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I don't like the new look...


K-SQUARED

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Maybe it is because I am used to the old look of cache pages, but I don't like the new look, specifically the way the top of cache pages are now organized. I preferred the cache name, with cache owner underneath and then the coordinates.

 

Why do we have to have 2 maps now on the cache page?

 

I also do not like "Owner's Description:" above my cache description.

 

I also don't like the way photos are now displayed. I liked mousing over the icon to look at a photo and then clicking on it if I wanted to see it larger.

 

Just some observations and opinions...

 

-Kevin

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Seems like the pages are somewhat "fluid" now and changes are being made as we post here.

 

The pages are looking better now, although the text of one of mine that I have looked at, "Arachnophobes Not Invited," runs into the box for the Bookmarks on that page. Before there was way too much white space at the top, now there is no white space where there should be a little . . .

 

I also don't particularly care for the "Owner's Description" text above the description. :(

 

I also agree about the photos. Although, since I have a slow dialup connection, the pages load more quickly now. I like that. thumbsup.gif

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I've been holding back on commenting the new look for cache pages since the site is in a changing state. But one thing that does come to mind, that wouldn't it be logical if the print and download functions were grouped on the right into there own boxes just like the navigation, attributes, inventory and other boxes.

 

By the way the new top edge with cache name, owner and cache type information looks good now. If only the box with the coordinates would be more compact. And it would, if you moved the print and download functions... The coordinates box somehow dominates the page now and the cache description is lost somewhere in there.

 

And yes I also agree that the way photos are displayed is not the way I would choose to look at them.

 

73 de OH2TH

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:ph34r: Everything is now either broken, looks bad or doesn't exist anymore. (Everything is not an exageration). Just look at all the new forum posts in the last week or two.

 

Thereby forcing you to have to re-discover how to do things or press dozens of keystrokes and links to do everything you used to be able to do. :(

 

:( I just canceled my premium membership subscription (monthly) and WILL NOT pay again until the hampsters at geocaching.com stop messing around with THE LOOK of everything. :(

 

Perhaps they should not have ever fixed the servers, then they wouldn't have all this free time to screw around with all of us.

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:ph34r: Everything is now either broken, looks bad or doesn't exist anymore. (Everything is not an exageration). Just look at all the new forum posts in the last week or two.

 

Thereby forcing you to have to re-discover how to do things or press dozens of keystrokes and links to do everything you used to be able to do. :(

 

:( I just canceled my premium membership subscription (monthly) and WILL NOT pay again until the hampsters at geocaching.com stop messing around with THE LOOK of everything. :(

 

Perhaps they should not have ever fixed the servers, then they wouldn't have all this free time to screw around with all of us.

 

Dude!! Relax!! It's not that big of a deal. Change happens... flow with it.

 

It's just a new look that will settle down to a normal state soon enough. Change is a good thing... just let it wash over you and soak it all in!!

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I also don't particularly care for the "Owner's Description" text above the description. :(

Me either :( It seems redundant and ruins the flow of the owner's carefully crafted description (which, in the case of a puzzle, may actually be a part of some useful information).

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I also don't particularly care for the "Owner's Description" text above the description. :huh:

Me either :( It seems redundant and ruins the flow of the owner's carefully crafted description (which, in the case of a puzzle, may actually be a part of some useful information).

 

I like it. I'm new to the site, and I think it helps distinguish the description as being from the owner of the cache... Not only that, it ads an element of personality to the auto-generated data being displayed above it. It's nice to be reminded who worked so hard to hide the cache.

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So I can understand better.. how does a label and line below it throw off a description?

 

-Raine

I really, really appreciate all your hard work. And, it has to be very difficult to be doing this while all of us are observing the changes, some of which might be temporary and very transitional. :ph34r:

 

I guess I just didn't like the redundancy of "Miragee's Description" when in the Title bar it gives the name of the cache and the owner. Then, under the cache name is the owner's name again.

 

How about just saying "Cache Description"? :(

 

If you leave it the way it is, I'm sure I'll get used to it . . . :(

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Now I know how the developers of Vista felt :ph34r:
Firstly dont take it personally - and Vista's not that bad anyway.

 

Now to the detail:

 

Lots of grumbles in the UK forums but lets try and be helpful. Lets concentrate on issues of functionality that help us with our mad sport.

 

So a welcome to the 'send to GPS button'.

A welcome to the 'icon' summary :(:(

 

A welcome to Yahoo maps :( - better than the old UK grey stuff. The problem is where to stick the map. Actually the second so called detailed map is of no use whatsoever: Why? Because it conveys no useful usable info and a click on it brings up the Google maps which are a click away anyway. Lose the second map - FAST. Then place the first map down where the second map was.

 

In the UK give us back our CORRECT OSGRID coordinates, and place them on the top of the cache page underneath the trad GPS coords - as they were before. In the UK we can access OS maps online - and used to be able to do a quick cut and paste of coordinates to research footpaths, water hazards etc. Get that back fast please.

 

Give us back the GC reference on the print friendly page. Why? Well some of us do a quick cut and paste into Notepad of the essential stuff - and the essential stuff is no longer a quick cut and paste.

 

The WHITE family comment about NOT separating the key top data with the cache description is important - especially for puzzle cachers.

 

Now to the pictures: this page darkening trick is utterly infuriating. I coped with the hover over trick. Pictures are a minor issue and should be relegated back to that with a simple 'clik and see'. Bring back the ability to click through a sequence where a finder has a sequence. That functionality has been lost.

 

I'd like to stress that at all times in the design process consider yourself an active geocacher and consider what you really need to have visually working for you. The rest is icing on the cake.

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I've quite enjoyed watching the cache pages evolving over the last few days. :( How it looks right now is definately an improvement on last week (not that it was bad before, far from it!). I wasn't sure either about the "Description" label at first but I'm used to it already and it does not really bother me. The way the photos are now presented, again, I wasn't sure at first but I acually think I prefer it this way now. The new Yahoo maps are great too, especially the second one with more detail. The only things I would change are the chunky download buttons, maybe slim them down? Also there's quite a lot of white space at the top of the page above the cache name or is that just my browser? And maybe the coordinates could stand out more? Ooops, I'll stop now! :(

 

Keep up the good work!

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:ph34r::(:( :(

 

You forgot one smiley:

cf35b574-1418-44ae-804e-31575086b3b9.jpg

Sheesh. Relax! I've been here since 2001, and there's always changes - some for the better, some for the worse, and sometimes just a change. I often found when things settle down after major site changes that even if I complained about it originally, I not only eventually like the site better, I can't imagine WHY I liked the site the old way, or sometimes even how the site LOOKED!

 

Click to see an old version of the site

Edited by Markwell
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Raine,

 

The cache description text wraps too close to the left and right side bars. There should be more buffer added, say about 20 pixels more on each side. That'll make it easier to read when the side bars are full of verts and other info.

 

I have to agree two maps on the same page doesn't convey good info unless you use one to show street maps and the other to show satellite/aerial maps.

 

The rest of it looks ok and folks will eventually get used to the new look.

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:( Everything is now either broken, looks bad or doesn't exist anymore. (Everything is not an exageration). Just look at all the new forum posts in the last week or two.

 

Thereby forcing you to have to re-discover how to do things or press dozens of keystrokes and links to do everything you used to be able to do. :ph34r:

 

:( I just canceled my premium membership subscription (monthly) and WILL NOT pay again until the hampsters at geocaching.com stop messing around with THE LOOK of everything. :(

 

Perhaps they should not have ever fixed the servers, then they wouldn't have all this free time to screw around with all of us.

Something about a swinging door comes to my mind... ;)

 

Dude, this sport and site has always been about change. With improvements come change. With change come improvements.

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So I can understand better.. how does a label and line below it throw off a description?

 

-Raine

 

I don't necessarily dislike the new Description line, but it can lead to some odd things, such as on an adopted cache like GCGVOP, where that line shows up as:

 

TEAM 360, adopted by the Portland Community's Description:

Adding an apostrophe-S to such an owner name just looks strange. Perhaps it should just say "Description:"?

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The thing that I notice is that the box with the first map, coords, download info is to large to fit next to the navigation, attributes and bookmarks list, thus giving the cache page a staggered look. I have tried looking at the cache pages on two different sized monitors, thinking that it would correct itself, but it appears this way on both.

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Now I know how the developers of Vista felt <_<

No you don't. Your product isn't as bad! :P (Unless you had something to do with Waymarking.com.)

 

Seriously, it will take a while for the change to be comfortable for people. There may be a few suggestions that users give that you may want to look into.

 

Ken

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Chalk me up as another hater. I think the new layout is horrible. I also miss the mapquest maps big time. I live kind of out in the boonies so google earth has very low resolution satellite images. Mapquest has the detailed ones for my area. Can we maybe get a toggle to set which mapping site we want to use?

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I understand the new cache page look is still in flux. A few things I would like to put my two cents in about:

 

There is too much open space at the top of the page.

 

I don't care for the "Cacher's description" heading. it seems redundant and looks awkward with some cacher's names like "bobndwoods's". It really doesn't contribute anything to the page.

 

Yahoo Maps are great. They need to jump to the top of the page in the "printer friendly" version please. And, the GC# needs to be on the printer version too.

 

The area maps are ok. But, right now they look too tiny to be read. I think this is just a temporary glitch.

 

Thanks for all the good work.

 

Bob

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Why do we have to have 2 maps now on the cache page?

 

I also do not like "Owner's Description:" above my cache description.

 

I also don't like the way photos are now displayed. I liked mousing over the icon to look at a photo and then clicking on it if I wanted to see it larger.

 

-Kevin

 

I most definately agree on all points!! Besides, every one of those features requires even more bandwidth, not less, which is what I had assumed the goal was.

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I guess we are easy to please. Like the look and the functions. Maps are great!! Quick looks tells you what part of town it is in. Tried out the GPS download and it worked great with my GPS60. I am sure some of the issues relate to how people use this site. Personally we seldom read a cache page on-line, maybe to go back and look at something or to view a newly placed cache. Mostly we are pulling up pages from GSAK and Delorme on our laptop. So the page formating is not much of an issue. One thing we do like is the cache size, difficulty and terrain on a single line that is easy to find.

 

So thumbs up for:

Maps

GPS download

Ratings near the top and easy to find.

Coordinate translation.

 

Very nice job.

Edited by two left feet
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The new layout looks quite messy for those of us that are using a 800 X 600 display resolution. The new box with the coordinates is so wide that it is forced below the Navigation buttons, Attributes and Travel Bug info. This makes for really long pages with large amounts of white space on the left. If the layout in just that box could be rearainged to make the box slimmer, it would fit next to all of the info on the right, instead of below it. Whatever was changed in that box today is what is making it too wide. This morning's version worked fine.

 

Also, the cache size on a bunch of my caches is coming up as "Unknown". I have tried editing and saving the caches to see if it would correct the problem. No luck.

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I think it strange that Grounspeak seemed to be using the google maps and now the maps on a cache page are yahoo. Anyone know why?

 

edited: This is even funnier...I just clicked on the yahoo map at the bottom and it launched the google map.

Edited by Atwell Family
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Also, the cache size on a bunch of my caches is coming up as "Unknown". I have tried editing and saving the caches to see if it would correct the problem. No luck.

Would have to agree here. Just looked and my cache has a size but doesn't show on cache page. Looked at a few more and found that the sizes are off completly. I have a micro but shows as a small and small that shows as unknown?

Edited by Atwell Family
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The pages don't look good at all on my 17" monitor set at 800x600. I know that alot of you will say to bump it up to 1024x768 but doing that makes itt too dang small for me to read. I do hope that things will work out to help out those of us who are set in our ways! <_<

 

Oh, and i would like to see the coordinates themselves standout a bit more on the page. They seem to get drowned out with all the other information close to them.

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edited: This is even funnier...I just clicked on the yahoo map at the bottom and it launched the google map.
Yahoo to having Google Maps! <_<

 

Yeah, what's up with that? And the yahoo version is not that detailed either. It's as though it were a generic map with a "plug" for the yahoo website.

 

Though I will say the convenience of clicking and going straight to the google map is cool. It bypasses the whole GC.com map and the "beta feature" google map.

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<_< Have to agree with many of the comments above, particularly the UK specifics about OSGB co-ordinates. I know I need to come into caching in the 21st century with a PDA, but some of us still copy and paste relevenat parts of pages into Word (or similar) and then print a whole load of caches out at once (save the planet etc). With the excellent UK series of 1:50 000 mapping, it's probably MORE important to have the OSGB grib rather than the lat:long (GPS work in both, after all), but the map plot is all important in finding the right, and often legal trail.

 

What about a USER PREFERENCES page where each user tailors his/her page viewing experience as they want it? Time to get cutting and pasting for today's adventure on the trail!!!

 

Woof...

 

Carys T Dog

 

:P

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Here are Finnish comments to the matter:

 

A welcome to Yahoo maps <_< - better than the old UK grey stuff. The problem is where to stick the map. Actually the second so called detailed map is of no use whatsoever: Why? Because it conveys no useful usable info and a click on it brings up the Google maps which are a click away anyway. Lose the second map - FAST. Then place the first map down where the second map was.

 

I think that the first map is the useless one at least here in Finland. Why? Because if cache is situated outside of urban area it doesn't show any names of the area etc.

 

Give us back the GC reference on the print friendly page. Why? Well some of us do a quick cut and paste into Notepad of the essential stuff - and the essential stuff is no longer a quick cut and paste.

 

Totally agree!

 

Now to the pictures: this page darkening trick is utterly infuriating. I coped with the hover over trick. Pictures are a minor issue and should be relegated back to that with a simple 'clik and see'. Bring back the ability to click through a sequence where a finder has a sequence. That functionality has been lost.

 

I like the new picture system and there is possibility to click trough a sequence (If I understod what you ment).

 

I'd like to stress that at all times in the design process consider yourself an active geocacher and consider what you really need to have visually working for you. The rest is icing on the cake.

 

Different cachers have different needs.

Edited by Geovius
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edited: This is even funnier...I just clicked on the yahoo map at the bottom and it launched the google map.
Yahoo to having Google Maps! ;)

 

Yeah, what's up with that? And the yahoo version is not that detailed either. It's as though it were a generic map with a "plug" for the yahoo website.

 

Though I will say the convenience of clicking and going straight to the google map is cool. It bypasses the whole GC.com map and the "beta feature" google map.

I'm sure that they will get to it at some point. :D
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Dude, this sport and site has always been about change. With improvements come change. With change come improvements.

 

This would be quite right if ANYTHING that's been done to the web site is an improvement.

Do any of you thing that's the case? Perhaps one or two things are improvements, everything else is a bug or un-improvement. How many people have to post bug reports, or ask questions about something no longer on the web site like the GCasdf name (but of course it is there, you just have to go look for it elsewhere).

 

Everywhere I've worked we had design review meetings to discuss planned changes to our software. Nothing was done without discussing it. We also used software revision control so that when something breaks we can go back to the way it was if necessary. Here it looks like the developers think of something, implement it and therefore break something else. And more importantly, we made some changes to test software, not the real software, just to make sure nothing would go wrong. Here, with millions of people a day loging on you should try that. And also our SQA people would review all changes to see that what was discussed was implemented, see that there were no interactions with other parts of the software andjust plain take forever to release our changes, not instantly like at geocaching.com.

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Dude, this sport and site has always been about change. With improvements come change. With change come improvements.

 

This would be quite right if ANYTHING that's been done to the web site is an improvement.

Do any of you thing that's the case?

 

Yep... Sure do!!

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With regards to the comments about the two maps on the page, I wonder how a merged version, something like this, might be received:6f5de8ab-bffc-4774-a719-f97ae8ace028.jpg

 

I tried that a while back and got HUGE push back from the dial up users because Google maps is just to large to be used reasonably.

 

We're working on adding a "My Map Choice" so you can choose what map you want to see.

 

-Raine

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I think it strange that Grounspeak seemed to be using the google maps and now the maps on a cache page are yahoo. Anyone know why?

 

edited: This is even funnier...I just clicked on the yahoo map at the bottom and it launched the google map.

 

Because Yahoo provides a static map and google requires the download of large javascript files.

 

I went that route to save bandwidth for dial up users

 

See above post for "coming choices"

 

-Raine

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i'd like to clarify that while i hate the new look, this is an opinion based entirely on aesthetics. the new page looks cluttered to me, and what i perceive as things that ought to be headings are somewhere down the page.

 

if the thing is still in flux, it would be nice to give it a clean, strong look.

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Now I know how the developers of Vista felt ;)

Gadzooks, I would hope not.

 

I actually came into the thread to say that I really do like the new look. Originally I thought the new boxes at the top were too large and left too much whitespace on the page, and I wasn't happy that # of Watchers went away, but I figured it was livable.

And then you fixed both of those. The whitespace issue went away with the reformat of the map & download boxes, I love having the map up at the top so I can see where the cache is (and see if it's in my range or not!) without having to do ten "PageDowns" to get to the GoogleMaps link (because the inline map was too zoomed in to tell me anything).

 

<looks around>

:D

Oh. Whoops. This is the "DON'T LIKE" thread. Sorry for the...um...threadguatting.

 

<sidles out of the thread.

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Writing code and pleasing all of the people all of the time is no mean task!

So I am happy to add my appreciations to this interactive development process.

 

I can already detect a certain differences in flavour of response across geographic boundaries, and I know its not difficult code to include conditional additions for (eg. the UK OS coords) particular geographic areas. The same might apply to maps content in Finland.

 

I think it would be nice to have an 'options' button which fires up a cookie for a 'quick load' restricted graphic content. I use the PSP as a good on the go wifi browser screen and GC.COM cache pages is one of the very few that sends it out of memory. Those who browse in Europe with their phones (not a common US activity) will also note that it trips over.

 

I also concur that watchers is useful: OK its mostly pride .... but it is nice to know that a cache has a certain general 'success' in the wider community - and I do watch 'difficult' caches for 'clues'.

 

I like the main Yahoo Map - but its load time is awful - the second for my purposes is superfluous.

 

I'd like the printer friendly page to be REALLY printer friendly .... but then thst just me.

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That's a great link, Markwell, thanks.

 

But do you have a link to an old 'Hide and Seek a Cache' page? Ot to an actual cache page itself?

I bet that neither of them looked all that different 2 or 3 years ago to what they looked like 2-3 weeks ago before all this recent unrest among geocaching.com programmers.

Here's a cache page

Here's the old seek page.

 

Kinda sparse, eh? No Pocket Queries. We felt lucky if the cache page had a Tiger Census map on it. These are circa 2002.

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i'd like to clarify that while i hate the new look, this is an opinion based entirely on aesthetics. the new page looks cluttered to me, and what i perceive as things that ought to be headings are somewhere down the page.

 

if the thing is still in flux, it would be nice to give it a clean, strong look.

 

You have a strong point here. In addition to the terrible mapping choices that were made, the page just looks disorganized. It was worse at first, but now it's up to a "B", so maybe there is hope ;) .. There is still that big empty spot at the top of the page. Maybe the attributes or something could go there. Need something other than empty space Still need to fix that useless 1 square K Yahoo map. Make it 8 or 10 square K if it has to be Yahoo. Looking forward to being able to select the map source as was mentioned in another thread somewhere. I already pay for good online maps specifically for geocaching. If they were available here I'd drop that service and get a premium membership.

Edited by edscott
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Everywhere I've worked we had design review meetings to discuss planned changes to our software. Nothing was done without discussing it. We also used software revision control so that when something breaks we can go back to the way it was if necessary. Here it looks like the developers think of something, implement it and therefore break something else. And more importantly, we made some changes to test software, not the real software, just to make sure nothing would go wrong. ..................

 

I too live in a large production environment in a major hospital IT department. If we screw up something someone can get hurt or die. This is just a hobby and you can't justify the same software standards that a major corporation uses. I prefer to think of this as one HUGH beta test. :-)

 

So far nothing done on this web site has stopped me from the primary objective: Go find caches. Until a software bug prevents me from finding caches I will just report any bugs I see and keep on truckin'. It is not the website features that bring me enjoyment, it is the caching.

 

My $.02 worth. OK, more like $.035.

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In general, I like the newer look. But then I always have liked change as long as functionality that I use isn't taken away. :rolleyes: It's been fun to watch the evolving show (although if I did that to my production environment at work I'd be looking for a new job now).

 

One thing I just noticed...

 

"Description wrtten by nittany dave:" appears above the description of my caches. Who else would be writing my cache descriptions? It will probably be gone from the pages before I hit enter.

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That's a great link, Markwell, thanks.

 

But do you have a link to an old 'Hide and Seek a Cache' page? Ot to an actual cache page itself?

I bet that neither of them looked all that different 2 or 3 years ago to what they looked like 2-3 weeks ago before all this recent unrest among geocaching.com programmers.

Here's a cache page

Here's the old seek page.

 

Kinda sparse, eh? No Pocket Queries. We felt lucky if the cache page had a Tiger Census map on it. These are circa 2002.

 

Yup, it was much different and the change of the hide and seek page also had its bone pickers.

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