Cachestats 1.0

[+abcdmCachers]

If you like geocaching statistics, you may be interested in this. Even if not, read on - there's something for the non-stats people too.

 

I've written a program that analyzes your "My Finds" pocket query and shows you all sorts of statistics including your find rate over the years, streaks, average difficulty and terrain of your finds, milestones, FTFs, etc. It also includes a "goal caclulator" that shows what your find rate needs to be for the rest of the year in order to reach a particular milestone by the end of the year.

 

But caching isn't just about the numbers, right? If the caching experience is more important to you than the statistics, you might be interested in the "Favorites" feature: you can select your favorite caches in each of 10 categories including all-time favorite, most difficult find, cleverest hide, etc. All your finds are shown in a list so you can peruse your old logs as you make your selection.

 

When you're ready to tell the world about your statistics and/or favorites, you can easily export to HTML and paste into your geocaching.com profile (see my profile for an example, make sure you scroll past the map to see the favorites section).

 

I've already spent too much time on this (and not enough time caching), but if people like it and find it useful, I may put in some more features. So go ahead and send or post your suggestions. This is 1.0 software that has been tested by members of the wi-geocaching forums, so hopefully there are no more bugs left. But if you run into any problems please let me know.

 

You can learn more and download here: http://www.logicweave.com/cachestats.html

 

Enjoy,

Doug (D of ABCDMCachers)

[+ThePropers]

Looks pretty cool...I'll have to play with it after I'm back in a couple of days.

[Geopuckz]

I'll check it out in a little while at relatives though.

[+Rick618]

I dl'd the program and opened a pq with no problems. Looks good. The first suggestion for something I'd like to see would be to note atleast the GC# for the cache listed under the milestones such as number 100, 200, 300, etc.

 

Will tinker about a bit more.

 

Thanks for the program. I saw you had a Pente' game on site as well.

[+Airmapper]

I like the looks of it, but can't get it to install.

 

If I find a block of time to download the .net framework I'll give it a try. (For me that will take over 2 hours though. I have the framework, but it's not being recognized for some reason. I think it's missing a component.)

[+CYBret]

WOW! Very cool! I'm having a blast playing with it.

 

I seldom type "FTF" though. Makes it really hard for me to tell how many I've got. I'll just say 1000 then.

 

Bret

[+CYBret]

One thing that would be good is to change the date of the current goal to see what kind of stats you need to maintain to reach it. Of course if I had paid attention to Mrs. Ballenger's math class instead of drawing pictures I probably could do that myself.

 

Bret

[+ChaseOnTheGo]

So I have to select each cache to make into a gpx file.....maybe it would be cool if I put in my username and it automatically put in the info.....i think that would be to hard lol

 

Thanks,

 

ChaseOnTheGo

[+Tzoid]

Looks like you have a character set problem. I tried loading my own GPX, and got the message "Input string was not in correct format".

 

When I click on the 'close' marker in the upper right corner of the window, I get the following message:

 

See the end of this message for details on invoking

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

 

************** Exception Text **************

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

at CacheStats.StatsForm.OnClosing(CancelEventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WmClose(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.Form.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

 

************** Loaded Assemblies **************

mscorlib

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.1.4322/mscorlib.dll

----------------------------------------

CacheStats

Assembly Version: 1.0.2348.35896

Win32 Version: 1.0.2348.35896

CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/LogicWeave/CacheStats/CacheStats.exe

----------------------------------------

System.Windows.Forms

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll

----------------------------------------

System

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll

----------------------------------------

System.Drawing

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll

----------------------------------------

System.Xml

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.xml/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.xml.dll

----------------------------------------

dmm9c9nf

Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll

----------------------------------------

 

************** JIT Debugging **************

To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this

application or machine (machine.config) must have the

jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.

The application must also be compiled with debugging

enabled.

 

For example:

 

<configuration>

<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />

</configuration>

 

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception

will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine

rather than being handled by this dialog.

[+abcdmCachers]

So I have to select each cache to make into a gpx file.....maybe it would be cool if I put in my username and it automatically put in the info.....i think that would be to hard lol

 

Thanks,

 

ChaseOnTheGo

No, you definitely don't need to select each cache to make a gpx file. Instead go to your pocket query page and click the "my finds" button that sends you an email with all your finds in one gpx file. (I believe premium membership is required for this feature.) I briefly considered your suggestion of pulling information based on username, but it would be much slower and you're right, this was much easier. Plus Groundspeak discourages/disallows programs that "screen scrapes" their website for data.

[+abcdmCachers]

Looks like you have a character set problem. I tried loading my own GPX, and got the message "Input string was not in correct format".

Would you be willing to send me your gpx file so I can look into the problem? If so, you can contact me via my gc.com profile or email the support address on the logicweave.com website. Was it a gc.com gpx file or one that you generated from some other program such as gsak?

[+ChaseOnTheGo]

Ohhh no wonder it doesn't work....I am not a memeber to access my finds on pocket queries

[+oldnavy59]

I want to try it but it keeps saying

application has generated an exception that could not be handled

process id=0x644(1604), thread id =0xef (3828)

[+abcdmCachers]

I want to try it but it keeps saying

application has generated an exception that could not be handled

process id=0x644(1604), thread id =0xef (3828)

Bummer, I obviously haven't worked out all the bugs. Any more details you could provide would be helpful, such as when do you get the error, what version of windows are you using, etc. Is it happening when you try opening the .gpx file? If so, same reply as I had earlier - if you could send me your gpx file that would help me debug the problem. Feel free to send me any extra info using the support address at the website you want to take the discussion off-line.

[+weaverc]

Good job, nice and slick little program!!

[+Airmapper]

I got it going now, really cool!!!, I put my stats up on my profile using the HTML Export, looks good.

Edited June 12, 2006 by Airmapper

[+4BOWS]

Like the program. Great, quick, easy way to view stats. Pasted them into our profile page.

 

Thanks for all the work you put into this.

[ParentsofSAM]

Can I change to color to anything other than yellow??

[+paintfiction]

Cool program! Thanks!

[+SUp3rFM & Cruella]

Nice! Well done. I'm a stats freak, so I liked it a lot.

 

On the first glance, I just saw our avg. diff/terrain is 7,26/7,04.

 

Keep it going!

[+markz68]

Cool program! I just started and got my first three finds today! Then I downloaded your program and pasted the HTML into my profile.

 

One question...

 

Why does it list my most finds in ine day as 0 since I found 3 today?

[ParentsofSAM]

OK I got mine in my profile it is SO cool.

 

I even figured out how to change the color.

 

THANKS!!

 

[+Harriet the Spy]

This program is great!! I can tell you put a lot of hard work into this. How can you change the colors??

[+Morgan's Marauders]

Way cooooooool! Although the average difficulty/terrain kind of depressed me! LOL

 

Thanks a lot!

[+abcdmCachers]

Looks like you have a character set problem. I tried loading my own GPX, and got the message "Input string was not in correct format".

Would you be willing to send me your gpx file so I can look into the problem? If so, you can contact me via my gc.com profile or email the support address on the logicweave.com website. Was it a gc.com gpx file or one that you generated from some other program such as gsak?

Thanks Tzoid for sending me your file. Turns out it wasn't a character set problem, rather it was a problem with the regional settings. For example, if I change the regional settings on my computer to Norway, then decimal numbers use a comma instead a period. The error occurred when reading in a terrain or difficulty with a half star (e.g. 1.5 or 1,5) - it found a period, but was expecting a comma. At any rate, I fixed this to be region independent and uploaded a new version. Try it now and let me know how it goes.

[+abcdmCachers]

This program is great!! I can tell you put a lot of hard work into this. How can you change the colors??

Thanks! First I'll say that being able to pick a color is on my todo list. Until then, there are a couple of ways you can do this:

1) When you generate the html and paste it into your profile, change all the places where it says bgColor="#ffcc00" to use the color of your choice. Instead of the number ffcc00, you can use almost any english color, so for example you could change it to bgColor="blue" or bgColor="lightblue".

 

2) If you'd like a more permanent solution so you don't have to do this everytime you generate html, you can modify the template found in your installation folder (by default this is c:\program files\logicweave\cachestats). In that folder there are two templates - one for the full stats and one for favorites only. First, make a backup copy of the one you want to modify, then open it using a text editor such as notepad and make the same changes mentioned above. Or, if you have an HTML editor such as FrontPage you can use that. Note you are free to modify these templates in any way so if there are any html whizzes out there feel free fix them up and share.

[+abcdmCachers]

Cool program! I just started and got my first three finds today! Then I downloaded your program and pasted the HTML into my profile.

 

One question...

 

Why does it list my most finds in ine day as 0 since I found 3 today?

Welcome to geocaching! I think you found a bug - you're the first person to use it on their first day of caching . I'm guessing as soon you have another day of caching under your belt it will correct itself. But I'll add the problem to the todo list.

[+Team JSAM]

That looks really kewl I will check it out a bit later thanks for sharing.

[+abcdmCachers]

Nice! Well done. I'm a stats freak, so I liked it a lot.

 

On the first glance, I just saw our avg. diff/terrain is 7,26/7,04.

 

Keep it going!

I'm hoping the fix that I just uploaded to correct the "bad input string" error that tzoid got will fix this one too (a problem with regional settings). Although I would expect it to crash for you as well instead of giving an incorrect result. But please give the new version a try and let me know how it goes. You will need to first remove your current version using add/remove programs under the control panel before it will let you install the new version.

[+Airmapper]

Speaking of stats, I've gotten a record amount of profile visits today since I said I put in the exported code.

 

I like changing the color of the bars, I got them in blue now.

[+abcdmCachers]

Cool program! I just started and got my first three finds today! Then I downloaded your program and pasted the HTML into my profile.

 

One question...

 

Why does it list my most finds in ine day as 0 since I found 3 today?

Welcome to geocaching! I think you found a bug - you're the first person to use it on their first day of caching . I'm guessing as soon you have another day of caching under your belt it will correct itself. But I'll add the problem to the todo list.

Did you notice the other small problem? Find Rate: Infinity per day (Infinity per week). LOL. At least it didn't crash with a divide by 0 error.

[+erikwillke]

I dl'd the program and opened a pq with no problems. Looks good. The first suggestion for something I'd like to see would be to note atleast the GC# for the cache listed under the milestones such as number 100, 200, 300, etc.

 

Will tinker about a bit more.

 

Thanks for the program. I saw you had a Pente' game on site as well.

 

I agree about the GC for the milestone caches. I used it and I loved it. So much so that I have already updated my Profile

 

you'll notice that i removed Missouri from my map. that one was a virt that was designed to log remotely after completing a task. I like to only have states I have found a cache in on my map. otherwise. I LOVE IT.

[+Team JSAM]

Ok I dont see how to get the info in the program can someone push me in the right direction.

[+markz68]

Cool program! I just started and got my first three finds today! Then I downloaded your program and pasted the HTML into my profile.

 

One question...

 

Why does it list my most finds in ine day as 0 since I found 3 today?

Welcome to geocaching! I think you found a bug - you're the first person to use it on their first day of caching . I'm guessing as soon you have another day of caching under your belt it will correct itself. But I'll add the problem to the todo list.

 

Woohoo! What do I win? Does that count as an FTF?

[+geoPirat]

Thank you for this cool application. It works :-) fine !

[+Rick618]

This is from the page where you download the program:

 

To generate the GPX file that CacheStats analyzes, go to your Pocket Queries page on geocaching.com, then click on "Add to queue" in the My Finds section. This will send an email to you with an attachment. Unzip the attachment and save the GPX file to your hard drive, then open it using CacheStats.

[ParentsofSAM]

you'll notice that i removed Missouri from my map. that one was a virt that was designed to log remotely after completing a task. I like to only have states I have found a cache in on my map. otherwise. I LOVE IT.

 

How did you that? I have a state from a locationless but we have not cached there and would like to remove it.

 

I really love this program!

[+5winters]

One thing that would be good is to change the date of the current goal to see what kind of stats you need to maintain to reach it.

Bret

 

That would be the only thing I'd want to change too. Great program, thanks!

[+Maingray]

Yeah, I'd like the ability to ignore certain caches from the output map, eg locationless and a couple other "armchair" ones.

[+Team Henzlik]

Loaded clean the first time.....works great! Thanks for the app. Will you add an update link in the future? It would be great to keep this app up to date right from the prog itself.

[+markz68]

Cool program! I just started and got my first three finds today! Then I downloaded your program and pasted the HTML into my profile.

 

One question...

 

Why does it list my most finds in ine day as 0 since I found 3 today?

Welcome to geocaching! I think you found a bug - you're the first person to use it on their first day of caching . I'm guessing as soon you have another day of caching under your belt it will correct itself. But I'll add the problem to the todo list.

 

I'll get to check out that theory Sunday. Dad and I are going Geocaching for Father's Day!

[+ajayhawkfan]

This is great!!! Thank you.

[+4BOWS]

I like the fact that it separates the "# found/attended logs" from the "# unique caches visited".

 

Perhaps this could be implemented on geocaching.com and stop all the controversy going on about how many caches someone has "really" found.

[+The Fun Group]

I like the fact that it separates the "# found/attended logs" from the "# unique caches visited".

 

Perhaps this could be implemented on geocaching.com and stop all the controversy going on about how many caches someone has "really" found.

 

I like this feature too, but more so as a way to help keep my own stats in line. My "found" and "unique" numbers are different by 1, and when I saw that I did some research to find out why. Then I remembered... There was a local cache that was adopted by another cacher who replaced the container, moved the cache about 300 feet, updated the coords, and invited previous finders to find it again. The hiding method was different and produced a different caching experience. I had no problem logging that one a "second" time since the only thing that was the same was the name and GC number. Even though these numbers alone don't necessarily tell the whole story, I agree that this would be a cool feature for GC to implement.

 

As for CacheStats - I love it and updated my profile with it. I do have a few suggestions though. For html exporting, it would be nice to have an option to select the color of the section headers. Also, maybe filter out the the locationless caches from the states/countries visited and from the map (I manually did that).

[+Kryten]

If you enter the FTF screen and change the Search Phrase from "FTF" to "First to find" this generates an unhandled exception, strangely it doesn't happen if "First to Find" is entered instead.

 

See the end of this message for details on invoking

just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

 

************** Exception Text **************

System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: Specified argument was out of the range of valid values.

Parameter name: '0' is not a valid value for 'displayIndex'.

at System.Windows.Forms.ListViewItemCollection.get_Item(Int32 displayIndex)

at CacheStats.FirstToFindForm.LoadCacheList(ArrayList caches)

at CacheStats.FirstToFindForm.SearchAndLoadCacheList()

at CacheStats.FirstToFindForm.btSearch_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)

at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)

at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

 

************** Loaded Assemblies **************

mscorlib

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/microsoft.net/framework/v1.1.4322/mscorlib.dll

----------------------------------------

CacheStats

Assembly Version: 1.0.2348.35896

Win32 Version: 1.0.2348.35896

CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/LogicWeave/CacheStats/CacheStats.exe

----------------------------------------

System.Windows.Forms

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.windows.forms/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.windows.forms.dll

----------------------------------------

System

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll

----------------------------------------

System.Drawing

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.drawing/1.0.5000.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/system.drawing.dll

----------------------------------------

System.Xml

Assembly Version: 1.0.5000.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system.xml/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.xml.dll

----------------------------------------

hpcawwzf

Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll

----------------------------------------

uvdotq37

Assembly Version: 0.0.0.0

Win32 Version: 1.1.4322.2032

CodeBase: file:///c:/windows/assembly/gac/system/1.0.5000.0__b77a5c561934e089/system.dll

----------------------------------------

 

************** JIT Debugging **************

To enable just in time (JIT) debugging, the config file for this

application or machine (machine.config) must have the

jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.

The application must also be compiled with debugging

enabled.

 

For example:

 

<configuration>

<system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />

</configuration>

 

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception

will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the machine

rather than being handled by this dialog.

[rocketmann]

If I looked at this right you must have pocket queries emailed to you to get the program to calculate your stats. Since you have to be a premium member to create a pocket query, is there any way for the program to track your stats if you are not a premium member?

[+9Key]

Very cool! Thank you for you time putting this together and making it available for free.

[+abcdmCachers]

If I looked at this right you must have pocket queries emailed to you to get the program to calculate your stats. Since you have to be a premium member to create a pocket query, is there any way for the program to track your stats if you are not a premium member?

You are correct that CacheStats relies on the pocket queries file. If you keep track of your finds using some other program such as GSAK, it's possible that you could export to a .gpx file and use that as input to CacheStats. Should work in theory, but I can't guarantee the results.

[+abcdmCachers]

Glad people are enjoying the program. I'm keeping track of requests and I'll get to them as I get time. Thanks for your feedback. The one request I hear loud and clear is people want to change the color in the HTML output (What? you don't like the eTrex yellow?!)

 

The other common request is to show the cache for each milestone. The reason I didn't do it in the first place was because I didn't think the .gpx file included the order of caches on a particular date. For example, if you found 5 caches on the day you hit #100, I'd have no way to know which of the 5 was #100. So I was thinking I would have to add another dialog saying "here are the caches you found on the day you hit 100, which one was it?"

 

But I just realized the .gpx file includes a log ID which is apparently a counter which increases sequentially so I could use it to find the order that you logged caches on that day, and therefore have a good idea which one was the milestone. What do you think? Do you log the caches in the same order that you find them? I usually do, but not always. So maybe I should use the logging order as default, but have a mechanism for you to override if its incorrect.

 

I just uploaded a revision that fixes a few of the problems reported:

- fixes the crash on the FTF page reported by McKryton

- fixes the problem reported by markz68 of not listing your most caches found if you have only cached one day (actually the problem was worse than that - if your most recent day (or month) of caching was the record, it wouldn't report it).

- added a build number to the about box (this version is build #2356)

- Not really a problem, but I cleaned up the display of most found in day/month a bit (only show info for event temporaries if it's different than the most finds not counting temporaries), since for most people these numbers will be the same.

- I'm pretty sure this version fixes the crash for some European regional settings and the weird terrain / difficulty for other regions.

 

All for now.

[+markz68]

- fixes the problem reported by markz68 of not listing your most caches found if you have only cached one day (actually the problem was worse than that - if your most recent day (or month) of caching was the record, it wouldn't report it).

 

Thanks for the fix! My stats have been updated!