seffnjarah

First time using the updated app today. Distance to cache is too small and in a part of the screen where you have to look away from navigation. Also the closest zoom level on Trails map is now too far out to be of much use when you get close to GZ. Had to change to Street maps to zoom in to a useful level.

Agree 100%. I could kind of understand Groundspeak restricting external access, if their own app accomplished what GSAK macros were doing, but in reality the app is useless at trying to work your way through more than one Adventure at a time. Nowhere on the app can you see locations of more than one Adventure. There is no way to plan an effective route using the app. And to be honest, none of the Adventures I have done so far have been worth the time and effort if I was required to visit the same location again for multiple Adventures. If I can see beforehand that in one area there are lab locations for multiple Adventures, I would do them all at once. Don't need to see the questions, just need to know that there is a lab in that area. Surely if the Adventure is a non linear one (which most I have seen are), then knowing the locations in advance is not a detriment to anyone. I think that the lack of popularity of multi caches, where people have no idea where they are headed or how long it will take, is a good indication that geocachers are not keen on heading off blindly. For me, planning makes for a better day of caching.

Fake logs on unloved caches have prevented legitimate finders from using that cache as a qualifier on unloved finds challenges.

Agreed. I have a PQ of unfound caches available for FTF's and others of caches published in the last 7 days in nearby states. These PQ's provide dynamically produced lists and mapping which is up to date at any point I view them as opposed to lists which would require constant manual searching and adding/deleting to to keep them up to date and meaningful. PQ's are (were?) a one click wonder on the browse map.

Absolutely support these types of changes happening however the key phrase that you mention is “code that perform similar functions”. I think the main gripe of many is recent changes always seem to reduce existing functionality or usability to achieve these changes, rather than maintain and improve on.

With a lot of the community recommended changes to this upgrade being relegated to the “yeah, we’ll get to it at some stage” level it is clear (as if it wasn’t already) that the developers’ time is valuable and limited. Therefore rolling out changes such as these, that are widely condemned by the geocaching community, only wastes the developers’ limited time having to rehash their work. Will GCHQ be taking a serious look at whatever community review process these changes went through to be approved prior to implementation? Clearly, by the responses to this announcement, whatever focus group or section of the caching community these changes were vetted by is not a good representative cross-section. As others have said, as a daily user of the site I am more than happy to help in this process.

Yes this is another thing I find curious. The website is where they are able to make money from advertising sponsors, but not from the app, yet the constant loss-of-functionality changes to the website are driving people away from the website. You may as well just use the app. Less website traffic, less advertising $. Makes no sense to me.

Lots of mentions as to why it benefits GCHQ but only minor mention of user benefits being gained and no mention of recognizing there is a loss of functionality.

I guess the question that seems to sum up the obvious frustration in these posts (and many others for any recent “upgrade” to the website) is: when GCHQ makes the conscious decision to take away existing functionality from its users or make pages harder to read/use with excess white space, poor default sorting etc: what is the “gained advantage” metric that is being used to compare the obvious disadvantage (e.g. the loss of existing functionality / deterioration is usability) against? We keep seeing loss of functionality etc but never an explanation of why what is being gained by the users in exchange for this loss is more advantageous. When people feel the advantages, if any, are outweighed by the loss of functionality, of course they will tend to react badly. I guess this links back to what I thought was a valid question as to whether the developers or those initiating these changes are geocachers. Do they actually recognise the disadvantages being caused and their significance to be able to make a valid comparison of the advantages (if any) being gained?

I find it curious that obvious deficiencies in the “upgraded” webpage that have been raised by numerous posters here are only considered as POSSIBLE future improvements. I would have thought that with the feedback raised so far that the new version would be pulled all together and only implemented once the necessary changes are able to be made (whenever that might be), rather than lumping us with a wholly deficient new version for goodness knows how long.

Indicating the starting location of an Adventure Lab is only useful where the individual waypoints of the lab are within that vicinity. These new developments still do not help you find individual waypoints in your vicinity which are located some distance from the starting point, nor help locate waypoints in your vicinity that belong to different Adventure labs. I have been to waypoints for one Adventure lab only to find out later that there were waypoints for other Adventure labs located in almost the same spot which I then had to revisit. Not an efficient use of time or resources.

Not sure whether its events in Queensland or the trackable you are lamenting in your post, but the trackable is safe and well.

I was just logging some earth caches and went to send off answers to various COs. I noticed that with the new profile, if a user has made their email address public, if you click on the Send Email link it tries to open an email program to send the message rather than using the geocaching.com send email page. If I use the old profile page, even with the email address public, the Send Email link uses the geocaching.com send email page as expected. If a user has not made their email address public, both the new and old profile Send Email link uses the geocaching.com send email page as expected. Therefore the new profile page with a public email address seems to cause an incorrect response with the Send Email link. I am using Google Chrome.

Yes, back to having page loading problems. Just seems to be the cache pages.