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roolku

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Posts posted by roolku

    "write your cartridges to the lowest common denominator" - Not

    in Wherigo

    Posted

    Recently I keep reading the advice to "write your cartridges to the lowest common denominator" and then going on that since the Garmin players can't display icons, can't display sound, can't use onclick methods etc, they shouldn't be used.

     

    This makes me sad as I think authors should make use of all the facilities available to provide an as good as possible Wherigo experience.

     

    While it is important that the cartridges are compatible with Oregon and Colorado most shortcomings degrade gracefully or can be easily worked around:

     

    1) icons

     

    Icons will not be included in the Garmin version of the cartridge (I use *.bmp files for them) so they don't do any harm. On other players they provide a useful visual clue.

     

    2) sound

     

    While digitised sound will not be played by the Garmin units, you can provide *.fdl alternatives using the same zmedia. The website will only include the compatible soundfile, so you won't bloat the cartridge.

     

    http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=182038&st=0&p=3250995entry3250995

     

    (Remember to not use the PlayAlertSound() function though, but use a custom sound instead.)

     

    3) onclick actions

     

    Typically you will not need to use them, in the rare case you do you can work around it by having an alternative button actions on the item in question which is disabled as part of the onclick event

     

    http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=202452&view=findpost&p=3687332

     

    4) no actions on zones

     

    You can have a dummy item of the same name inside the zone to provide the actions which is only enabled for garmin players as part of the initialisation

     

    5) limits on text length

     

    I don't see this as a limit. Make the text concise and to the point. You are writing a Wherigo, not a novel.

     

    6) limits on zones

     

    This is not a limitation on the Garmin players. Many old PDAs have the same problem. If you can't want to restrict your number of zones, there are some options; usually specific to the kind of cartridge you are writing. In my current cartridge I will offer an extra "nightmare" mode that has double the zones for player with non-garmin units. You can also use the user functions provided here:

     

    http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=224119&st=0&gopid=3966494

     

    Anyway - this was just from the top of my head, there is probably more. I realise that it is a little more work, but I think it is worth the effort, especially as the Garmin units are now outdated and in the future Wherigo will be mainly played on mobile phones. Thanks for reading.

    Tracking PiGo Bug (no table of objects)

    in Wherigo

    Posted · Edited by roolku

    I hope this is a good place for a bug report, as I haven't found a dedicated support forum for PiGo.

     

    PiGo does not expose the table of objects in the cartridge, so things like:

     

    cartridge_name:GetAllOfType('ZItem')

     

    cartridge_name.AllZObjects

     

    don't work.

     

    Cheers

    PiGo Bug (This command is intended to be used with another item or character)

    in Wherigo

    Posted

    I hope this is a good place for a bug report, as I haven't found a dedicated support forum for PiGo.

     

    My latest cartridge is not working with PiGo and I have narrowed down the problem to the fact that PiGo's implementation of "This command is intended to be used with another item or character" seems to be broken. Attached is a very simple cartridge to demonstrate the problem. The inventory contains 3 objects each with the command "Use With" and the option "command works with all objects". The actual command displays a message box stating the selection.

     

    For any of the objects (e.g. a) one would expect a command button "Use With" which when selected would offer the choice of one of the other objects. Selecting one of the objects (e.g. c) should display "a Use With c". This is the case for the emulator, the Groundspeak PPC playert, Colorado, Oregon, OpenWig on PPC and Wheryougo on Android. The only difference is that OpenWig allows an object to be used with itself, which is odd, but not harmful.

     

    However on PiGo the symptoms are as described by my kind tester:

     

    --- snip ---

    Item a displays two buttons:

    "Use with" -> displays "Nothing available a"

    "Use with ©" -> displays "c Use with a"

     

    Item b displays two buttons:

    "Use with" -> displays "Nothing available b"

    "Use with ©" -> displays "c Use with b"

     

    Item c displays two identical buttons:

    "Use with" -> displays "Nothing available c"

    "Use with" -> displays "Nothing available c"

    --- snip ---

     

    I would be grateful if you could look into this problem and fix it.

     

    The test cartridge is here: http://roolku.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/test6.lua

     

    Cheers

    In range vs. In Proximity

    in Wherigo

    Posted

    it is possible, via a hack in a cartridge, to change this to consider only OriginalPoint - the most visible result is that OnEnter behaves rather unexpectedly, but it works quite well

     

    Could you tell me more about this hack? I suppose you could collapse the whole zone into a single point - is that what you mean?

    In range vs. In Proximity

    in Wherigo

    Posted

    Zone_events.png

    the red dot in the middle is the zone's actual shape

     

    Thank you for the illustration. However I am still looking for answers to the following questions and I am wondering if you might know the answer:

     

    - are the distances (red arrows) measured to the "zoneXXX.OriginalPoint" point or to the 'nearest' edge?

    - if the former - how does it work if this point is outside the actual zone?

    - if the latter, it seems to be computational very expensive

     

    Related questions:

     

    - does the arrow (and indication of distance) point to the "zoneXXX.OriginalPoint" point or to the 'nearest' edge?

    - if it always uses the edge, what is the point of "zoneXXX.OriginalPoint" ?

    incorrect trackable history

    in Website

    Posted

    Looking at http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.as...34-3e58ea7363a2 I have noticed the following two problems:

     

    1) the note entry from the 12/28/2009 has the wrong country attached (why do notes have countries anyway?)

     

    2) my grab entry from the 12/29/2009 falsely says "from The Shrine 2" when in fact I grabbed it from unknown location where it was placed by the cache owner. After submission it just said "from " without a location but this has now changed to "from The Shrine 2" which is wrong as I have re-released it with the copy tag.

     

    Thank you for looking into it.

    One coin-Christmas-Mission

    in Trackables

    Posted

    I received a beautiful Edinburgh coin from roolku. I searched on Wikipedia to learn more about that city and the castle that is showned on the coin. Still can't figure out what is on the back side though :unsure:

     

    I am glad you liked the coin. :D

     

    On the back you can see the Forth Rail Bridge. It features for example in Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps if you have ever watched that.

    Release Notes 08/25/09

    in Website

    Posted

    When a travel bug is "in the hands of" another cacher, you have the option to "Grab it from current holder: cachername". But if you do that, it appears in the log page for that trackable as cachername grabbed it from previouscache. Is this intentional? It doesn't make any difference in the mileage, of course, but I thought that one retrieved from caches and grabbed from cachers.

     

    I can confirm this bug.

    stop date change when logging

    in Website

    Posted

    Same here..Pick the log type, date, go to type and I am looking at the bottom of the screen. Have to scroll up and re-click into the log entry field. I have dates change too. If your logging quite a few caches after a trip it is very annoying. It never did that in the last few years we have been logging.

     

    This is so annoying. I am in the process of logging all the finds from the Mega event and it completely takes the fun out of it. The number of times I had to retype whole sentences. And the refresh also removes focus from the textbox, so you have to grab the mouse again.

    Please avoid the page refresh.

    "Bug Image" selection broken

    in Website

    Posted · Edited by roolku

    When you edit your trackable item you have the option to select a "Bug Image" from the gallery of that item. This mechanism seems to be broken - some entries result in an error message:

     

    -- snip ---

     

    Your request has resulted in an error.

     

    You may choose to retry your previous request.

     

    Or you may tell us what you were doing when this error occurred.

     

    --- snip ---

     

    others select a completely different image (as seen here: http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=89837 it is meant to show http://img.geocaching.com/track/log/displa...0fb0afb893f.jpg ).

     

    Cheers

    MISSION: Penguins Last Minute Christmas Countdown Mission

    in Trackables

    Posted · Edited by roolku

    Just a note to all....

    This mission is being tracked by the penguins....

     

    So please do post in this forum when you have mailed out your Christmas cards.... You will turn BLUE on the tracking list.....

     

    1. Names Received: yes

    2. Missions Sent: 3/12/2008

    3. Missions Received:

    1) yes! a lovely coin from Washburn, WI USA

    2) not yet

    responsiveness in lists

    in Wherigo

    Posted

    I played your cartridge on the emulator, and it seems as though it is your device that might be problematic. I was informed that Mitac Mio 168 tends to be a bit slower than other devices.

     

    I am bumping the thread as I just had someone with an "HTC TyTyn II (Kaiser / Stellar XDA etc)" playing my Wherigo and he ran into the same issue. That PPC should be sufficiently fast? So am coming back to the question - is there anything I can do in my cartridge to improve things?

     

    J2B2, when you said you tried my cartridge - did you mean the one that I linked to? Or the one I wrote.

     

    Cheers

    Roolku

    Colorado bugs

    in Wherigo

    Posted

    Any chance of getting some sample code. I've run smack into the same problem. Works fine in the emulator but not on the Colorado... :rolleyes:

     

    You can do it in the builder, no coding (as such) involved.

    - create a new command for the item YOURITEM and call it "Colorado workaround" or depending on the context you may get away with something less jarring like "Examine"

    - duplicate the functionality of "When the player clicks on the item" in "When Examine occurs" (depending on what you are trying to do you may need small adjustments)

    - add an action at the end of your "When Examine occurs" script: "zitemYOURITEM.Examine enabled false"

     

    Good luck

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