Hi, thanks for trying out the plugin. Hopefully i can help you with the issues you are encountering:
1) Yes, Lat/Lon is currently calculated from the input fields. Allowing it to be an input option increases validation work which is planned for future releases
2) Item links should go to pages like on our example site http://whatlocalscallit.com. Do any of your listing pages work when visited directly?
3) Which map feature are you using? There are shortcut options for map sizes. For example, the following shortcut uses the “size” attribute to create the largest map possible:
[generate_map num_results=10 show_paging=1 size=4]
4) You could create pages for different categories; However, with the current version, i’m not sure of the benefit. We hope to facilitate more ways of controlling the categories in future releases. On the follow test site for example, you will notice “quick links” on the home page which link directly to a predefined grouping or category.