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I don't like the new look...


K-SQUARED

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Description written by Loch Cache:

 

I like it except for one cache where I placed it as "Wally the Green Monster and friends". Although you could click through to the profile to see it was me, and if you did you could guess the cache was in my hometown, in part I did not want to spotlight hat fact. Green Monster - Final #1 By putting that line in there every cacher knows I placed it. Since this series was placed in hometowns of the cacher everyone knows the final cache is in Woburn. (Assuming they know who I am.)

 

Please remove it. If we want to brag that we wrote the description we can put it in ourselves. Perhaps just Description written by cache owner: would do.

 

Loch Cache

 

Edit: I am on my daughter's computer and see I am logged in as her. Sorry.

Edited by Clockwork13
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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

 

I would like to see that implemented for sure. I'm not really a fan of google maps and yahoo looks cartoonish, but Mapquest was nice and very detailed.

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I like the idea of the change on the pages and the new look so far is a good work in progress.

 

Don't like:

 

Dercription written by: there is no need for this line. Just say Cache Description, and as a matter of fact I think the page might be better without any title to the description, we can figure that out. Besdides, we already know the cache owner wrote the description.

 

Yahoo maps clicking through to Google: actually its the google map showing more than one cache that's the visual problem for me. When I'm looking at a new cache I want to see where it is and it can be hard to find on the google maps if there is a high density of caches in the area. I think the Mapquest maps were clearer and more detailed to the others.

 

Right now no map comes up in the second map so something isn't quite right somewhere.

 

JD

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The good: I really like the new Yahoo map (the bigger one). It shows the context much better for urban caches, at least here in Canada.

 

The not-so-good: You now show event cache dates in US format, like this: 5/6/07. Canadians can't parse dates like that, because we never know if that's d/m/y (our style) or m/d/y (your style). The format you use elsewhere on the site, 6 May 07, is nice and short, and completely unambiguous. Can you use that for events too?

 

Thanks for listening and responding quickly to all the feedback!

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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

So far I Like the photo's. I agree it's a bit ugly but changes I'm seeing are making the pages handier. Ugly can be fixed later.

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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).

 

It's a good thing we're a loving family here.

LOL, you got that right!

 

Seriously, I do think it has been very interesting. And while some people may object, this method of development-listen to feedback-tweak-listen-... has made it seem like Groundspeak is taking their customers feedback into consideration more than I've ever observed before. :rolleyes: More like we are all a part of the design process, even if it isn't in the traditional (beta site) way. I know I keep going back to cache pages for no reason other than to see what has changed in the last few hours. Thanks for the fun! :D

Edited by nittany dave
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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).

 

It's a good thing we're a loving family here.

LOL, you got that right!

 

Seriously, I do think it has been very interesting. And while some people may object, this method of development-listen to feedback-tweak-listen-... has made it seem like Groundspeak is taking their customers feedback into consideration more than I've ever observed before. B) More like we are all a part of the design process, even if it isn't in the traditional (beta site) way. I

 

We do love you Raine and all the hard work you and the other Groundspeak crew have put into improving the site. B):D

 

After almost 20 years in Healthcare IT dealing with vendor systems and internal development, I have to chuckle about all of the "outrage" about the changes in the forums and the fact that this is the "production" environment!

 

Let's think about this logically gang:

Most of the changes are cosmetic. So you look at it in a "test" environment first -- who is going to critique it there? A select group of cachers? Then we have arguments about why "I" wasn't selected to test it. Groundspeak has released the changes -- none of which affects the ability to find caches -- and now is listening to feedback to make improvements to those changes within days! Tell me which major website or software vendor does that? I've worked with vendors who take feedback but then it takes months or years to see that improvement!!! And then some other vendors say "take it or leave it" when changes take place!

 

The only real "bug" has been to the GARMIN send to GPSr interface. This has not been developed by Groundspeak but by GARMIN -- take the issues on this problem to that vendor website and forum (if you can find it!).

 

My suggestion, if we truly want to improve the site -- let's keep our comments to suggestions about what we like and don't like. Ranting and raving about stopping subscriptions and "whose in charge" and "they didn't ask me" is simply "taking up bandwidth" as some of you would say!

 

Thanks to Groundspeak for their listening to the users and thanks to the users that are offering constructive critiques!

 

P.S. Raine, if you think this is bad -- at least some of your users are not DOCTORS!

Edited by LSUMonica
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Actually, I like a lot of the new format. Looks clean, and organizes the numerous links and options into manageable blocks. The Flash image previews are cool, too.

 

My one problem is with the "Description written by:" line. I've been adopting older caches, and leaving the descriptions as-is to honor the original owners. So when this automatic line fills in my name, it's a slight to the original owner.

 

Cache pages are pretty jam-packed with information. This line serves no purpose and can actually be wrong. I vote that it be eliminated.

 

Keep up the great work!

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Overall I like the changes to the cache pages

 

The good: I really like the new Yahoo map (the bigger one). It shows the context much better for urban caches, at least here in Canada.

I totally agree. The detail of Yahoo maps even in forested areas around my home (Alberta Canada) is surprisingly good.

 

My one problem is with the "Description written by:" line. I've been adopting older caches, and leaving the descriptions as-is to honor the original owners. So when this automatic line fills in my name, it's a slight to the original owner.

 

Cache pages are pretty jam-packed with information. This line serves no purpose and can actually be wrong. I vote that it be eliminated.

Again I agree for the reasons stated.

 

I do appreciate all the hard work by Raine and others. The way the pages were rendered initially by Mozilla (SeaMonkey) resulted in overlapping sections but these have all been resolved over the last day or two.

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Some observations:

 

I despise the new photo thing - it is slow and cumbersome - I really liked the mouseover where I could have a one second look at a photo if I was interested. Now it takes longer so I won't bother. Pretty does not make it better.

 

Why does it have to say who wrote the description? Just call it a description and be done with it. Just more clutter.

 

But the big one, and why I dropped in, was about DATE FORMAT.

 

Please, Make it say 12 Feburary, or February 12 or something universal. Because 2/12/2007 is the 2nd of December to me- and a lot of the rest of the world too.

 

Have you guys considered getting some useability experts in to help with the user interface? They are brilliant at what they do.

 

Cached in Australia

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Thanks, I did manage to talk myself through that one. LOL!

 

I think it's because way back when, when I was just a youngster cacher, the photos were not resized by the website and if your photo wasn't too many pixels, it would upload, otherwise you had to resize it first for it to be accepted. Those are probably the photos that didn't require resizing and they are bigger. Because they are pre-resizing time. You know, those old days people talk about. Oh so many years ago. Progress. Grow with it. I am so glad I don't have to resize my photos anymore! Thank you, Groundspeak.

Edited by Planet
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I appreciate the staff working to improve the site. My one dislike with the current page is the placement of the maps. I like the placement of the detailed map at the top of the page on the old print-friendly version. This is the most useful of the two maps. It now prints at the bottom of the page (at best) or on subsequent pages, depending on the length of cache description. This places the map on a different page from the cache coordinates. I would prefer these two pieces of information to be placed together at the top of the cache page.

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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.

 

Just some observations and opinions...

 

-Kevin

Maps-Yes,I like the old maps better myself.The ones they have now only show a star for most VT caches.

 

Pictures-NONSENSE!The way pictures are viewed now is MUCH better than the previous method.I just which they would create the option to view all pics for a cache,or just by one finder.

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First off, I for one love the direction the site is going in! :ph34r:

 

Being a paperless cacher, I rarely need to print out a page, but with all the discussion I had to go look and folks are correct, it could be much easier to use.

 

Someone should look into using a second style sheet with the "media" attribute set to print:

 

<LINK rel="stylesheet" type"text/css" href="print.css" media="print">

 

This sheet will be completely ignored by anything but printers. While this is not compatible in all browsers, that issue can be solved by also using a link much like the one we currently have.

 

BTW... I looked at the styles used on the "for print" page and it seems all that's happening is the loss of the nav and header and the "hiding" of the logs. This page has tons of room for optimization. In fact it may be that they just haven't gotten to it yet! :o

 

Thanks for all the work Web Folk :P , I've been there (I do this stuff too) and I know the feeling!

 

DCC

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I appreciate the staff working to improve the site. My one dislike with the current page is the placement of the maps. I like the placement of the detailed map at the top of the page on the old print-friendly version. This is the most useful of the two maps. It now prints at the bottom of the page (at best) or on subsequent pages, depending on the length of cache description. This places the map on a different page from the cache coordinates. I would prefer these two pieces of information to be placed together at the top of the cache page.

 

Ditto. :blink:

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But the big one, and why I dropped in, was about DATE FORMAT.

 

Please, Make it say 12 Feburary, or February 12 or something universal. Because 2/12/2007 is the 2nd of December to me- and a lot of the rest of the world too.

 

<snip>

 

Cached in Australia

Ahhh, you guys just do things backwards on that half of the world. Tell me, when water goes down one of your drains, does it swirl clockwise or counter-clockwise, huh? :blink:

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Aww, those Aussies are just angry because they can't see our cool constellations, like Orion and Ursa Major. They have their wimpy constellations, like.... erm, well, I don't know exactly, but they can't be as cool as ours.

 

Plus, the Northern Lights are a bust for them, too, and they're just sore about it...

 

:blink:

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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.

 

I do see improvements happening based on live feedback from folks willing to give it. Makes me glad they're not paying much attention to the folks who chose to whine about how it should be done becuase that's the way they would do it. The site is being tweaked live per the preferances of the community which will lead towards a more usable site than the very expensive way you suggest to have it done.

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I absolutely HATE everything about the new changes. The Top map shows squat unless the cache happens to be in the city. The Lower map shows me some freaking bay area city that has NOTHING to do with the caches in my area. What's up with that? Also, it seems that all of the Greasemonkey scripts seem to have been deliberately torpedoed. I have a script that adds in a "Directions from Thrak's house" link in the map choices. It no longer functions - in fact, it doesn't even show up. I had one that showed the number of finds, dnfs, notes, etc. It no longer shows up at all but the one that is now forced on everybody had completely bogus numbers that make no sense at all.

 

What is going on? Is there a major crack smoking party happening at Groundspeak?

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Actually I'm beginning to like the settled version. There was always a danger of info-overload on the new design but we've stepped back from the brink and I think its fine.

 

Oddity: the piccies can scroll forward on the 'next' tab but not backwards - or am I missing sumfing?

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Actually I'm beginning to like the settled version. There was always a danger of info-overload on the new design but we've stepped back from the brink and I think its fine.

I agree. The latest version looks good.

 

But where has the top map gone? There's just a load of whitespace there now.

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Actually I'm beginning to like the settled version. There was always a danger of info-overload on the new design but we've stepped back from the brink and I think its fine.

I agree. The latest version looks good.

 

But where has the top map gone? There's just a load of whitespace there now.

Look top right, above the cache action links.

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Actually I'm beginning to like the settled version. There was always a danger of info-overload on the new design but we've stepped back from the brink and I think its fine.

I agree. The latest version looks good.

 

But where has the top map gone? There's just a load of whitespace there now.

Look top right, above the cache action links.

Nope, not for me! Not been there at all today! And what was wrong with where it was, along with the location info which is what the map was showing!!! Why when it all seemed to settle down are there more changes?

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Look top right, above the cache action links.

Errmm.. I think I'd notice if there was a map :ph34r:. It is not there, it has gone.

 

untitled2.JPG

 

As of this morning, there is now a View Map link at the bottom of the info box:

 

"In Minnesota, United States [view map]"

 

Seems redundant to me, since I can view the map of my chosing below, but MUCH better, IMHO, than displaying two maps.

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Description written by Loch Cache:

 

I like it except for one cache where I placed it as "Wally the Green Monster and friends". Although you could click through to the profile to see it was me, and if you did you could guess the cache was in my hometown, in part I did not want to spotlight hat fact. Green Monster - Final #1 By putting that line in there every cacher knows I placed it. Since this series was placed in hometowns of the cacher everyone knows the final cache is in Woburn. (Assuming they know who I am.)

 

Please remove it. If we want to brag that we wrote the description we can put it in ourselves. Perhaps just Description written by cache owner: would do.

 

Loch Cache

 

Edit: I am on my daughter's computer and see I am logged in as her. Sorry.

 

I'd like to hear why they felt that was neccessary in the first place. First, who cares? And second, who else might the description be written by? Its redundant, people don't like it, its just plain silly...lose it, please!

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All fixed, Raine. Thanks!

 

And yes, it was IE7, latest service packs.

 

On a side note, I second Allan's remarks of liking the map in the left side box better. My eyes flow that part of the page first. Great job on the site, though. Overall I'm loving the new changes. :ph34r:

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Its one of those balance things where we have one side yelling that it won't view well in 800x600 and then the other side not liking the map period and then that one side we just don't talk about.

 

-Raine

 

I was thinking about pulling out my old Commodore 64, or my Vic 20... do you think you can reengineer the site so that it looks good on my monochrome monitors?

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Its one of those balance things where we have one side yelling that it won't view well in 800x600 and then the other side not liking the map period and then that one side we just don't talk about.

 

-Raine

 

I was thinking about pulling out my old Commodore 64, or my Vic 20... do you think you can reengineer the site so that it looks good on my monochrome monitors?

How bout my TV with some lights glued to it and wired up to a typewriter?

 

What? :blink:

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