Pocket Query Cache Identification

[+zippes]

Presently the Pocket Query Table of Contents looks something like:

 

GCAA1A first-cache-title (2mi N)(1/1)

GCAA2B second-cache-title (2mi W)(1/1)

GCAB1C third-cache-title (3mi N)(1/1)

 

You get the idea… and where all the cache information exists on their respective pages… it would be nice if the cache “type” could be added to the one-liner that makes up the Table of Contents entry… for example:

 

GCAA1A first-cache-title (2mi N)(1/1)V

GCAA2B second-cache-title (2mi W)(1/1)T

GCAB1C third-cache-title (3mi N)(1/1)M

 

Where the ID could be a letter(s)… like:

 

T-Traditional Cache

M-Multi-Cache

V-Virtual Cache

L-Letterbox Hybrid

E-Event

W-Webcam Cache

?-Mystery or puzzle caches

R-Reverse Cache

EC-Earthcache

 

It appears that there are sufficient unused character spaces to allow this ID field to be implemented.

 

Fellow cachers… what are your thoughts on this??

[+sbell111]

Many people wandering about this forum have no clue what you are talking about (me included). Why don't you post your idea in the Geocaching.com area?

Edited June 14, 2005 by sbell111

[Moun10Bike]

Moved this thread to the Geocaching.com Web Site forum.

[+Munin]

I hesitate to suggest bouncing this thread to yet another area , but I think zippes is talking about the Table of Contents generated by an offline utility like GPSBabel, not something created by the geocaching.com website. (The PQ 'Preview' pages created by GC.com don't look like the example zippes gave - they're multi-line, and already include the cache type info. But some of the offline programs I used to use had ToC/summary sections that looked similar to zippes' example.)

 

zippes - what's producing the ToC that you're looking at? Knowing that might help the mods direct your question to the most appropriate forum so folks can give you the feedback you're seeking.

[Jeremy]

This is, I think, an excellent place - especially if you're suggesting new Geocaching.com features. I only sporatically look at the main forum so it isn't the best place to get a more authoritative (ha ha) answer.

 

What I believe you are suggesting is to make changes to the MobiPocket eBook format to provide more info on the Table of Contents. Honestly the eBook format was the first format available and now probably the most archaic of the choices.

 

GPX is your best option and this is why:

 

I must admit that I am probably in the late 20's if you were to count the top developer minds in the forums. The top 10 have developed various applications that will chop, slice, marinade and cook your GPX file to 120 degrees for 30 minutes in any recipe you desire. Since the GPX file is XML it is well structured for these technical brains to fillet or fry it.

 

Generally the software is here:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/waypoints

 

But there are other apps out there if you google the words "GPX" and "Geocaching" in there.

[+Munin]

D'oh! I'd completely forgotten about the eBook format - kinda sad, since I used to use that myself back when I took my Palm out on caching trips. Good thing there's real live smart people here.

[robertlipe]

Good thing there's real live smart people here. 

Smarter than me, apparently. I couldn't quite grasp the original post and then, when it was attributed to GPSBabel, I pillaged around in the source and still couldn't grasp it. Then I saw Jeremy's post and it started to make sense. Since I already had a Better Way before Mobi and pocket queries roamed the earth, I'll confess this didn't ring bells for me. Now that I've had flashbacks to my Mobi experience, it does.

 

In short, I'll strongly underscore Brother Jeremy's advice: if you're looking for something sensible and flexible, use anything _except_ the site's Mobi. (Sorry, Jeremy. OTOH, it sounds like you knew that. :-) ) If your VCR isn't blinking 12:00 and you can actually retrieve your own voice mail messages, you're unlikely to find the canned Mobi format hocked up by the site to be as satisfying as the customized options that many of the various GPX munchers can deliver to you.

 

You can fuss about the site delivering exactly what you want or you can have the site deliver the "raw" data to you and you can hand it to applications you can customize. Guess which one lies more immediate gratification. (And for this case, is isn't GPSBabel.)

 

IMO, this is one of the visionary things of this site - the realization that not everybody - especially in such a geeky crowd- will be satisfied with "canned" solutions so the 'raw' data is provided in a reasonably open way for external devlopers to honk on the data to suit the needs of the many - or the few - or the one....

[+BuckToothMoose]

I wrote my own app quite a while back that does something along those lines...

I chop the first two characters off of the Cache ID (GC) and replace them with the the cache type and size (ie: TR = Traditional Reqular).

This way, when I create the file for my Meridian, I can see from the waypoint what type I am heading for, and it gets me by the 200 waypoint (with comments) limit.

I also produce the Mapsend file, Mappoint, PocketStreets the same way....

I don't change the Cache ID when I create the EBook version, but the table of contents shows it, the last log status, the type and size.....

[+Munin]

...when it was attributed to GPSBabel, I pillaged around in the source and still couldn't grasp it.

I was looking at the HTML output of gpsbabel, which starts out with a summary section that is pretty similar to what zippes showed. (Not identical though - the gpsbabel summary doesn't have the 'x miles NE' info.) I'd used gpsbabel's html output for a while after I switched from a Palm PDA to a Zaurus, so that was more recent in my memory than the eBook format.

 

Nowadays I use my own homebrew software for mangling GPX files, since my poor little Zaurus took a fair amount of time to load up the "everything in one honking big HTML file" from gpsbabel. (In my case I'd probably be in the early 5's, but only if you started counting from the bottom of the developer minds here. ) So add me to the list of geeky people who really appreciate the flexibility provided by those GPX files!

[robertlipe]

Yes, it's similar but there are many programs that solve the same problem that look similar. It's different enough that I'd concluded the original poster wasn't speaking of GPSBabel, but I couldn't figure out what they WERE speaking of.

 

I didn't get the impression that a lot of people used GPSBabel's HTML output. The 'one big honking' thing could be changed if we wanted to. I didn't write the HTML output module for GPSBabel and have long regarded it as kind of a barroom bet thing - it's cute, but is it really useful? I'll confess that what I carry in my own PDA isn't GPSBabel's HTML, either, but rather the output of a different highly customized program.

[+Munin]

Heck, even if it was just a 'barroom bet', the HTML output was good enough to get me up and running when I first switched to the Zaurus. Initially the only real viewing tool I had on there was the built-in web browser, so converting the cache info in HTML was rather handy. Sure, took a while for it to chow down the "all in one" GPSBabel file, but it got the job done. Plus it got me thinking about how I might do things differently to better suit my needs, which turned into a fun little weekend programming project. Main difference with my current homebrew code is that it uses the gpx file to create a summary index.html file, which in turn links to individual html files generated for each cache. Splitting things up and keeping them bite-sized speeds up the load/render times.

 

I think I'm in kind of a niche environment - the Zaurus SL-C3000 that I'm using is a Linux PDA (true filesystem storage, rather than database/record-oriented like PalmOS) - a multi-file/browser approach works well for me, but I suspect it wouldn't be terribly useful to most other people. I dunno - if you think anyone else would actually want something like that, I could always tweak gpsbabel's code and send you a patchfile. (I'm not actually quite as bad a coder as I intimated previously. )

[+zippes]

Greetings folks (..original poster here)…

 

First of all allow me to apologize for not identifying ‘which’ utility that I was talking about (doh!)… you are correct, I was speaking of the Mobipocket Table of Contents.

 

Secondly… many thanks for the references and pointers to ‘other’ utilities which, in your opinions, appear to do a much better job of displaying the data. I’ll take the time to pull down a copy and check them out.

 

Thank you all for the responces…

 

Best regards…