ShammyLevva

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word. The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache. Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words. Wow. That's sad. A fun and interesting would be disallowed because the list is open-ended. Sounds like programmer error to me. The nearby challenge cache asks for thirteen cache names which would cause a phobia problem: Example: Uranophobia: Fear of Heaven for: Pamachapura: Stone From Heaven. So some fun challenges would not be acceptable because the programmer is incapable of providing a checker? Wow! NO NO NO NO NO! The programmer is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of writing the checker. You have completely and utterly failed to understand what I wrote. CHECKING a list of words is trivial. PROVIDING the list of words isn't trivial. So as a CO if you provide a list of valid words that meet your challenge then the checker can easily be written. If the list is open ended and the CO cannot provide a list of valid words then the checker will be incomplete. The best compromise here is that the CO provides a long list of valid words and the list gets added to as enterprising cachers come up with new ones the CO sees as valid. These new words are then added to the checker. This is extra work but is achievable. The key point is that as a CO for that sort of challenge you could not expect to just lie back and have everyone else do the work you would need to maintain a list of valid words. So the onus for those sorts of caches is entirely on the CO actively maintaining a list of valid words. Sounds to me that the programmer is incapable of providing the checker. As someone said: human minds work differently than computers. The programmer is incapable of providing the required checker. "Sorry. That challenge will not be approved because our programmers are incapable of providing the required checker." Sad. Sorry what part of the checker can easily be written do you not understand??? The problem is NOT writing the checker!! The problem is NOT writing the checker!! The problem is NOT writing the checker!! The problem is NOT writing the checker!! Is that clearer perhaps?? The problem is maintaining the list of valid words that the CO finds acceptable for her/his challenge. So the problem lies with the CO maintaining a list of valid words the problem is NOT with the programmer. How much clearer does that have to be for you to get it? Well, if you're going to yell! Yes. I comprehend. You are incapable of writing the checker. Shall I yell back? You are INCAPABLE OF WRITING THE CHECKER. Is that clearer? What do I not understand? That you are incapable of writing the checker! So, many interesting Challenge Caches will no longer be approved because you are incapable of writing the checker. Seems clear to me. Doh!!! The checker is ALREADY written. all that it needs is the list of valid words. This is a very very simple concept why are you struggling to understand?

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word. The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache. Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words. Wow. That's sad. A fun and interesting would be disallowed because the list is open-ended. Sounds like programmer error to me. The nearby challenge cache asks for thirteen cache names which would cause a phobia problem: Example: Uranophobia: Fear of Heaven for: Pamachapura: Stone From Heaven. So some fun challenges would not be acceptable because the programmer is incapable of providing a checker? Wow! NO NO NO NO NO! The programmer is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of writing the checker. You have completely and utterly failed to understand what I wrote. CHECKING a list of words is trivial. PROVIDING the list of words isn't trivial. So as a CO if you provide a list of valid words that meet your challenge then the checker can easily be written. If the list is open ended and the CO cannot provide a list of valid words then the checker will be incomplete. The best compromise here is that the CO provides a long list of valid words and the list gets added to as enterprising cachers come up with new ones the CO sees as valid. These new words are then added to the checker. This is extra work but is achievable. The key point is that as a CO for that sort of challenge you could not expect to just lie back and have everyone else do the work you would need to maintain a list of valid words. So the onus for those sorts of caches is entirely on the CO actively maintaining a list of valid words. Sounds to me that the programmer is incapable of providing the checker. As someone said: human minds work differently than computers. The programmer is incapable of providing the required checker. "Sorry. That challenge will not be approved because our programmers are incapable of providing the required checker." Sad. Sorry what part of the checker can easily be written do you not understand??? The problem is NOT writing the checker!! The problem is NOT writing the checker!! The problem is NOT writing the checker!! The problem is NOT writing the checker!! Is that clearer perhaps?? The problem is maintaining the list of valid words that the CO finds acceptable for her/his challenge. So the problem lies with the CO maintaining a list of valid words the problem is NOT with the programmer. How much clearer does that have to be for you to get it?

First, every CO should be allowed to choose what they prefer. Second, I do not believe that a system where words are added over time will be allowed by Groundspeak and a system where the list of words has to be fixed from the beginning, is too inflexible and destroys all chances for creativity. How do you think that such a challenge would be worded? I'm quite convinced that the cache description of future challenge caches will need to be very precise what is allowed and what not. Of course not but as soon some have these tools, the level of difficulty will go up. If you have an exam where pocket calculators allowed, the problems will be set up differently regardless of whether some students decide not to use the calculator. It's not a matter of being a paying member. Every member can make 10 checks per day. I do have the right to prefer challenges that are not much easier or even trivial (since already done) for cachers that cache a lot (or for a long time in some cases). For example, I have a filled day grid but never worked on it. It's no achievement at all. If I go out and find 10 long distance hiking caches or 10 orienteering caches it does not happen by chance but deliberately. You REALLY don't get what we are talking about do you?? In the checker for it to check ANYTHING related to words in the title it needs a list of valid words. Whether that's a short list eg: names of countries, or an open ended list eg: names of animals, it doesn't matter the checker has to have a list to check against. My point was an open ended list eg: animals you aren't ever going to list every animal in every language so you make a decent stab at a list this gets written into the checker and the checker is published. Note the challenge says find 50 caches with animals in the name (or something like that). Now as people log the cache the owner realises have missed some options so they update the list. This can then be fed back to the checker and the extra words added to the checker. The EXTREMELY SIMPLE YET IMPORTANT part you missed was that the challenge doesn't change at all so there is absolutely nothing for Groundspeak to allow or deny. So you are introducing a complete red herring suggesting Groundspeak won't allow extra names to be added. The challenge HASNT CHANGED. It's only the list of things the CO is prepared to accept that changes eg:someone gets clever and comes up with an animal the CO hadnt thought of. So the CHECKER is updated NOT he cache challenge.

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word. The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache. Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words. Wow. That's sad. A fun and interesting would be disallowed because the list is open-ended. Sounds like programmer error to me. The nearby challenge cache asks for thirteen cache names which would cause a phobia problem: Example: Uranophobia: Fear of Heaven for: Pamachapura: Stone From Heaven. So some fun challenges would not be acceptable because the programmer is incapable of providing a checker? Wow! NO NO NO NO NO! The programmer is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of writing the checker. You have completely and utterly failed to understand what I wrote. CHECKING a list of words is trivial. PROVIDING the list of words isn't trivial. So as a CO if you provide a list of valid words that meet your challenge then the checker can easily be written. If the list is open ended and the CO cannot provide a list of valid words then the checker will be incomplete. The best compromise here is that the CO provides a long list of valid words and the list gets added to as enterprising cachers come up with new ones the CO sees as valid. These new words are then added to the checker. This is extra work but is achievable. The key point is that as a CO for that sort of challenge you could not expect to just lie back and have everyone else do the work you would need to maintain a list of valid words. So the onus for those sorts of caches is entirely on the CO actively maintaining a list of valid words.

and even when they do provide a list to the user of how they qualified.. they are not guaranteed to be correct. This one for example.. http://coord.info/GC3GEPV In order to claim this cache you must reach 666 Points exactly, No more, No Less. According to the checker, I qualify.. and it gives me a list of the 20 caches I found which show how I qualify. Thing is, I didn't ONLY find 20 caches that day, I found 26.. so the checker has ignored 6 of my finds which would have taken me over the 666 tally. I'll have a look, can you provide the link on the project GC forum where you reported the error please? I haven't reported the error anywhere apart from here. I didn't know there was a project GC forum until you asked the question. I read somewhere else that this checker was telling people they qualified when they hadn't.. I thought they were mistaken because I thought it had told me I didn't qualify.. then I realised I had only used the GSAK macro previously. That one works fine. http://project-gc.com/qa/

If a checker is written and that checker writer becomes inactive, maybe they become busy with other things or are otherwise unable to continue as a checker writer, then can another checker writer 'take over' the checker? Is there an Activity Log for each individual checker? Can you point out where to find that, as I'm having a hard time finding such a link? Not sure I'm looking in the right place. You are misunderstanding how checkers work. The actual checker code is an open source piece of code that all of the checker authors can see. Multiple caches can be tagged against a script. Someone losing interest has no bearing on the checker as any checker author can simply copy the script and make an edit. Many checker scripts have been improved in this way over the years and thus caches are re-tagged with new improved checkers. Because of this there is no specific activity log for each individual checker that regular users can see.

If it cannot, then LUA must be a shockingly poor programming language. In most languages, it's actually harder to find "hen" as a complete word. The problem with this sort of challenge is not finding a word in a name that's trivial a CanadianRockies says. The problem is that the "list" of possible animals is endless, what language is the animals names in? What constitutes an animal, do birds, insects etc count? Challenges that have open ended lists are IMPOSSIBLE to write a comprehensive checker for. You can write a checker that does a decent job but it's only ever going to be as good as the list the checker author puts on the cache. Thus open list challenges will almost certainly not be allowed as they cannot have a verifiable checker. To fix this a CO would need to define a list of valid words.

I would estimate #1 would take about 5 minutes, max. If the CO's willing, what do you -- and everyone else in the world -- care whether that's how they do it? Well that was a response to a specific point stating that a checker would be a wast of time, and I was just demonstrating that it would actually be a time saver. As to the "what do you care bit", I don't care as I'm not a fan of challenge cachers anyhow, It's GS who care and they care enough to think something needed to be done. I'm just a bit tired of seeing all the moaning, wailing and gnashing of teeth over something for which we only have the vaguest details so far. The checker for polygon-based checkers would require a lot of upfront effort on the part of the CO. They would have to define the boundaries of all the areas. In the Island Hopping challenge, which I am also hoping to complete, the CO would have to define the boundaries of ALL islands in the state. The challenge requires finding caches on only 23 islands, but there over 70 islands in WA that could be used as qualifiers. The time spent creating 70+ polygons to enable Option #2 may well exceed the time spent checking each Finder's list of caches in Option #1. More importantly, I think it should be up to the CO which method of verification they want to use. With the new requirement, they'd HAVE TO create the polygons because the polygons are needed to create a checker. Imagine if the challenge was to find caches on 3 islands. The CO would still have to create the 70+ polygons and the incremental time compared to Option #1 would be even greater. Also, consider that Option #1 does not require the CC CO to have the technical ability to define polygons, while Option #2 does require such knowledge. The boundaries for ALL islands in the state already exist on Open Street Map no creation necessary.

That's not true, the responses to your query on Project-GC said there are already checkers (the LUA code) which will work for you. All you need to do is properly define the area for each zone. And this is where a proper checker might help eliminate disputes: for example one of your criteria is within 0.3 miles of Lock Historic district, but is that from some nominal centre point - where is the centre?; or within 0.3 miles of the district boundary - where is the boundary line? so there's potential for dispute, a defined checker would eliminate that by forcing you to define precise boundaries for each criteria before setting the cache. Click the link that says .3 miles from the Locke Historic District. It shows you a definite .3 radius from the center point of N 38° 15.034 W 121° 30.587. I already made very definite, specific requirements for this challenge. That challenge literally took me a year to get going with that much research and HTML. I guess I am just not excited to have to try and replicate all of that in LUA language. If you can provide a file with three columns, first column a distance second column a Northing third column a Westing then writing a checker for this one becomes trivial.

The sort of challenges you have outlined here are a wonderful way of getting people out caching. From writing a checker point of view they aren't impossible just a lot of work. What the guys at project GC were saying is that some of the wording is a bit vague from a checker point of view but doable. For places within a distance of a place, the complication is what boundary do you mean. If you meant say within a mile of the coordinate at the middle of the location then that is a trivial check. If you meant, which I strongly suspect you didn't, within a mile of any physical point within the boundary wall of the location then that's more complicated as you would need to draw an outline around the physical boundary then extend it by 1 mile. For the vast majority of the items in the list if you as the challenge author putting together such a challenge were happy that "Angelus Temple - any geocache within .5 miles" meant any geocaching within .5 miles of the centre of the temple then any challenge checker author could knock that up very quickly without watering down the challenge. So in essence what the project GC guys are saying is for these sorts of challenges creating a checker needs the CO to be involved to confirm he's happy with the definitions. They were being very very picky as you had said within .5 miles of an area rather than within .5 miles of a point. So assuming you are wanting the challenge to be to visit an area rather than to measure precisely if the are .5 miles of a boundary line, then confirming you are happy with .5 miles from centre of object then that's fine. Other criteria such as on Alcatraz island is made easier from a challenge checker if you take the centre point of the island and draw a circle round it so as to include the entire island. NOTE you don't have to go into such detail on the challenge page, just as long as you as the author sign off that this is acceptable way for the checker to work it would achieve the objective. Your challenge remains intact and you have a simple checker, within X miles of this point, within y miles of that point. This is simply an example of where challenge setters communicating with checker writers can create really great challenges by understanding what is required of both sides. I hope this inspires you and that I've understood your intent and given you a solution that will help you understand what the project GC guys concerns were.

and even when they do provide a list to the user of how they qualified.. they are not guaranteed to be correct. This one for example.. http://coord.info/GC3GEPV In order to claim this cache you must reach 666 Points exactly, No more, No Less. According to the checker, I qualify.. and it gives me a list of the 20 caches I found which show how I qualify. Thing is, I didn't ONLY find 20 caches that day, I found 26.. so the checker has ignored 6 of my finds which would have taken me over the 666 tally. I'll have a look, can you provide the link on the project GC forum where you reported the error please?

I'm a project GC challenge checker author, I've suggested to the project GC administrator that he should ensure Groundspeak have made a change to the API to make the new format unpublished challenge caches without a checker, visible to checker authors. Note this would be the.GCcode and the description of the challenge it should specifically not expose the unpublished cache coordinates to the API to prevent FTF abuse. If Groundspeak add a feature to the API so the description and the GCcode of the unpublished caches without a checker are visible then challenge checker authors would be able to tag unpublished caches and this could auto feedback to the cache page and show up as the checker being ready. Imagine this scenario... 1) A CO creates a new style challenge cache, they fill out the details as now and have an extra button that says "request checker". 2) This then sends the request to project GC. 3) Project GC checker writers then see a new cache in the queue and see if an existing checker can be tagged or if new code is required. 4) Once the cache is tagged with either existing or new code this tag is automatically fed back to the cache page. 5) The CO then sees their new challenge has a checker and if they are happy with it they press submit for review. 6) The reviewer does the normal review process knowing that it was not possible for it to be submitted for review without a checker. Note with a couple of API tweaks by Groundspeak the process is largely automated and requires no extra reviewer effort. It also puts the CO in control of the process they request a checker and then only submit for review once they are happy with the checker. The existing project GC forum could be used for dialog between COs and challenge checker writers if the CO wants something extra. Crucially this would allow the CO to have a checker built into their cache page without them having to do any coding or having to understand any technicalities of how to link the checker on their page. See Example cache with checker on page Note as per example above the checker shows a green tick or a red circle straight away if the user qualifies or not. Clicking on the icon allows you to run the checker for yourself or ANY OTHER CACHER. COs for instance can run the checker for the last ten logs.

No you are misunderstanding. I am a challenge checker author. If you go to the project GC forum http://project-gc.com/qa/ you can request a checker be written for your cache challenge and one of the team will aim to do this. Typically this is done within 24-48 hours of the request unless the challenge is impossibly difficult. The FAQ says we have to wait. Maybe I misunderstood as we have to wait for any new challenges. I just submitted a question with four challenges. Hopefully I will get some help! Thank you! I meant if you have the details of what the challenges are we can write/tag checkers for them now so they are good to go day one.

I'm a project GC challenge checker author and have a query for Groundspeak moderator. Do I correctly assume that new challenges will require the CO to have. A checker on the page before a reviewer will publish it? I assume this is the case as it makes it nice and simple for the reviewer. Does it have a checker yes check other things and publish, no reject. One thing that seems to have been missed in the thought process is that ALL checkers at project GC are written then tagged against a cache. This tagging process creates a unique checker ID that is used to validate the checker against that particular cache. This also allows checkers to be reused for similar challenges without having to re-write the code. However there is a catch 22 with your proposal as it currently stands. Assuming I am correct about the review process I outlined above a reviewer will need to have a checker tagged against the cache (so that it has a checker link on the page) before they allow the cache to be published. HOWEVER as a challenge checker author I CANNOT tag a cache if the cache isn't published as it doesn't then appear in the list of published caches. So at present project GC authors cannot tag a checker against a cache until it's published but reviewers cannot publish until a checker is tagged!!! This will require revisiting the API which is LONG LONG overdue and at least allowing the cache ID and name to be available so that the cache can be tagged with a checker. In order to verify the checker works we would also need to see the description text to check the requirements. There will also need to be some form of more detailed CO request system so that COs can provide details of their as yet unpublished challenges that require checkers so that challenge checker authors can work through any such list. Perhaps the API could tag unpublished challenge caches awaiting checkers. Eg some option that the CO does in the cache editing page once they are ready to submit they perhaps tick a box to request checker and that then provides the basic name, GC code and description (but crucially NOT the cache coordinates to prevent abuse). Project Gc would then be able to pick up on this so they could tag the caches with a checker and send back via the API the checker URL for the CO to use.

No you are misunderstanding. I am a challenge checker author. If you go to the project GC forum http://project-gc.com/qa/ you can request a checker be written for your cache challenge and one of the team will aim to do this. Typically this is done within 24-48 hours of the request unless the challenge is impossibly difficult.

App has appeared on App Store now. So called offline save is utterly useless. You absolutely MUST be able to save the result of a search offline. Having to leave the app go to the website create a list then save individual caches to a list and then go back to the App is a massive backwards step from the ease of use of the Classic App. It also doesn't seem to download the maps which is crucial for offline saving. There's no point having the cache description and logs if you can't actually see how to get to the cache as all that you have is an empty grid instead of a map. I tested this by downloading a list of local caches and then disabling mobile data. When selecting a cache a few miles from home all I get is an empty grid with no maps. Why on earth do your management think it's acceptable business's practice to allow half build features released? That shows a fatally flawed understanding of consumer confidence. Let your developers finish and quality test features before releasing them. This constant releasing things half done is depressing and worthy of the pointy haired boss in Dilbert cartoons style of management. A total failure. Far far better to port the features across from the classic app and release when that feature is READY and COMPLETE.

I started out using the intro app when I started in August, having read the reviews of the paid app (now classic) I stayed clear. Then I went to an event and got chatting to other cachers and learnt how they used the app. So I tried the classic app and whilst I disliked its older clunky interface to begin with I got used to it. I'm a developer myself so I understand how these things come about and timescales are an elastic concept when the userbase wants everything today but you need to sleep and eat (and most importantly drink coffee) as well as code. So I appreciate that this current release of the "new" app is very much a work in progress. However it is clear there are a number of features that require to be ported to the new app before people will abandon the classic one. Since it's helpful to have a checklist to work through here's mine. 1. Already indicates as comming but here for completeness - saving a list offline. INCLUDING option for OpenStreetMaps and OpenCycleMaps - actually option to add your own map server URL would be even better as this would allow ofline saving of OS maps for UK. 2. The ability to save a log for later. When out caching there's no guarantee of a signal the paid app allows logging and saving until back on a wifi signal - this not only saves painful upload time but avoids using up data for individuals on low usage caps. 3. The ability to add favourite points when creating a log. 4. The ability to add inventory trackable visits when creating a log. 5. Searches by location name, by near my location, by cache name etc as per classic app. Planning a visit somewhere it is very useful to search at that location then save the nearby caches offline. Thus when you turn up at the location you can go caching without being concerned about a signal in the location. 6. Saving searches as 5. above to an offline list - doesn't need to save to list on website though. 7. Various filters to limit caches shown on map. By default ignored caches should be ignored, filters for premium caches, by username, by type, by D/T etc would all be useful. 8. Personal cache notes these need to be available. 9. Ability to refresh list data that is saved offline. Having to refresh individual caches on the classic app is a right pain. 10. Ability to add field notes 11. Open notifications in app - note I appreciate this is almost certainly an issue with the notifications email and might not be fixed until after the old app dies.

TeamBucki, myself and some other Aberdeen cachers have been working away behind the scenes forming a committee and pulling some things together. We are going to be putting the Aberdeen area (city and shire) forward to host the UK Mega 2019 and bring it back to Scotland. Please show your support by liking and sharing the page with as many people as you think might be interested. https://www.facebook.com/Aberdeenmega2019/ We're also over on Twitter @Aberdeen2019 so follow and RT till you're heart's content. The more support we get at this stage, the better.

Note it so happened that someone on asked about this in the Geocaching in Scotland, Facebook group tonight as well and after some investigation it appears that the plugin no longer works in Chrome and Firefox, it will work if you are using Internet Explorer. I tried it this evening using my eTrex 25touch.

Hi Spud. The "send to GPS" button will only work if you have already installed the plugin for your browser. The browser should open a popup window when you click send to GPS that shows you if you have the plugin installed and if not where you can get it. If you aren't seeing this popup window then check any security software that might be blocking pop ups and allow them from geocaching,com Once you have the plugin installed it should be simple to send to GPS any individual cache. As a premium member you can create lists of caches as pocket queries and send groups of caches to the GPS. To get better mapping is easy go to the Garmin website and get hold of their free app called BaseCamp. It has lots of options from basic maps to the highly detailed UK OS maps and even satellite imagery you can download to your GPS. Some of these options require a purchase of the map. However BaseCamp allows you to do lots of things with your GPS device and is great for deleting old stuff off the device too. You will need to create a free login at the Garmin.com website to get access to any of the mapping. I hope this helps.

If your interest is in logging TBs perhaps for reaching numbers for a challenge or similar reason then you can easily revisit a cache take a note of the TBs number and then log it on the website as discovered. That way you don't need to add any new log to the cache itself. It also means the TB is available to the next cacher too. Picking up a TB just because you can isn't a great idea especially if you aren't able to move it on soon or help it fulfil its goal.

I've come across three geocaches this week with images, either backgrounds or images as puzzles etc, all of which were broken links. After some investigation a discovery was made by a fellow cacher that Imageshack are disabling links from basic accounts and you need to pay to have images linked to their servers. This means if you have any caches with a background image or have linked to an Imageshack image and you aren't a paying subscriber to Imageshack then your images will show as broken links in your cache pages. This has caused several local puzzle caches to be disabled whilst the owner replaces the image. My suggestion as an alternative is to upload the image to the cache page and link to that. If you need to hide the image then upload it to another image hosting site that doesn't charge alternatively pay cash to Imageshack. So cache owners please check the images in your caches.

I have a samsung phone. Will WhereYouGo download cartridges? On an iPhone with the Wherigo app you can visit the cartridge page and download directly into the app. On an Android its a little bit trickier. On either platform first step is to set your device to "Pocket PC" this ensures it downloads the smartphone version rather than the specialist GPSr version. On iPhone just download. On Android you can either a) use Firefox and download the cartridge this will then prompt you to use the WhereYouGo app to run it, for some reason Firefox downloads work other browsers dont. or b ) make sure you have a folder called WhereYouGo in your root folder if you don't have one create a folder called WhereYouGo, then download the cartridge and move it into the WhereYouGo folder. When you then run the WhereYouGo app the cartridge will show up in the list.

As an example: Viewing Geocaching.com website of a local series of caches with Google Maps background: Viewing the same area using OS Maps background:

NB. This is for UK Ordnance Survey Maps it will ONLY work for viewing geocaches in the UK. I've been frustrated by the background maps on geocaching.com/map page none of the background options are entirely satisfactory. So I looked to see if alternative options were available and found out that you can use a FireFox plugin script to allow you to change the background map. I then found out how to add the Ordnance Survey maps which you can get free on Bing Maps as the background layer. I thought that other Geocachers would be interested. So here are the steps: Adding OS Maps to Geocaching.com 1. Install Firefox from: http://www.getfirefox.com 2. Run Firefox and visit https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/ 3. Click to install the GreaseMonkey plugin 4. Visit https://www.bingmapsportal.com/ and create a free Bing Maps account. NB. This uses any Microsoft Live account so you might already have one if you use Hotmail, Outlook.com, Xbox live etc. 5. Login to https://www.bingmapsportal.com/ 6. Once logged into the Bing Maps Portal click on “My Account” and select “Create or view keys” 7. Click the first here to create a new key 8. Give it a name – eg: Geocaching OS Maps 9. Give it the URL ie: http://www.geocaching.com 10. The key type needs to remain as basic 11. The application type should be Public website. 12. Click create to create your key. 13. Now copy your key details and save this to a text file for later. 14. Visit http://geo.inge.org.uk/gme.htm#install to install the Geocaching Maps plugin 15. Visit Geocaching.com maps page https://www.geocaching.com/map/ sign in with your geocaching account if you aren’t already signed in. 16. If you are a premium member then you need to make sure your map preferences are set to Leaflet. You do this via the left hand fly out menu “set map preferences” green button at bottom right. If the fly out menu isn’t visible click the green arrow on the extreme left of the map to open the fly out menu. 17. Assuming everything has installed correctly up to this stage you will now see at the bottom left of the map a row of four buttons the 4th of which is a cogwheel icon. Click this icon. 18. This brings up the types of maps you can select from there’s already quite a choice but we are going to add the OS Maps. 19. Click on the Manage Maps tab 20. Now we need to paste some text into the Mapsource field and then click add then save. 21. The text is • {"alt":"Bing OS Maps","tileUrl":"http://ecn.t{s}.tiles.virtualearth.net/tiles/r{q}?g=3440&lbl=l1&productSet=mmOS&key=YOUR_BING_MAPS_KEY_GOES_HERE", "subdomains": "0123", "attribution": "Bing Maps", "overlay":false} • From the text above you need to replace the text YOUR_BING_MAPS_KEY_GOES_HERE with the key you got in step 13. Note its the bit starting { and ending } (including those curly brackets) that you want not the black dot as well. 22. Paste the text string copied from step 21 with the text replaced with your unique key into the Mapsource box 23. Click add and you will see a new item appear on the sources list called Bing OS Maps. 24. Click save to save and close this window this will also refresh the browser. 25. Whilst still on the geocaching.com maps page notice the map selector in the top right corner and click on it. 26. Select the newly added Bing OS Maps and behold your geocaching background map is now a bang up to date OS Map. Note that of course this only works if you are viewing UK locations. 27. You can use the selector in the top right to change to any of the other map types too. You can also use the configure option cogwheel to choose which one you want as the default when you use geocaching.com