robertlipe

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy (Admin):Wow. I didn't know the date was missing. I'll fix that. It will be the date of the waypoint. So I don't duplicate entries, I'll leave the date placed out of the Groundspeak namespace (at least where the GPX file is concerned) Thank you, Sir. I agree that making it the of the waypoint is the most appropriate choice and will re-pull your example to be sure my code handles it. Additionally, with the "found at" coordinates be available in the Groundspeak:log space? Since some cachers use that field for the "your coords stink, I found the thing HERE" entries, I'd like to see them. It could also be neat for locationless caches (assuming full logs were an option) to place the finds on a map and so on. Maybe you have this in your data set and the example ten you chose just doesn't have such a log...

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:For those who are anxiously awaiting the new GPX format, I wanted to give you a head's up and an example file of the GPX format with the extended Groundspeak:cache namespace. You can find the example http://www.geocaching.com/media/example.gpx. I don't plan on changing the elements that exist I may be overlooking this in the sample file, but how can I tell when a cache was placed? I don't see it as either the creation time/date of the wpt (which wouldn't be entirely contrived) or in the Groundspeak namespace. Is it there?

quote:Originally posted by martinp13:GPX (or any XML format/layout) is pretty much already a "database". [ munch ] The main problem I have with that is that no matter what final "format" you put data into, it's "wrong" for me. I want my final output to look just so and include just so much data, as each person does. And the only way we'll each be able to have that is for the "raw" data to be available for use by each person's stylesheet. Then you can boil it down to an ebook, or retain Jeremy's original look and feel, or (my choice) print 4 text-only cache pages per page. GPX is that format. It provides the data with logical (not textual) markup so you can easily see which of the words in that stream are the hider's name, which are the coords, which are the hint, and so on. GPX is the delivery vehicle for that "raw" data that allows you (well, at least any tool or programer that can cope with XML) to boil it to any of the formats you cite or more.

quote:Originally posted by Ramness570:Just had to publicly express my gratitude to “jogps”. JoGPS is definitely a local hero. He was instrumental in forming our local geocaching club, placed more caches than most people have found, developed a great point of contact system with the local parks (how well does it work? Look at my logs for "meet with your government officials" to see how we have a local park PUTTING OUT CACHES!) and has helped geocaching clubs hundreds of miles away get started. He leaves more than he takes, is kind to newbies, and has shown the locals cache types we'd never seen before. And even with geocaching aside, he's a heck of a nice guy. Yeah, I know for some it's tempting to look at the "superstar" numbers and flip him the finger, but I'm very glad that JoGPS is more than a signature in most logbooks in this time zone; he's my friend.

quote:Originally posted by Ramness570:Just had to publicly express my gratitude to “jogps”. JoGPS is definitely a local hero. He was instrumental in forming our local geocaching club, placed more caches than most people have found, developed a great point of contact system with the local parks (how well does it work? Look at my logs for "meet with your government officials" to see how we have a local park PUTTING OUT CACHES!) and has helped geocaching clubs hundreds of miles away get started. He leaves more than he takes, is kind to newbies, and has shown the locals cache types we'd never seen before. And even with geocaching aside, he's a heck of a nice guy. Yeah, I know for some it's tempting to look at the "superstar" numbers and flip him the finger, but I'm very glad that JoGPS is more than a signature in most logbooks in this time zone; he's my friend.

Disabilities are different things to different people. I think disclosure is probably the best plan. Six feet off the ground is a problem for someone in a chair, but not for someone on crutches. Tnngly vines are probably the opposite. Moms with strollers have needs that are similar, but different. Tell someone what to expect (without giving the cache away) and let them make the call. Signed, Knows Well a Geocaching Amputee Intermittently On Crutches.

quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts: Robert Lipe is developing a program called GPS Babel that translates between various formats (an open source geobuddy that's more complete.) It currently is in beta and only available for Unix systems, but you can track its development at http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net/ Please don't perpetuate that. It works fine on any OS with a POSIX environment, including Darwin/OS-X and Windows with Cygwin load. Since I'm a UNIX guy, I tested the UNIXen within reach. That said, gpsbabel really won't get anything out of these GPX files that it couldn't get from the (much smaller) geocaching.loc files. It's other projects that honk on the whole description that will come into play with the GPX data.

quote:Originally posted by Jeremy Irish:For those who are anxiously awaiting the new GPX format, I wanted to give you a head's up and an example file of the GPX format with the extended Groundspeak:cache namespace. I haven't picked through every byte, but glancing through it, I'm rather aroused. I threw gpsbabel at it and it just worked. Flipping through the file, it looks like all the data I'd want is there (logs, hints, etc.) in a way that'll be way easier for me to parse and presumably less work for your server to create. I'm diggin' it. Thanx!

quote:Originally posted by headmj:Is there a way to run this program short of establishing a dual boot environment on my computer? Thanks Since I don't know what your computer is, it's hard to say, but the answer is "almost certainly". Statistically, you're running either some kind of UNIX (where it Just Works) some kind of Mac/OS (where, at least on OS/X, it Just Works) or some strain of Windows (where if you install CygWin, it Just Works.) If you're running QNX, VMS, Theos, or M, the answers get more complicated, but continued speculation probably isn't the most productive approach to answering your question. :-)

quote:Originally posted by bartacus:I'm not using a Magellan, but the conversion routines are what attracted me. Perhaps my original announcement was unclear. gpsbabel is perfectly usable for the non-magellan crowd. If you want to do things like plop your cache list down in mapsend or mapsource, or create a file from a mapsource waypoint list that's readable in ExpertGPS, it's the ticket. It flattens the tower of babel...

quote:Originally posted by Jolly B Good: I would LOVE to be able to simply swap out the comments field which has the cache name with the field the contains the GHXXXX type names. IN other words I wish EasyGPS (or some other program/utility) would automate this tedious process. I outlined a trick for doing this just last week. Yeah, it's a bit deceiving that the answer to a question about EasyGPS is in a thread titled "Geobuddy", but 'dems da breaks. See the thread here: http://opentopic.Groundspeak.com/0/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1750973553&f=5740990093&m=8310996525&r=5830914625#5830914625

I've just made the initial public version of GPSBabel on http://gpsbabel.sourceforge.net. This GPL'ed program reads and writes waypoints in Mapsource file format as well as GPX, Geocaching *.loc, GPSUtil 0.10, and GPSMan formats. Additionally, it supports the serial protocol so it can upload and download waypoints directly to your 315, 330, Meridian, SportTracker or similar unit. (I've only tested it on my 330, but I feel pretty good that it'll work on the others.) It contains code to try to divine waypoint icons when the source file format contains no such hints and it knows about the differing icon tables in, say, the 315 and the Meridian. It can be used to merge inputs files of the same or differing types. It runs on POSIX operating systems. I've exercised it on Linux (IA32 and PPC), Darwin/PPC, OpenServer, UnixWare, Solaris/Sparc, and Cygwin. Big endian hosts have problems with Mapsend files in the released version, but I don't feel like fighting SF's release mechanism to make another release tonight. The program is free. Source is included. Enjoy. I welcome contributions of additional back-ends. RJL

quote:Originally posted by fizzymagic: You listed your program as "Unix-only," and the source is not available. The source is right there. If you can't get it from sourceforge, mail me. It's ISO C and works on anything with a POSIX interface. As I said in the doc, it even works on Windows systems running Cygwin and Mac systems with Darwin. I'd welcome ports to other OSes or environments. If you aren't using the serial handling, you probably don't even need POSIX termio handling and could probably build it for DOS or something equally under-featured.

quote:Originally posted by John, Mark & Kyle: quote:Originally posted by robertlipe:Look in the 'files' section of the m330 or meridian groups. My open-source program 'gpsbabel' on sourceforge reads and writes waypoint sections just fine. Where are these groups? Not on Groundspeak I assume (I didn't think they had GPS specific groups.) Yahoo? I will definitely check out your program! Yes, sorry to be imprecise. Those are both yahoo groups. The description is in both, but you can go straight to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/m330/files/

quote:Originally posted by headmj:I have sent an email to the technical support folks at Magellan to see if I can get the file layout. I expect that this reply will take a while. I will let you know what I hear. Isn't this discussion happening in a couple of places? The mapsend file format is documented. Look in the 'files' section of the m330 or meridian groups. My open-source program 'gpsbabel' on sourceforge reads and writes waypoint sections just fine.

quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts:"private extension" is hardly consistent with "open standard". If you're not going to have an open format you're not, and it's just confusing people (me) to say that you are. Will you please lighten up a little on this subject? GPX is meant to be extensible. There are explict provisions in it for it to be extended. (If not, it wouldn't be nearly as useful.) Look in the gpsxml archives for discussions on how this has been done successfully in the recent past and examples of how it can be done.

quote:Originally posted by MrGigabyte:I have complete faith that Jeremy choose the best reader and format that was available to deliver the Palm readable cache files. [ ... ] Unfortunately, it has been my very brief experience that the Mobi reader is completely unusable on my out-of-the-box, brand new Palm. This is unfortunate as this was the sole reason I bought it. Granted, it's late and I'm tired, but does anyone else see a problem with that line of logic?

quote:Originally posted by MrGigabyte:I have complete faith that Jeremy choose the best reader and format that was available to deliver the Palm readable cache files. [ ... ] Unfortunately, it has been my very brief experience that the Mobi reader is completely unusable on my out-of-the-box, brand new Palm. This is unfortunate as this was the sole reason I bought it. Granted, it's late and I'm tired, but does anyone else see a problem with that line of logic?

quote:Originally posted by ChazC:This sounds like a cool utility. Another that seems to work pretty well (haven't played with it much) is http://www.geobuddy.com/. Takes the EasyGPS *.loc files and converts them to MapSource or the MapSend (I think that's what the Magellan p I contacted the author of geobuddy long ago. The author wasn't interested in releasing source or discussing details, which helped people using OSes that geobuddy didn't support exactly zero. This strengthened my resolve to write gpsbabel, which does does reads and writes files in all the mentioned formats and does it with completely open source so others can learn from it. So while geobuddy solves some problems for some people, that experience encouraged me to make my program completely free, or at least GPL to keep it- and the information learned in the development of it- free. Wanna know what I'm writing to the 148'th byte of mapsend and whether it's intentional or random? Here's my source... This is why I had to research the file formats for both Magellan Mapsend (documented, but vaguely and in an esoteric place- still I applaud them for opening it) and MapSource (still awaiting formal doc; pcx5 file imports a poor substitute). I just don't understand proprietary "lock in" on data file formats when the data in the file is MINE. I don't understand it with word processors and I don't understand it with waypoints. P.S. When it came time to name the program (scant hours before submitting it to sourceforget) it was a coin-toss between gpsbabel and gpsrosetta. I actually delivered a public talk on "the rosetta stone" about a year ago. :-)

quote:Originally posted by TeamWSMF:Well no sooner had I posted the thought that maybe there ought to be a Source Forge project set up to coordinate the various ways to get geocaching data into our various devices then I find this Source Forge project.... http://sourceforge.net/projects/gpsbabel/ That would be mine. :-) It's not about geocaching in particular, but it would probably be of interest to some cachers. I was holding off on an announcmeent until I had web pages and such in place. I've used the code in various forms for months now, so I feel much better about the code than I do, say, the doc. quote:Its very very new and I dont know if it will be working with all the stuff from Groundspeak, but its worth a look over time. At this moment, it reads and writes the *.loc's from Groundspeak just fine. It also reads and writes GPX, Mapsend, PCX5,Magellan serial, and a bunch of other stuff. So if you want to do something like take the *.loc from the GC reports and plunk them into Mapsend or Mapsource, that's not too painful to do do. quote:If this doesnt work, maybe others can start up a project to act as the Rossetta Stone of formats so that the inclusion factor of data exchange eclipses the exclusion factor. Something like that is already in the works. I've contributed what I learned about various file formats while creating gpsbabel in the hopes that others don't have to untangle more evil closed file formats.

The mapsend file format is published. I have a program I'll be releasing in a few days that can read and write waypoints in a variety of formats that includes both geocaching.loc and mapsend.

quote:Originally posted by EraSeek: I can't stand having those GCxxx identifiers in there. I need a name so I know what I'm looking for. Each have their own needs I guess. This was originally one of the reasons I started rolling my own software for this task. But just this weekend, I found that you can make EasyGPS and ExpertGPS (at least the demo) make sensible names for your caches. Just edit the *.loc files and delete the name. topografix will then create waypoints names that are appropriate for the selected receiver. If you're using a Banana, you get six character all upper case. If you're using a Magellan, you get eight character mixed case. If you're using a 76 or a V, you get a longer string (didn't count) but all upper case. It isn't infallable (for example, it'll name "cache-o-rama-lama-ding-dong1" and "cache-o-rama-lama-ding-dong2" the same waypoint) but it's still more comprehensible in the common case. While I don't have the recepie handy for geocaching *.locs, here's the line of Perl code to do it for GPX files. perl -pi -e 's@GC.*@@' $FILENAME (Yes, technically I know there are legal GPX files that line won't "fix", but getting all the cases makes one straight-forward line into something much uglier without solving a problem I needed to solve. :-)

quote:Originally posted by headmj:I have down loaded easygps and it works fine. However, to get my waypoint sinto Mapsend Topo I have to first load the points into the GPS and then into Mapsend Topo from the GPS. Is there a piece of software that will convert this data directly on the computer? Thanks I've written software for POSIX systems (UNIX, Linux, etc.) that can read and write waypoints in both formats. Actually, it'll read and write directly to the GPS via serial comm, and many other formats, too. I haven't made an Official Release of it, but could be encouraged to do so if there's interest. It might work under operating systems that start with "M" via the various POSIX kits, but I haven't been motivated to try building it since I don't use those systems when I can avoid it...

quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts:Perhaps you can point me at a document on the Topographix web site that contains the non-objectionable license? Citing http://www.topografix.com/gpx_for_developers.asp GPX is an open standard. Anyone may use it, and there are no fees or licensing involved.

quote:Originally posted by Marty Fouts:GPX is another proprietary format, but at least it's XML based. It also doesn't have all of the information one would want for a cache record. GPX is *not* proprietary. The spec is public. Participation in the spec process is free. Yes, Topografix was a major motivator in it, but it's supported by a growing number of programs. And while GPX itself doesn't mandate tags that would be specific to geocaching (of course) it does define the way to extend the spec in a portable and open way that's consistent with XML DTD stuff. There are existence proofs of such extensions discussed in the GPX developers lists. Working with the data in GPX would be much more pleasant than the encrypted (grrr) mobi format. Maybe even if the "unadulterated" ebook format would be enough if the rest of the cache information was there. quote:It is highly desirable that the data format be open, well documented, and available under a non-objectionable license GPX accomplishes all these points. See http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp