gasbottle

I just got the latest update. It's still not displaying mystery or multi caches at the corrected coordinates. It still gives no indication that a puzzle cache even has corrected coordinates, until you click on it. In suppose I'm still not going to be using it, then.

A good start, but the first thing I tried was to display only my DNFs. Can't be done at present. I'd also like to see the cache type, but for DNFs this is now only possible by clicking on the icon. So, two things on your to-do list: add a filter for ONLY DNFs, and add DNF versions of the standard cache icons.

Close, but no cigar. My big gripes are 1. The amount of wasted space, particularly in the 'Recently viewed' section; 2. The limited number of logs. There are other things... So, my suggested improvements again are: Combine the lines of metadata in Recently Viewed into one line, and reduce the whitespace. I do actually use Recently Viewed so collapsing it isn't a great option. Return the number of entries in Recent Logs to 30 days. If that's not acceptable because of server load issues then use lazy loading to extend the list as it is scrolled. Now I can shut off the list of friends' logs. Once done I don't need to be reminded on every line that it's my log so drop the 'You' on every line and reduce the whitespace. Please give me a link to the cache, as well as a link to the log if need be. A link to the cache is far more useful, so if it has to be one or the other, lose the link to the log. Reading the responses to the recent changes, the one thing that seems to be provoking most comment is the amount of wasted space. This seems to be thing that hasn't been addressed at all. Since changing it involves a tweak or two to a style sheet I assume that there's some ideology at work here. I understand that you feel that the product needs a facelift but please don't get drawn into a 'fashion over function' theology and give us a product that is universally disliked.

If a cache owner edits the details of a cache, is there any way to access the previous versions? I ask because a CO in my area has a cache that he has updated such that it has little resemblance to its originally published state. Over the last year the cache details have changed from requiring visits to two other caches to get coordinates, to some arithmetic that gave the wrong result, to some trivial arithmetic that gave the right answer, to answering a set of questions unrelated to the cache or each other. When I visited recently I could find no sign of a cache or waypoint. My feeling is that the cache has changed so much that it really should be archived and a new cache created. I'd like to gather some concrete evidence before I log an NA. FWIW, the cache hasn't been found for two years or so, mostly because bits have been missing or wrong.

Just a quick recap following a few days thoughts: There's too much whitespace - keep the metadata in Recently Viewed on one line and reduce the spacing. The last n days of logs should be included, rather than the last n logs. If this is considered to be too much load on the servers load them lazily, 20-30 logs at a time, going back as far as makes sense. Done like this there's no reason not to go back through all the logs. Friends logs should only be included on request If friend logs aren't being displayed, suppress the 'You' that appears on every line and recover the whitespace. Consider displaying the log date on every Recent Log line instead of the largely invisible block header that holds it at present.

Good - now we have some way of getting to personal notes that doesn't involve the website. The problem remains, though, that the app still doesn't display caches at corrected coordinates. My most common use of personal notes is to show additional information posted to Geocheck for mystery caches and until the display is fixed the app is of little value to me.

Neither of the two devices I principally use to access the web site can display the new dashboard - that a Google Nexus 9, Android 7, Chrome or Firefox, and a Samsung Galaxy S5, Android 6, Chrome. That immediately makes this new layout a non-starter. There's more... In portrait mode on my phone it makes no attempt to load the new 'Recently viewed' or 'Recent Logs' panels. I can get at both those items from the menu I see, but both load far more data than is appropriate. If I'm using my phone and I want to look at recent logs it's because there's something I want to use in the field. I need, perhaps, only the last 20 logs. I don't need to use mobile data downloading 1500+ logs I won't look at. You might argue that the app is more appropriate to use on my phone, but that is still beset with limitations of its own (that this week's release still fails to fix) that it's not credible as a primary source of information. Having loaded the new dashboard on my desktop computer I can see the real limitations of the new layout. There is so much wasted space! Most of the screen is initially taken up with the 'Recently Viewed' list which is at least 40% bigger than it needs be because the cache data is split between lines above and below the cache name. At the very least move the data all together below the name and shrink the lines accordingly. The 'Recent Logs' panel now prefixes every line with 'You' on a line of its own. The 'Friends' facility has been so useless that I've never used it, but presumably 'You' would be replaced by the names of my friends as their logs are mixed in with mine. I should be able to control whether my friends' logs appear in my feed and if they don't, save the space and get rid of 'You' Lastly, logging travel bugs with long names causes the entire text block for the dashboard log entry to appear below the avatar image instead of beside it. You guessed it - even more wasted space!

The whirligigs of doom rotate eternally under 'Recently viewed' and 'Recently Logs' If they ever stop and display useful information I'll be sure to report back my impressions. [Edit, 10 minutes later] Still waiting...

Multiple photos - better. Captions still needs to be done, and there's no change to the 'Report a problem'/'Needs Maintenance' issue that's of any value. Most of my NM and NA logs required more than a canned message, so this has no utility for me at all and I'll still need to return to the old logging screen to log these things properly. So, a plus point for the improvements but this is still a long way from 'Ready for service'. I don't understand why the all the issues raised in the forum haven't been addressed before a new release is put out, so minus one plus point for that.

We'll be adding access to the Help Center from the profile account dropdown (by your name on the top right) soon. That was the place that most people went to try and find Help on the site during testing. You must have some odd people testing for you. I looked, in order, in plain sight near the top of the page, 'Learn', page footer, right down the links column on the right, profile button (and I only tried this because I'd assumed there must be a link somewhere and this was the only place left.)

It'd be nice if I could find the help centre more easily. There's no direct link on the 'Learn' menu, and the link to 'Help Center' at the bottom of the main page goes to a contact form. I know I can get there via Geocaching 101 but if I'm looking for the help centre i'm already way past the elementary stuff. I can't say I like the new format much, but I'll get used to it, I guess.

Today I encountered another limitation of this new logging 'experience'. I logged my find but missed the opportunity to click 'Report a problem'. After I saved the log I can't now go back and log a Needs Maintenance. I suppose I could have logged a note and reported the problem there, but why? It doesn't need a note, or a new log. It just needs what it's always had - a Needs Maintenance log option. I opted out and went back to the old logging page. If (when) the opt-out option is removed it's going to be a real pain to log proper NM or NA logs. Two or three canned messages don't come close to covering the multitude of issues that can befall a cache in the wild. Oh - and I really REALLY need an option to add a caption to a photograph without having to fight my way around to do it. Another -1 for the new logging page.

For some reason I've never been able to fathom, submitting a log through the old logging page would frequently fail on a mobile device if it took me too long to key in the log (which is most of the time). I got used to this and once it became apparent that the log submission was going to fail I could select and copy my log text, refresh the page, paste the complete log into the dialog and resubmit. This rigmarole worked to get the log submitted 95% of the time when the first submission failed. Today I had occasion to submit a log over the mobile network, using the new log page. The inevitable happened and the page sat there with the Whirligig of Doom whizzing around but now, with this new page, I can't select & copy the text before refreshing the page. I have to resort to keying the log again, with the same submission failure, and the same end result. After two attempts I gave up and logged the details at home. This submission problem occurs reliably (>90%) using mobile data, but I've never seen it when connected to WiFi. Being unable to copy and select the log text after the Send button has been pressed occurs all the time on the new page. Samsung Galaxy S5, Android 6.0.1, Chrome 57.0.2987.132 Please don't suggest I use the new app instead. (There's enough wrong with that already, including logs that don't show up for hours.) Mostly I use field notes on my GPS and complete the logs at home, or I use a third-party app. Sometimes the most appropriate tool for the job is (was) the web site. Not any more, it seems.

I went on an ad hoc hunt a couple of days ago. There's a mystery cache I'd solved but not found not far from home. I was passing and had a few minutes so I stopped and walked down to the area where I knew GZ to be. After a couple of minutes I decided I needed to get a better fix. No problem - I have my phone with the new app... Of course, the new app doesn't display the caches by their corrected coordinates so although I was within 10 metres of the cache final there was no sign of the little blue dot on the screen, No problem - just zoom out. As I zoom out more dots of many colours appeared, to be promptly replaced by bigger dots labelled 10, 15, and the like. So, I'm close to GZ but unable to recall the cache name or GC code. I know the posted coordinates aren't far away but after a couple of minutes faffing about with appearing and disappearing dots and dots with numbers in I haven't found it. I cannot get access to the cache listing, or a compass bearing to the hide, or anything useful at all. The moral of the story: don't use the new app for hunting mystery caches. Please, please FIX this! What I actually did: went home and forgot about it. Next time I'll make sure I have the cache on my GPS and my GPS in the car.

My understanding is that the offline maps in the new app together with the default map layout on the web site are derived from OpenStreetMap data and possibly other sources. How often is that data refreshed? To put it another way, if I make a change to the OSM database how long will it be before that change appears on Groundspeak's maps? Is there any mechanism for reporting updates so that Groundspeak can fetch the new data?

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Maybe i have a little of the OCD, but I like to follow up on something that I've started and see what happens. The consensus here is that i need to be a little more patient. I accept that. I find the accusation that I'm somehow trying to act as a reviewer rather harsh. If logging an NA is overstepping some mark then we'll end up with a map cluttered with absent and rotting caches that the respective COs have long abandoned. It was dispiriting as a new cacher to see how much junk was lying out there. Over the last year I've raised about 35 NAs (against over 1400 finds). A few of those caches got fixed by their owners, most of the rest were archived. Many of the locations occupied by these archived caches have been reused by COs placing new caches. I'd hope that is a positive contribution to caching rather than an unwanted interference.

The reviewer who covers my area retired recently. He was very efficient: caches are published promptly, suggestions offered and other requests were actioned in a timely fashion. The new reviewer who has taken over is doing a reasonable job in most respects but doesn't seem to want to handle NAs. I have two NAs outstanding and i know of at least one other. Perhaps we were spoiled by our previous reviewer who'd turn things around within 48 hours, but the new reviewer has left these outstanding for over a month. I have exchanged emails with him/her and a he's had a list of all the caches I've flagged. A couple got archived, but these three remain. I'd expect that a cache flagged for archiving would get disabled or archived, or the reviewer would raise a note as to why he didn't think this was appropriate in any specific case. None of this has happened. I realise that the reviewers can be busy people so I don't want to nag. On the other hand a month or more without action seems excessive. What's the best course of action?

Turning down the volume might silence the phone but would silence everything that uses media output. Thus I'd be turning the volume down one minute for Geocaching and having to turn it up again the next for any of several different things I might need it for. Besides, that isn't really the whole issue. The pop-up window is itself irritating. It serves little purpose after the first few finds since one already knows one is getting close and the interruption and chime breaks the flow. It's a novice feature and it should be possible to disable it once it's no longer useful. If this app is supposed to be the one app that services all of Groundspeak's caching community then it needs to accommodate all levels of experience and allow users to tweak some features as they need. Besides, from a technical viewpoint this should be very easy to do, and if it isn't it suggests something very wrong with their code base.

Is there any way to turn off the annoying chime that sounds when one is approaching GZ? When I was first caching I thought it was a nice idea so I can see that it has some appeal, but now it drives me nuts! Can we at least have an option to disable it?

When I log into the web site I see the yellow 'new message' spot but going to the message page doesn't show me the new message. What's more, I see only the last four conversations and there is no way to see any others. I tried using the new app to retrieve the new message but that doesn't even indicate a new message exists. Usually I get a separate email when a new message arrived but I haven't had one of those so I don't know if there is really a new message stuck somewhere or if it's just a stuck indicator. What to do?

Maintenance and archive logs are likely to be included in our next release. Personal notes are on our radar. I have a couple questions on your other requests. The app does allow you to access/navigate to corrected coordinates added on the web, as well as inputing corrected coordinates in the app. When you say "lack of corrected coordinates" is there another feature you're thinking of? As to the delay you mentioned in seeing logs that you posted, can you help us out by providing the exact steps you go through when you see that result? If that is indeed happening, it must be a bug since there is definitely no delay expected in posting the logs. Is it possible that you've had a weak data signal in some of those instances? Corrected coordinates: I checked with the current version of the Android app on a mystery cache I have entered corrected coordinates for. The web site displays the cache in the corrected location, but the app displays it in the posted location. At one stage in the past the corrected coordinates sometimes appeared in the waypoint list but this was always a lottery and often they didn't. No corrected waypoint appeared today. Attempting to navigate to the cache gave me the option to view the puzzle, enter solved coordinates or go to the posted coordinates. I tried this with caches I have found, and others I have solved but not found. At no point does the app give me any corrected coordinates taken from the web. I haven't checked solved multi-caches. Posted logs: I haven't used the app for a long time because of this and other issues so this relates to an early experience and might have been overtaken by events. The app seems to post logs as a background process - there's no way to tell what it's up to or how far it has got. I noticed early on that logs seemed to be slow in appearing, but the real frustration came with trying to log trackables in the field. On one particular cache I'd logged a find through the app, then gone to the web listing to log a trackable I'd dropped but even after about 10 minutes there was no sign of the log. The frustration was compounded by another cacher who turned up while I was still at GZ and grabbed the TB. I couldn't log the TB in, so he couldn't log it out. Somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes later the log appeared and I could log the TB in on that log. I suppose I could have logged the TB in on a separate log, but that all seems very messy. Could I have had a poor connection? Maybe, but this was a city centre cache so it's unlikely. It would have been helpful at the time to have some list of background activities and the ability to edit a log before it was posted. Trackables: Not in my original post, but while preparing my notes for this I looked at my trackable inventory as presented by the App. Apparently I have about 8 trackables but I don't - they've all been logged as dropped into caches. The web site correctly lists no trackables. Issues with TBs going missing and difficulties logging them mean I rarely bother even attempting to log a discovery. These issues with the new App have me using either the classic paid app or downloading GPX files to my GPSr, which leads me onto an unrelated question: when, if ever, will GPX 1.0.2 be implemented?

Slow progress. Offline maps is a feature I'd rarely use, but the lack of corrected coordinates is a show stopper. When are we likely to see personal notes make an appearance? There's also maintenance requests to tackle (and less importantly, archive requests). I'd also like to see a quicker response to posting logs. I've had to wait sometimes as much as 30 minutes before a log appears on the web site -frustrating if you need to edit it. When are we likely to see any of this?

It would be helpful for the OP to be more explicit about his/her concern here. Is this really about 'virtual events', or is it about two being listed close together which should perhaps just be one. I agree that events should be something one attends but I don't see anything in the guidelines that specifically prohibits this. Even signing the log book seems to be optional for event caches.

Two events listed by one cacher is hardly a plague. What's your point?

After reading the comments here and experimenting a little this is what I arrived at: Go to Geocaches | All logs and save the resulting page locally Run a short script on the saved file to filter the logs in the way I want and generate a clickable list that I can work from to set up a bookmark list. It took me about 90 minutes to write the script - probably faster than I could have done the job with GSAK - and now it's done I can set up a bookmark list and I won't have to run it again. Job Done!