A little grumble

[+kewfriend]

I know I am not the brightest sparkler in the firework box BUT

 

Why has the GC reference disappeared from the cache page descriptions? Am I alone in thinking this is BIZARRE?

 

I still cache with bits of paper printed out from GC.COM, and then when I get back I look at my bits of paper and type back in the GC number. Now I am SKEWERED. OK, like everyone I'll find a work around but this really seems a step backward.

 

Do our mods know why this advanced technological concealment has been used?

 

Does anyone else wish to voice a protest?

[+The Bolas Heathens]

It's in big letters at the top right of any cache page

[+John Stead]

On the pages I've just downloaded it is there where it has been for a long time, top right in large blue letters, mind you if you print it out in monochrome as I do on a laser printer it is a bit faint.

What I do not like is the amount of space the new location and download boxes take up as they make it less likely that you can print all you want to see on two pages.

[Nediam]

As the Heathens have said, it is still shown at the top right corner of the page. BUT when you click on the "Make this printer friendly link", it disappears!

 

It looks like TPTB are doing another cache page update and moving stuff around and adding maps etc. Give it a little while and they may realise they've missed it off and put it back. Or they may have decided that they didn't need it on the page twice

Edited May 29, 2007 by Nediam

[nobby.nobbs]

not made my mind up about the changes yet but i'll carry on doing what i always did for printing, cut and paste it into a word doc then you can edit all the extra rubbish off and print out just one sheet....

[Lactodorum]

Another little "quirk" I've seen. If you click on the "other conversions" link there's a problem with the British Grid value. The two letter prefix is missing and the value is completely wrong, e.g. on the GC134MY cache page it is correctly given as SO 41949 58623 whereas on the "other conversions" page it is shown as 258624 341950.

[+SimonC_Here]

Also in the title bar (of ie7) the cache code is GCXXX then the description.

Anyone else notice there is a new error on the pages. "Uncaught exception"?

 

Simon

[+The Cache Hoppers]

not made my mind up about the changes yet but i'll carry on doing what i always did for printing, cut and paste it into a word doc then you can edit all the extra rubbish off and print out just one sheet....

 

If you use GSAK, there is an excellent way of printing off abbreviated cache listings. Set up your filter for the caches you want to print out info for, then open GSAK, click on File, Print, - there are two choices here Grid Columns or Condensed HTML. Try both and click on Preview to see what you get. There are a few other tweaks in there which I haven't really experimented with although I have it set to print out hints and I don't think that was a default setting. Mine was set up by PopUpPirate who has it off to a fine art.

 

Edited to add apologies for going slightly Off Topic!

Edited May 30, 2007 by The Cache Hoppers

[+kewfriend]

OK Its my age - but I just couldnt see it

 

Actually I think its re-appeared because its definitely NOT on the printout version at 10:00am this morning.

 

Hmmm ... am I really 'losing' it - anyone know a good psychotherapist optician? I can obviously barely see these days.

[+Stuey]

It's still not on the "print friendly" version. It is on the PDF version and the main cache page though.

 

I'm paperless, so it doesn't affect me though.

[+keehotee]

e.g. on the GC134MY cache page it is correctly given as SO 41949 58623 whereas on the "other conversions" page it is shown as 258624 341950

 

This is the format our GIS server at work uses for co-ords - great for plotting super-precise maps....I just have to figure a way to get waypoints to show on it

[+Moote]

Another little "quirk" I've seen. If you click on the "other conversions" link there's a problem with the British Grid value. The two letter prefix is missing and the value is completely wrong, e.g. on the GC134MY cache page it is correctly given as SO 41949 58623 whereas on the "other conversions" page it is shown as 258624 341950.

Mr Lactodorum Sir

 

These are National Grid references, they are based on an imaginary point somewhere south and west of Cornwall , this is a full reference from that point. The SY, TU etc are 100Km squares which are set out from that point and just make things easy to work with.

 

Now what I have noted is that the 2 references you quote are 1m out both in the northing and easting, they should be the same.

 

For peoples interest here is the OS explanation

 

The Origin of the National Grid

 

The True origin latitude and longitude coordinates of the national grid are 49 Degrees North: 2 degrees West : The False origin latitude and longitude or coordinates are 49 degrees 45 minutes and 58 seconds North : 7 degrees 33 minutes 23 seconds West.

 

The False origin which lies slightly southwest of the Isles of Scilly was devised to ensure that all National Grid coordinates were positive (i.e. to the east and north of origin 00) 400km are added to all eastings coordinates and 100km subtracted from all northings coordinates. If coordinates were calculated from the true origin, the positions lying west of the central meridian would be negative and the northings, although positive would exceed 1000km for some points in northern Scotland.

 

Using the National Grid

 

The National Grid, like its military predecessors, consists of a systematic breakdown of the Grid area into progressively smaller squares identified first by letters and then numbers. The largest unit of the grid is 500km squares each designated by a prefix letter alphabetically from A-Z omitting I - the first letter to be quoted in today's National Grid Reference. Great Britain is covered only by four of these squares - H, N, S and T. The 500km squares are then further broken down in to twenty-five 100km squares which are identified by a letter, again A - Z omitting I ( the second letter quoted in a reference).

On Ordnance Survey maps these squares are divided into smaller squares by grid lines representing 10 km spacing each numbered 0 - 9, from the South West Corner in an Easterly and Northerly direction. So a 10km grid square can be identified using the two letters i.e. TQ and then the eastings and northings i.e. TQ 6 3.

 

On Landranger Maps the two grid letters i.e. TQ or SU etc can be found on the legend or the corner of the map. The 10km grid is then further broken down into 1km grid squares. By estimating the eastings and northings to one tenth of the grid interval a full six figure grid reference can be specified which is accurate to 100m on the ground.

[Edgemaster]

The confusion there is probably because e/n should be displayed the other way around?

 

Edit: Yes, the 'British Grid' coordinates are shown incorrectly, the convention is to show easting first.

And, this will be even worse now they've removed the normal grid reference from the cachepage itself.

Edited May 30, 2007 by Edgemaster

[+Team Sieni]

Streetmap.co.uk links use the OS co-ords in this fashion too, eg (in the example given)

http://www.streetmap.co.uk/newmap.srf?y=258624&x=341950

[+Moote]

A nice feature is the new Send To GPS button, and this works

 

You will need a Garmin GPS, preferably with USB though, Garmin say it might work with COM ports, and even USB to COM adaptors.

[+FollowMeChaps]

It doesn't seem to work with my old faithful yellow eTrex

 

EDITED:

Seems I've proved myself wrong - it will work with the good ol' yellow if you first download the Garmin communicator software.

Edited May 30, 2007 by FollowMeChaps

[Lactodorum]

Mr Lactodorum Sir

 

These are National Grid references, they are based on an imaginary point somewhere south and west of Cornwall , this is a full reference from that point. The SY, TU etc are 100Km squares which are set out from that point and just make things easy to work with.

Thank you for enlightening me It's the first time I've come across this format so I'm guessing that not too many people use it on a daily basis. I think I'll stick to using the usual 2 letter prefix version when working with paper maps.

 

You live and learn!!

[+t.a.folk]

For us the new format means using more paper to do printouts .

 

Tried printing out the details of a cache that previously used only one sheet of paper to print down to the include the Additional hint .

The new version spread onto a second sheet of paper to include the Additional hint .

[+lordelph]

FWIW, I've quickly patched the map linking script here http://files.dixo.net/GeocachingMapLinker.user.js - at the moment this just inserts an OS map link and grid reference after the WGS84 coordinate at the top of the page. Soon as I can make it look nice I'll put the other links like Google Satellite etc.

[+FollowMeChaps]

FWIW, I've quickly patched the map linking script here http://files.dixo.net/GeocachingMapLinker.user.js - at the moment this just inserts an OS map link and grid reference after the WGS84 coordinate at the top of the page. Soon as I can make it look nice I'll put the other links like Google Satellite etc.

 

Sorry Lordelph - I've installed your script but can't see any OS link???

[+lordelph]

If you post a link to a cache page it doesn't work on, I'll check it out.

 

It's also possible you have an older version cached, try this link instead

[+FollowMeChaps]

Thanks - It may be me as it seem to be all of them but an eg would be http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...cab0d&log=y

 

Thanks for the link to the script but I don't know how to add it. I'm a bit of a luddite - all the others I've installed seem to generate an install button but this one doesn't - sorry to be so thick but I do love your scripts.

[+lordelph]

Script works on example given, sadly the secondary link to the script I gave isn't much help, but try this one http://files.dixo.net/GeocachingMapLinker70.user.js

[+FollowMeChaps]

Script works on example given, sadly the secondary link to the script I gave isn't much help, but try this one http://files.dixo.net/GeocachingMapLinker70.user.js

 

It must be me - your new script works but I'm still seeing nothing. Is this where I should be looking:

 

[Edgemaster]

Script works on example given, sadly the secondary link to the script I gave isn't much help, but try this one http://files.dixo.net/GeocachingMapLinker70.user.js

 

It must be me - your new script works but I'm still seeing nothing. Is this where I should be looking:

Yes, yours appears to be broken. The script seems to work well here, it looks like this:

[+FollowMeChaps]

Many thanks to both Lordelph & Edgemaster. Having removed all my map scripts then reinstalling it I've at last got it to work, phew!

 

There seem to be around 3 threads discussing Greasemonkey scripts. Moderators, can't they be added to the Resources For Caching In The Uk And Ireland thread?

[+Sensei TSKC]

Script works on example given, sadly the secondary link to the script I gave isn't much help, but try this one http://files.dixo.net/GeocachingMapLinker70.user.js

 

It must be me - your new script works but I'm still seeing nothing. Is this where I should be looking:

Yes, yours appears to be broken. The script seems to work well here, it looks like this:

 

Oooh Errr. have installed the script and it resulted in this:-

What's happened to the squished up map?

[Edgemaster]

The squished map is my fault.

Its corrected in the latest revision of my script.

 

(I had no idea at all what caused it, so I just set it to what it should be, very odd)

[+Big Wolf]

Another moan is the cache size indicator has also changed and is now a graphic and just to make it interesting there is no clue as to what is what! The smallest picture is almost illegible on my injet printer and goodnes knows what it will be like should a spot of rain land on the print out and cause the ink to run.

 

Most of the changes in the oast have been for the beter but its a backward step not to have the uk grid directly on the page and in a format that no-one uses.

 

Perhaps the old design could be put back as it was more usefull than the current offering.

[+4 Badgers]

Is anyone else getting the problem with the 'print PDF' function whereby it now tries to squash two pages onto one and you end up losing some of the cache details? I'm beginning to wonder whether someone has fiddled with my Adobe Acrobat settings, but I can't seem to get it to appear on one A4 page???

[+Stuey]

Another moan is the cache size indicator has also changed and is now a graphic and just to make it interesting there is no clue as to what is what!

 

The size indicator has been a graphic for ages. There is a problem with the graphic on the cache pages though, they always seem to show "unkown" (the question mark), but the graphic that shows on the list of caches that comes up after a "nearest caches....." type of query is correct (micro, small, regular, large, unknown). There are so many bugs in this new release it's a real shame. It appears that no testing at all has been done before releasing it.

[+Bambography]

Is anyone else getting the problem with the 'print PDF' function whereby it now tries to squash two pages onto one and you end up losing some of the cache details? I'm beginning to wonder whether someone has fiddled with my Adobe Acrobat settings, but I can't seem to get it to appear on one A4 page???

I think this problem has been mentioned on the main Geocaching Website forums. There are New Site Bug threads running there.

[+Bambography]

Another moan is the cache size indicator has also changed and is now a graphic and just to make it interesting there is no clue as to what is what!

 

The size indicator has been a graphic for ages. There is a problem with the graphic on the cache pages though, they always seem to show "unkown" (the question mark), but the graphic that shows on the list of caches that comes up after a "nearest caches....." type of query is correct (micro, small, regular, large, unknown). There are so many bugs in this new release it's a real shame. It appears that no testing at all has been done before releasing it.

The graphic was always there however it also stated in plain text how big it was 'This is a small cache' etc.