pilotsnipes

No compass screen on my 680. I find it worthless for caching other than as a paperless display due to pilotsnipes work, and routing/getting as close as possible by road. After parking it's handheld for me. Come on guys, please read the 2nd paragraph in post 1. This annoys me a bit, not all of us have 2 or 3 GPS' to play with, so what we've done is make the best out of what we have. Lets leave it at that. Oh and my 40+ finds at the moment are a testament to the fact that the Nuvi works just great if you're competent at using it's features. I can't get this to work on a Nuvi 680. When you say in the same folder, do you mean the computer folder on the machine running POI loader, or in the Nuvi folder that contains the loaded POI file on the nuvi itself? Ok for this to work using my example in the tutorial do the following, you should have a file called: C:\Program Files\gsak\poiloader\All geocaches.gpx Now find the icon (using the format as mentioned before) you want to use as the symbol for your caches, and move it to: C:\Program Files\gsak\poiloader\All geocaches.bmp Now run POILoader. All your caches will now have that icon. The Nuvi 250 will work. But please edit the "Nuvi7xxDandH" macro, at the bottom you'll see 3 values around 8000, change this to about 2000 as the nuvi 2xx series appears to crash with more selected. More feedback required for this New macro coming in a couple of hours.

Ok people, listen up I'm addressing a lot if issues here. Your name is probably in the list below... Using the map display ONLY to work your way to a cache is almost pointless, it is too inaccurate. You look like you're standing over it, but you can easy been 80 ft or more away from it! Please read the tutorial again (post 2 & 3) and learn how to use the co-ordinates page. It will get you to within around 4-5 metres of the cache. (Sometimes you will be standing over it!) Excellent. I shall add that to the tutorial. Yes, that is the same for me too, I shall add this as well! Yes this caught me out a few months ago as well. Clyde from GSAK pointed me towards this link which confirms that the Nuvis show the nearest waypoints up to a distant limit then stop. If you wish to look at waypoints further than this, you can by searching/spelling for them. LINK I've found the cause of this and will be releasing a new updated macro in an hour or so. This crash is again due to someone placing a comment html tag in the description field. However in this case they also added some normal html tags whilst inside the comment tag eg. <!-- This is a normal comment --> <!-- This is a <font colour=blue>really stupid place</font> to place normal html tags --> Anyone who knows html code will realise how silly it is to place a normal html tag in a comment section! The macro wasn't able to check for this particular case and so never removed the comment line. That is why it was crashing. I've changed the search line to check for this type of thing now. A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools. !! This doesn't affect any Nuvi 3xx's because they do not display any html code. This is either 1 of 2 things 1) You need to go back to the first post and be VERY VERY careful with filling out the fields in GSAK export menu. It looks like you still have something wrong in there. Use my "copy and paste" boxes to make sure you don;t have any mistakes. That's why they are there. 2) Whilst uploading the caches using POILoader, you have Selected the "Manual" option (instead of express) which has been set up to have a proximity alert for your waypoints. Try re-uploading using express instead of manual in POILoader.

Yes i found another one today that did the same to mine. I'll do some study on them.

mojedo - Errrrr.....have you not seen the tutorial? It's already there.... MassCache - I haven't actually asked the mods yet. I will do so soon!

Most of those points are accepted and will be incorporated. Would you however put in a good for me to the moderators here to allow me to edit my own posts!!!? After a certain time limit (few hours?), I lose the ability to edit my own posts. Normally I would always keep the most uptodate version in the first post - but I can't edit it anymore. I run my own forums, and personally I think that this is a very poor rule on this board.

Most of those points are accepted and will be incorporated. Would you however put in a good for me to the moderators here to allow me to edit my own posts!!!? After a certain time limit (few hours?), I lose the ability to edit my own posts. Normally I would always keep the most uptodate version in the first post - but I can't edit it anymore. I run my own forums, and personally I think that this is a very poor rule on this board.

In bulletin points: 1) To delete 1 custom POI waypoint (eg 1 cache) you have to RE-Upload the entire data file again WITHOUT that waypoint in it. 2) To delete all the custom waypoints (eg all the caches) just delete the .gpi file associated with that type of POI. In my example above, for the 7xx, that would be poi.gpi found in the NUVI\garmin\POI folder on the actual GPS.

What happens when you click on this icon?

Really!? I do all the time - no problems!

New Nuvi 7xx Macro file. - Bug fixes. I have discovered a fairly large bug in the Nuvi 7xx macro file. If the cache description contains commented html , eg this: <!--Hi this is an html comment that doesn't show when rendered with a browser--> The nuvi crashes, only a few caches have this type of code in them so i didn't discover this until I found my machine crashing at a particular cache yesterday. So I've modified the macro to search for this type of string and to remove it like it does for other html code. Please download the new nuvi7dandh.gsk file and REPLACE it over the old one in the Macros directory. Thanks for the support. Download Nuvi7DandH.gsk

The line of code depends on where you have installed GSAK and where you have placed the GPX file. So I'll assume the following. 1) GSAk is in C:\program files\GSAK 2) The "TourGuide Geo.gpx" is in c:\temp 3) You have spelt the filename correctly in point 2. Then this will work. GPSBabel.exe -N -i gpx -f "c:\temp\TourGuide Geo.gpx" -o garmin_gpi,descr,category="Geocaches",alerts=1,units=m, -F "c:\temp\TourGuide Geo.gpi"

I'm surprised why no-one has questioned why I named the GPX/GPI file "TourGuide Geo" yet! Within a few weeks/days or so, GPSbabel will be updated to allow proximity alerts to be created when we are creating the GPI file. When this happens you'll be able to drive around and when ever ANY geocache is within your defined range, you'll get a little ding! You'll not even need to look at the map page!! I never told anyone about this yet because it isn't perfected, but shortly it will be! When it is, you'll have almost nothing extra to do because I've included most of the steps already above! Just keep checking back!

You can only have around (i think) 500 favourites, so for me this avenue is useless as I have almost 3000 caches surrounding the places I travel. Having an icon for the cache is very simple, I left out the instructions in the tutorial because it was extra stuff that wasn't needed at the time. If you want it, place the bmp in the gsak main directory and use this line for the custom export. Putting the caches into the favourites menu is a bad idea. In my opinion. (Having as many gpi files as you want is very easy and practical, just don't replicate waypoints and all will be well.) GPSBabel.exe -N -i gpx -f "c:\temp\TourGuide Geo.gpx" -o garmin_gpi,descr,category="Geocaches",bitmap="Traditional.bmp",alerts=1,units=m, -F "c:\temp\TourGuide Geo.gpi" There's the icon for you! It will show up in the map display if you move the icon to the right place.

Nope, On the Nuvi 3xx, if you use POI loader the only thing to get transferred to the Nuvi along with the co-ords etc (in the gpx file) is the description field. The description field is limited to around 250 characters on the Nuvi 3xx. Useless. However the "Contact" field (from the GPX file), which should only be used for a simple one line email address etc, actually has practically NO limits to the number of characters placed in there. Whilst it "should NOT", the nuvi 3xx actually can read as many characters as you can throw in there! POILoader, however does not upload this information, so we were caught. Then Clyde (GSAK), managed to show me how to use his program (with GPSBabel in the background) to produce a custom GPI file WITH all the details in the contact field intact. Hence we are were we are today. Abusing the fact that the Nuvi can read approx 20,000 characters, but from somewhere it should not have been! Nuvis 2xx, 6xx and 7xx are different.

I think this is because you forgot to click the "Also apply to cache name" box here:

Why don't you try out both methods (7xx and 3xx) and see which one works better for you? You won't damage anything by adding a few POIs It should be the 7xx series tutorial, but remember to reduce the characters to approx 2500, as unofficially/unconfirmed, that's what another user has reported as being the limit. Please report back though!

RogFel - Excellent news. I've created a few edits in the macros and settings now for the 660 if you want to try them. Please move all 6xx series chat to the 3xx series tutorial as I think that's the best one to use. Thanks! EDIT Now that I review that statement I'm not so sure any more! It seems like the Nuvi 6xx series has the best of both worlds....large characters allowed in the description AND html parsing! Can I just check with you RogFel, when you used the Nuvi 7 macro from above, did you also use the full Nuvi 7 method of putting it on the GPS, ie. did you use POILoader too?

Ok guys then this is going to be MUCH easier than I hoped!! Go back to the GSAK export screen, And change the Cache description line from this: to: %Name by %By, ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- %typ=3/%con=3/%last4/Tb:%bug, (D:%Dif/T:%Ter) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pl:%datepl, LF:%datelf ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- %lat=M, %lon=M. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- %macro="nuvi3DandH" THAT IS ALL ONE LINE ABOVE DO NOT TRY AND SPLIT IT. Now open up the macro file (c:\program files\gsak\macros\nuvi3dandh.gsk) in something like notepad. Find this line: $hints = " ****************************** Hint: " + $d_hints + " ****************************** " Change to: $hints = " ******************************************************************** Hint: " + $d_hints + " ******************************************************************** " Find this line: $logs = $logs + " ___________________________ " + $d_ltype + " by " + $d_lby + " " + DateFormat($d_ldate) + " - " + $d_ltext Change to: $logs = $logs + " __________________________________________________________ " + $d_ltype + " by " + $d_lby + " " + DateFormat($d_ldate) + " - " + $d_ltext I think you can see that if I've counted the extra dashes/stars incorrectly it's a simple fix to get the right number.

OK this is good news, please see the 7xx thread for some more info. The bottom line is going to probably be: 1) Do you want pretty html colours with less characters available to display the cache information. or 2) No pretty colours, but the space to show ALL the information for EVERY cache including it's hints and logs. Poll?

RogFel - Thanks very much for testing this out for us! I'm not at my home PC for a couple of days so I can't help as well I normally could, but could you try a few things out for us. 1) You need to find out how many characters the 6xx series can handle in the description field. The Nuvi 3xx series can only handle 250 characters (but we get around that by inserting all the data into the address field which can store over 20,000 (yes 20 thousand) characters), and the Nuvi 7xx series can cope with about 9000 characters. Try to find a cache that has a very long description, take a look if it ALL displays in the 6xx series you have (including hints and logs). 2) If it doesn't, open the nuvi7DandH file, and at the bottom you'll see a figure of around 9000 in about 3 different lines, keep uping that number in all 3 locations until you discover the limit for the 6xx series. I suggest upping it 1000 characters at a time. 3) If you're kind enough please get back to us! Also, there could be a chance that the 6xx series can show over 20,000 characters just like the 3xx series, but at the expense of not being able to show the pretty html colours. It's up to you the users to decide whether or not you want the pretty colours with less characters or the "ugly" description with ALL the characters! Let me know!

Hi guys, I don't have much time this morning, but if someone with a 660 can do the following I'll be able to edit my macro a bit easier and try to get you a 660 version. 1) Try using the instructions for this 3xx tutorial. When you go to your custom POIs and select a cache, IT WILL be all out of format on the screen, ignore that. Try to find a cache that has a long a description as possible, does the 660 show the entire thing or does it cut out after xxx number of characters? You will know if it shows the whole thing because you will see hints AND logs at the bottom. No hints/logs = cut off characters. If you can post any screen shots that will help greatly. 2) If the above shows ALL the characters, then take at look at the "separator" lines (the --------- between the cache details) how many of those "--" do you need to go from one side of the screen to the other? 3) If the 3xx series doesn't look like it producing good data, try the 7xx series tutorial http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=190140 4) Does the 660 show a coloured information cache when you select a POI ? (this would be good because it means the 660 can parse html and make prettier caches) 5) Does it cut of any characters like above? As also, screen shots are the best help here. Upload them to photobucket.com, then insert them here using the tag: [img=http://linto.photobucketimage.com/123.jpg]

Thanks guys. The Nuvi 660 has a much wider screen and I have not been able to test it yet. It WILL be able to do paperless caching, but I don't know which of my macros is the best to use (with edits) the one for the 7xx series or the 3xx series. If I can get my hands on one I will definitely post the results.

The Nuvi 3xx series tutorial can be found here: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=190873

The tutorial/macro that was originally here has now been moved. Due to the fast changing nature of this project, it was easier to set up a new website to keep everything up-to-date and provide an easy location for the user to find everything they need in one location. Please visit the website linked below to continue. If you do have any further questions, please ask them in the support thread which can be found By Clicking HERE http://pilotsnipes.googlepages.com Enjoy the hunt Pilotsnipes [ Edited by mod per author's request ]

That's an understatement! Here is our adventure over the past few weeks... http://gsak.net/board/index.php?showtopic=7732