the list follows, click an entry and the map goes there.
The block’s sidebar holds the same choices as the settings, for that map only. The shortcode does the same with attributes, for example:
[mentora_map show="map" controls="zoom" height="300px"]
[mentora_map category="restaurant" layout="right" tiles="dark"]To show a single activity, use [mentora_activity id="12"], or slug="osteria-del-porto" instead of the id.
4. Choose how the map looks
Go to Activities → Settings. What you set here is what every map does unless a block or a shortcode says otherwise. The tabs are:
- Map and list: what to show, the layout, the height, the map background (light, standard, dark), and our badge.
- Map controls: which buttons appear on the map.
- Activity card: where the card opens, in a panel over the list or a lightbox over the page.
- Routes: the directions button, which in the free version opens OpenStreetMap in a new tab.
- Share and messages: the words of the share and message buttons.
- Look: accent and marker colours, shadows, motion, corners, with a live preview.
- Fonts and text: text colours, and typefaces with Pro.
- Statistics: with Pro.
- General: the base of the activity addresses, single pages, and what happens on uninstall.
The free version draws map and list side by side, sixty-forty, with the map on the left or on the right. Other layouts are part of Pro.
5. Decide about single pages
In General you choose whether every activity gets a page of its own. It is off by default, on purpose: a site full of pages with two lines inside does more harm than good. The settings tell you how many of your activities have enough content to deserve one.
In the same tab you set the base of those addresses, as in /activity/the-name. Change it early or never: changing it changes every address, and old links stop working.
6. Check it as a visitor
Open the page in a private window. If a consent banner is installed, the map shows a notice until you accept: that is the plugin respecting the banner. Inside the administration there is no banner, so the map always draws there.
Limits of the free version
The free version publishes twenty activities. Drafts and paused activities do not count, so you can prepare your work. Beyond twenty, extra activities are kept as drafts and nothing is lost: they go online when you make room or move to Pro.