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NEW GOOGLE maps on cache pages

gvsu4msu

By gvsu4msu
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WRASTRO

+WRASTRO

Posted
Posted

Just noticed a new map feature on the cache pages. You cannot click on it to view caches nearby - you now have to find the "geocaching.com google map link".

 

What are your thoughts?

 

It looks like the lower map has been switched to the Google map, but I generally click on the "view map" link right below the Send to Phone button. Not sure what other link you are referring to.

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butrflybec

+butrflybec

Posted
Posted

Yeah I kept clicking on the map waiting it to pull up the map page like normal, then realized there was something different here..whoops. I like the way the map looks, and don't mind having to move my mouse to the geocaching.com google map link on the left to pull up the map to see the surrounding caches, I'll just have to remember to do so and stop clicking on the actual map image..ha. :laughing:

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gvsu4msu

+gvsu4msu

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Just noticed a new map feature on the cache pages. You cannot click on it to view caches nearby - you now have to find the "geocaching.com google map link".

 

What are your thoughts?

 

It looks like the lower map has been switched to the Google map, but I generally click on the "view map" link right below the Send to Phone button. Not sure what other link you are referring to.

 

At the bottom of the cache page.

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DavidMac

+DavidMac

Posted
Posted

I like it... almost. I liked having the zoom levels listed as numbers 1-9; five zoom levels (street, neighborhood, state, etc) is way too few. And I do think the "state" designation is a little US-centric. I do like that the map can be zoomed way out, though.

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DavidMac

+DavidMac

Posted
Posted (edited)

At the same time that the maps on cache pages were switched to the Google map, I noticed that some minor changes were made to the Geocahing.com Google Maps. Now there are a couple of issues.

 

First, please, please put the links to cache pages back in the search results! The javascript looks nice and flashy, but when I'm pulling up several caches I don't like to wait for the map to pan over so that each individual bubble can pop up. It's twice as many clicks.

 

At the same time, now the results list has a horizontal scrollbar at certain (smaller) window resolutions. Shouldn't the size of the list be static? Not everybody browses in a window that is 1024 pixels wide.

 

Third, the window has no title anymore.

 

edit: removed some wayward punctuation.

Edited by DavidMac
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butrflybec

+butrflybec

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yeah it was nice when clicking on the name took you straight to the cache page as opposed to having to wait for the map to recenter and the bubble to pop up and then you have to click on the name again to go to the cache page. It's just an appreciated time saver.

 

Also I don't know if this is true for everyone, but when I'm looking at several caches on the map, and the scroll bar pops up on the right, the very edge of the last character in the GC# is cut off (only the ones containing 6 or more characters), and that's with the window maximized.

 

edit: I can't count...

Edited by butrflybec
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JABs

+JABs

Posted
Posted

Quote from Davidmac-At the same time, now the results list has a horizontal scrollbar at certain (smaller) window resolutions. Shouldn't the size of the list be static? Not everybody browses in a window that is 1024 pixels wide.

I to have found that some of the longer GC numbers the 5 didget is hidden behind the scrollbar.

But otherwise like the new maps on the cache pages.

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Lt.Ranger.Bob

+Lt.Ranger.Bob

Posted
Posted

I think this is a terrible change and would rather have the old maps back.

 

And that is because...?

I liked the old maps better. I can not even use these new maps. I will now have to click on the "View Maps" to get the type of maps I use, which I did not have to do in the past. Hopefully this function will not be removed.

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butrflybec

+butrflybec

Posted
Posted (edited)

DavidMac:

 

I'm adding the link back.

 

DavidMac & Butrflybec:

 

What browser are you using? Is it IE by chance?

 

-Raine

 

I normally use IE here at work, and Firefox at home. Just out of curiosity I pulled up the same map on my dual monitors (which are the exact same), one in Firefox and one in IE, and in Firefox the last character is not cut off and the horizontal scroll bar comes up, as where in IE the last character is cut off and there isn't a horizontal scroll bar. Guess I just need to use Firefox here at work.. :laughing:

 

edit: I should learn to spell too...

Edited by butrflybec
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Tech Nic

+Tech Nic

Posted
Posted

I am disappointed in the cahnge in maps. I just tried both FireFox and IE Explorer, and both ae the same. I can't click on satellite view anymore, nor pan the maps. Giant leap backwards. I don't know if this is what those people had in mind when they were crying to have the old maps back.

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Tech Nic

+Tech Nic

Posted
Posted

It now takes one more step to get the information that was at hand before. That step being that you now have to select an online map from the list to the left of the Google map.

It does work, that is, you get the satellite view, and can pan the map using FireFox AND Windows IE Explorer now. I guess this is how GC is getting around the map panning problem most IE Explorer users are having. Good? Bad?

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JABs

+JABs

Posted
Posted

Hate to say I found a problem but when you go to a cache page and click on Make this page print-friendly (no logs), it brings up a very simple cache page for printing.

But the map on the bottem of the page does not show up. all you get is a grey square.

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Raine

+Raine

Posted
Posted

Tech Nic: there has never been a pan-able google map on the cache details page. So what exactly are you having issues with?

 

JABs: thanks for the heads up on that.

 

WRASTRO:

I have a hard time understanding why the ones already aren't enough...

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WRASTRO

+WRASTRO

Posted
Posted

Hate to say I found a problem but when you go to a cache page and click on Make this page print-friendly (no logs), it brings up a very simple cache page for printing.

But the map on the bottem of the page does not show up. all you get is a grey square.

 

When I try this I still get the Yahoo map which looks just fine.

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JABs

+JABs

Posted
Posted
Tech Nic: there has never been a pan-able google map on the cache details page. So what exactly are you having issues with?

 

JABs: thanks for the heads up on that.

 

WRASTRO:

I have a hard time understanding why the ones already aren't enough...

 

 

Due to several reasons I'm unable to always go paperless and therefore use this secondary page print option which helps save ink.

 

 

These maps help when you are sorting out pages later, as it gives you a rough guide as to where the cache is located.

 

 

Again thanks for continuing to improve the overall features of the GC site.

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DavidMac

+DavidMac

Posted
Posted

DavidMac:

 

I'm adding the link back.

 

 

Thanks!

 

What browser are you using? Is it IE by chance?

 

Firefox 3 RC1 on Ubuntu 8.04 and Mac OS X. I played around with it, and discovered that long cache names with no spaces are what was causing me to see the horizontal scrollbar. And it was one of my caches that was causing it :laughing: . Take a look at the Google map around GC17TMD to see an example.

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Raine

+Raine

Posted
Posted

DavidMac: Yah, having a long cache title with no spaces is going to mess that list up. That's really out of my control until the ellipses CSS tag is fully supported :laughing:

 

Croft House Cachers: ... Street, City, etc.. are just designations for a zoom level, not actually saying its on a street.

 

-Raine

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WRASTRO

+WRASTRO

Posted
Posted

Tech Nic: there has never been a pan-able google map on the cache details page. So what exactly are you having issues with?

 

JABs: thanks for the heads up on that.

 

WRASTRO:

I have a hard time understanding why the ones already aren't enough...

 

In my area I pretty much only use the two closest zoom levels (on the new Google maps) and it seems like they are farther "apart" from what was available on the Yahoo maps. The high level zooms are of no interest to me since I am in the Seattle area and they don't give me any useful info. Purely personal and selfish.

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WRASTRO

+WRASTRO

Posted
Posted

Tech Nic: there has never been a pan-able google map on the cache details page. So what exactly are you having issues with?

 

JABs: thanks for the heads up on that.

 

WRASTRO:

I have a hard time understanding why the ones already aren't enough...

 

In my area I pretty much only use the two closest zoom levels (on the new Google maps) and it seems like they are farther "apart" from what was available on the Yahoo maps. The high level zooms are of no interest to me since I am in the Seattle area and they don't give me any useful info. Purely personal and selfish.

 

Wow! New levels added. Too cool. Thanks!

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Bambography

+Bambography

Posted
Posted

Raine-

Going back to something you suggested earlier, Region would be a much better term than City. On my local caches, 'City' overs several seperate large towns and a lot of countryside. I realise you have some very large cities over there, but Region would describe it much better here in the UK and, i suspect, in much of the world.

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Raine

+Raine

Posted
Posted

Trucker Lee:

I'm working on getting the actual list to scroll to the correct position and to also support sorting on the columns.

 

xshooter:

It's hard to get the correct level for every cache. If one cache is out in the middle of a field, it will just show the marker and nothing else of interest. So, I've left it at what I feel is a pretty good zoom level.

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Tech Nic

+Tech Nic

Posted
Posted

Tech Nic: there has never been a pan-able google map on the cache details page. So what exactly are you having issues with?

 

JABs: thanks for the heads up on that.

 

WRASTRO:

I have a hard time understanding why the ones already aren't enough...

It seems for a time today, when I click on the map on the details page, nothing comes up. It just stays on the details page.

Now clicking on the map on the details page, it brings up a Google map that is panable.

I guess, if it is broke, wait five minutes.

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iryshe

iryshe

Posted
Posted

Tech Nic: there has never been a pan-able google map on the cache details page. So what exactly are you having issues with?

 

JABs: thanks for the heads up on that.

 

WRASTRO:

I have a hard time understanding why the ones already aren't enough...

It seems for a time today, when I click on the map on the details page, nothing comes up. It just stays on the details page.

Now clicking on the map on the details page, it brings up a Google map that is panable.

I guess, if it is broke, wait five minutes.

 

The confusion was around the fact that the cache details page never had a pannable map because JavaScript tends to slow down the dial-up users. What happened between the first time you tried it and the second time is that the link was re-added to the static image to open up the larger map.

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MountainRacer

+MountainRacer

Posted
Posted

Just signed in to check on the new map for the first time today, and I like what's been done so far. I noticed minor zoom-level differences (the largest map size I can display around my home coords with under 500 caches is slightly larger), but that's not a bad thing. Currently, the page is without a title, which is also a comparatively minor issue. Disabled caches appear to be registering in light gray boxes instead of yellow; I don't know if that's an issue or a change. Finally, on my wish-list for the map screen is a shorter right-side scrolling list of the caches, so that I don't have to scroll the main screen down past the map to see the most recently added cache at the bottom of that list. Thanks.

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Kiwi Nomad

+Kiwi Nomad

Posted
Posted

Wow!

First of all I love the google maps on the cache page.

I now get a much better idea as to where the cache is straight away.

 

Second I didn't know I could double click on the map at the bottom to get it to open up, so will be using that from now on.

 

Thirdly the tabs are fine for me and I am not too worried about how they are titled, I understand what they are there for and that it's not possible to have them different for each cache.

 

Unfortunately there has to be a request as well. Would it be possible to change the maps on the printer friendly page to match that on the cache page, so that when I am away from my computer doing some hunting it doesn't matter if everything comes of the seat as I go around the corner I can still work out which order I was going to find them in.

 

Thanks so far for all you have done I can tell from this thread that you are listening to our requests and changing what you can. It is goo being able to read comments back from you guys so we know whats happening.

 

insert: thumbs up smiley (sorry don't know how you'll have to use your imagination)

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Knight-Errant

Knight-Errant

Posted
Posted

More of a note to the Groundspeak Lackeies. . .

 

We have also noticed the map change on the cache web pages (from Yahoo! to Google) and don't see much difference with them, but do have two issues:

 

1) The upper map (general) seems too detailed. We use that one to tell us approximately what city it is in and the lower for a more specific area. The new upper map is currently too detailed to even determine the city.

 

2) We have had an ongoing problem with the Geocaching.com Google Map link maps. While it appears great on the screen, a printout of the map alway cuts off the right 1/2 to 2/3, making printing this feature useless to us. If there is a way around it (aside from elimiating the search results list from the printout) we have not found it. The Google Maps link maps print fine, but don't show cache name or nearby caches.

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The Hornet

+The Hornet

Posted
Posted

First off I would state that IMHO Google maps are superior to Yahoo maps in my locality and probably most of the world. However they are still virtually useless when compared to our Ordnance Survey (Topographic) maps. I suspect that other parts of the world have similarly detailed maps too.

 

Firefox/Greasemonkey users here are fortunate to have a cacher called Edgemaster who has developed a GM script which replaces these maps on the cache pages with useful ones.

 

However for those poor souls who are stuck with IE :) or those who cache in areas not covered by these scripts I would echo what has been suggested above and recommend that the "narrative" zoom levels be replaced by either + & - or just use numbers. The choice of words seems a little odd to me even though as an English speaker I can understand them. What must a cacher in Germany, Japan, Mexico or wherever think about them? Even here in England some may struggle with the context.

 

As a matter of interest, were the international reviewers consulted for their thoughts on how these descriptions would be viewed around the world before they were chosen? If not, you might want to consider that when making similar changes in future.

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Parabola

+Parabola

Posted
Posted

 

The confusion was around the fact that the cache details page never had a pannable map because JavaScript tends to slow down the dial-up users.

 

Ah, dial up??? What's that?? :)

 

Love the new lower map. I really like the 1, street, 2,3, neighborhood, city, etc.... That makes a whole lot more sense to me than the yahoo ones. Plus I like how much more detailed they area.

 

The upper map though with I click on it I get a bigger white box with the loading wheel in the center. And that doesn't seem to ever stop. I'm running Vista and using the latest IE software. (alright you can laugh about that).

 

But really a big thumbs up from me on that lower map. I had often jumpped over to the pan-able ones and would zoom in to see some of the details of the areas. Now I can do it all one page.

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Alan White

Alan White

Posted
Posted

I don't much use the cache page maps as, as Peter says above, in the UK OS maps are far more useful. However, it seems strange to me that there are two maps on the cache page. Is not one sufficient? And if not then should they not at least show different information? The lower map is, by default, the same scale as the higher map and shows a slightly larger area only because it's a slightly larger image.

 

And why not use just numbers for the zoom level, as the previous maps did? The terms are very parochial and not especially meaningful. The "City" zoom level in the UK, even for our largest cities, covers a much wider area than the city the cache is near.

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purple_pineapple

+purple_pineapple

Posted
Posted

SNIP

 

1) The upper map (general) seems too detailed. We use that one to tell us approximately what city it is in and the lower for a more specific area. The new upper map is currently too detailed to even determine the city.

SNIP

 

I would second that - the map at the top right corner was always useful as a general guide to location - ie where in the country the cache is. The current zoom level appears to duplicate that in the new maps - and is actually too detailed for a general overview.

 

I would also add my voice to the calls for usign other terms rather than neighbourhood and city etc.

How about an indication of the ratio? 1:5,000, 1:10,000, 1:25,000 and so on. Alternatively, an indication of what real distances the box shows - maybe 500metres for the most detailed to 10 miles for the least (or whatever it is) Or of course, just number them 1 to 5!

 

Nice change though! Certainly useful at work where I'm stuck with IE

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