NEW GOOGLE maps on cache pages

[+WRASTRO]

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.

Even in the Seattle area it would seem that numbers would work better. The current Street level is really more like what I think of as a neighborhood. Neighborhood is my city and City seems to be about a 20 mile squeare. The maps are fine but the labels don't work yet.

[+The Hornet]

I think maybe part of the problem is the different interpretations of what the words mean.

 

I live in a rural area, as I am sure many cachers do, and while I understand what a street means we don't actually have many streets around here. My nearest centre of habitation is a village which is less than half a mile across. I'm a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch which patrols an area about 5 miles radius. The nearest larger unit is a town about 5 miles away and it is about 2 miles across. This certainly has streets. My nearest city, about 10 miles away is about 4 miles across. Further afield is England's second largest city, Birmingham, about 25 miles across and then London, the capital is about 30 miles across.

 

So do you see the problem we have in understanding what is meant by the terms used?

 

Street is probably OK although it could be anything from a small close to something several miles long.

 

Neighbourhood (or Neighborhood in American) could be anything at all but possibly relates to something a few miles across.

 

City could legitimately could be anything from 4 - 35 miles, or possibly even bigger.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that ALL these terms are subjective and mean different things in different contexts. I'm guessing that even within a single country, America for instance, they would have different interpretations. My suggestion, as I said earlier, would be to remove the words and have a purely anonymous system based on numbers or + & - to cater for different zoom levels.

[+Coffee and Cache]

I see it's not the universal view, but I think the new maps are a vast improvement.

 

The old maps were *completely useless* in Australia, and probably lots of other places as well. I guess it would be ideal if you could chose the maps you wanted.

[+Eclectic Penguin]

I agree with some of the previous comments - the words "neighborhood" and "city" mean different things in different countries. In fact, even in another engilsh speaking country, neighbourhood is spelt wrongly on the map scale now.

 

On the plus side, the maps are definitely more accurate. On the Yahoo maps, one of my caches was indicated on the other side of a railway line - several people indicated tht they'd been misled by this. On the new Google maps, the cache is now correctly located.

 

My main disappointment though is that yet again, the far more accurate 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey map that replaced the Yahoo map by the Greasemonkey script has broken again. This was far more useful than the Yahoo map and indeed the new Google maps have far less detail than the OS topographical map. Obviously this isn't Geocaching.com's fault directly and the Google map is an improvement over the previous Yahoo maps.

 

For a comparison of the difference between the Google and OS maps:

 

Google

 

Ordnance Survey

 

One other concern - I can't remember if the Yahoo maps showed additionaly waypoints (I relied on the Greasemonkey script which showed not only the main cache page but also all the additional waypoints). The Google map seems to only show the main cache location.

Edited May 22, 2008 by Eclectic Penguin

[+kidcobalt]

Change is good. No real problem.

 

Would like to see "Dist from home Coords" on the printable version of the cache page though.

 

We use the distances to plan our day runs.

 

thxs.

[+PhxChem]

Are people really this upset about the names of the zoom levels? Make them Greek letters for all I care!

 

Lets me know that Geocachers are living pretty comfortably (<--definition may be different in different English-speaking countries)....

 

What's next....a "shopping cart" being called a "trolley?"

[+Lt.Ranger.Bob]

LTB: Can you give me some insight as to why you can't use those maps? Maybe I'm missing something.

It seems the maps did not work correctly yesterday for me. Today they are working in a fashion I can use. Namely I can now click on the flag in the lower map like we use to click on the star in the old map and get the maps we use to get. This was not working for me yesterday. My problem with the buttons below the new maps is that they do not give me as much zoom/detail as I need in my area and they appear not to show any other caches that are in the same area like the old maps do. In addition, I may be missing it, but I don't see a list of other caches in the area like the old maps provided. This is a very handy feature to have and I use it a lot to plan out caching trips.

[+uktim]

Just popped in from the UK forum.

 

New maps are ok but can we please change to the usual Google maps +/- symbols? Using american terminology is near sighted for an international game. To me a 'state' is what this change has got (or should I say 'gotten' ?) me into!

 

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

[+uktim]

I think maybe part of the problem is the different interpretations of what the words mean.

 

I live in a rural area, as I am sure many cachers do, and while I understand what a street means we don't actually have many streets around here. My nearest centre of habitation is a village which is less than half a mile across. I'm a member of the local Neighbourhood Watch which patrols an area about 5 miles radius. The nearest larger unit is a town about 5 miles away and it is about 2 miles across. This certainly has streets. My nearest city, about 10 miles away is about 4 miles across. Further afield is England's second largest city, Birmingham, about 25 miles across and then London, the capital is about 30 miles across.

 

 

I live in the same area as you and have no issue with these terms, they're as good as any other options that could be used and far better than simple non-descriptive numbers. I'll remember the terms and adapt to them, it's not so easy to remember that you want to clikc on number 5.

.

[+The Hornet]

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

Fine, you're happy with it and I'm happy for you. I do take exception to you accusing me of "narrow-minded national prejudices" though.

 

If you read my posts I was suggesting something that would be applicable to ALL areas of the world, not just the UK, not just the USA, but anywhere. Just because you disagree with me on this (and elsewhere) is no reason to start name calling. Let's keep the discussion civilised, as it was until now.

[+FollowMeChaps]

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

Fine, you're happy with it and I'm happy for you. I do take exception to you accusing me of "narrow-minded national prejudices" though.

 

If you read my posts I was suggesting something that would be applicable to ALL areas of the world, not just the UK, not just the USA, but anywhere. Just because you disagree with me on this (and elsewhere) is no reason to start name calling. Let's keep the discussion civilised, as it was until now.

 

Here, here to The Hornet!

 

Now what did Walt Disney say? "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all!"

[Alan White]

it's not so easy to remember that you want to clikc on number 5.

I agree - despite what I said above. As someone else suggested, a number representing the scale would be much more useful. They are maps, after all .

[+uktim]

 

Here, here to The Hornet!

 

Now what did Walt Disney say? "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all!"

 

It seems ironic that it's OK for folks to whinge because Groundspeak don't do things the "british way" and then to condemn someone else because they suggest that they don't like this attitude

 

I suggested that you were narrow-minded because you called someone else nearsighted. Do you really think there's much difference between narrow-minded and nearsighted?

Edited May 22, 2008 by uktim

[+uktim]

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

Fine, you're happy with it and I'm happy for you. I do take exception to you accusing me of "narrow-minded national prejudices" though.

 

If you read my posts I was suggesting something that would be applicable to ALL areas of the world, not just the UK, not just the USA, but anywhere. Just because you disagree with me on this (and elsewhere) is no reason to start name calling. Let's keep the discussion civilised, as it was until now.

 

Would you like to address the reply that I made to you rather than taking the hump over a reply that I made to someone else

[+uktim]

it's not so easy to remember that you want to clikc on number 5.

I agree - despite what I said above. As someone else suggested, a number representing the scale would be much more useful. They are maps, after all .

 

But there is no 1:50,000 on a computer monitor. We can't use a logical scale and the alternative is zoom level 1,2,3.... etc, which is a great deal less meaningful than an American nomclemanture. At least we all have a vague concept of street, neighbourhood, city............ etc.

 

I think it's a huge improvement, I don't mind folks saying they don't like it. I thoroughly dislike folks saying that it's no good because it won't work for Brits. If they're claiming to speak for me they ought to get it right

[+tozainamboku]

 

Now what did Walt Disney say? "If you can't say something nice, don't say nothin' at all!"

Walt Disney was American. But he did make that movie "Mary Poppins" so when I was little I often thought it would be nice to live in the UK (where they have those cool ordinance survey maps). I will say that new Google maps are supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. (From watching Mary Poppins I think that is British speak for something nice).

[+Viajero Perdido]

Two compliments about the new maps:

 

1) The Google map shows much better detail at the default setting than the Yahoo ones did.

 

2) I don't care what words you use, even if it's Americanisms like State, just please keep the words. Or some indication of which direction is zoom in vs zoom out. Even better would be an indicator, eg via bolding, of which zoom level you're currently at. (Using bold for a hover effect isn't useful.)

 

Google accomplishes the same 2 goals with their slider and +- buttons. You can accomplish the same thing by keeping the words, and by bolding the current setting.

 

I hated the old 1..9 scheme because

1) I had to experiment to figure out which direction was zoom in vs zoom out.

2) I had to experiment to figure out which setting was default. Say I wanted to zoom out just a little. First I had to figure out that 4 was the default, then... was it 5 or 3 that I wanted?

[+DavidMac]

Just popped in from the UK forum.

 

New maps are ok but can we please change to the usual Google maps +/- symbols? Using american terminology is near sighted for an international game. To me a 'state' is what this change has got (or should I say 'gotten' ?) me into!

 

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

 

Actually I was the one who originally brought the issue up (in this thread), and I'm from the US

Edited May 22, 2008 by DavidMac

[+uktim]

Just popped in from the UK forum.

 

New maps are ok but can we please change to the usual Google maps +/- symbols? Using american terminology is near sighted for an international game. To me a 'state' is what this change has got (or should I say 'gotten' ?) me into!

 

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

 

Actually I was the one who originally brought the issue up (in this thread), and I'm from the US

 

And if that doesn't highlight the difficulties of defining scales on an international website nothing ever will

Edited May 22, 2008 by uktim

[+The Hornet]

I'm from the UK and "state" is fine with me. It's easier to understand the zoom level with these names than it is with just a number or a +/- sign. We all know what a state is, why dismiss improvements due to narrow-minded national prejudices?

Fine, you're happy with it and I'm happy for you. I do take exception to you accusing me of "narrow-minded national prejudices" though.

 

If you read my posts I was suggesting something that would be applicable to ALL areas of the world, not just the UK, not just the USA, but anywhere. Just because you disagree with me on this (and elsewhere) is no reason to start name calling. Let's keep the discussion civilised, as it was until now.

 

Would you like to address the reply that I made to you rather than taking the hump over a reply that I made to someone else

I thought my reply was applicable to the discussion in general. As for getting the hump, I was merely pointing out that the forum guidelines (here) require a better standard of behaviour. In particular:

1. Forum courtesy: Please treat Groundspeak, its employees, volunteers, fellow community members, and guests on these boards with courtesy and respect. Whether a community member has one post or 5,000 posts, they should be treated fairly.

 

<snip>

 

3. Personal attacks and inflammatory behavior will not be tolerated. If you want to praise or criticize, give examples as to why it is good or bad. General attacks on a person or idea will not be tolerated.

I found your statement disrespectful, that's all. As I said earlier, if you're happy with the new status quo then I'm happy for you.

[+The Hornet]

To try and drag the thread back on topic, I'd like to suggest to Raine and the developers that a "neutral" scaling function be used on the maps rather than the current subjective one.

 

Oh! yes, and thank you for the improvement over the old "Yahoo" solution.

[+uktim]

I found your statement disrespectful, that's all. As I said earlier, if you're happy with the new status quo then I'm happy for you.

 

I bit in the way I did because I thought followme's original statement was OTT, disrespectful and uncalled for. If someone acts in that way they likely to get a similar response, for them to get offended by that response is a real double standard IMO.

 

Your post was more considered and went into greater depth and it therefore got a more considered less blunt reply. I'm still at a loss as to why you took offence over my reply to someone elses post instead of replying to my comments on your own post.

Edited May 22, 2008 by uktim

[+SweetSassyPants]

I don't care about the tab titles, I don't even care what map is on the cache page - what I do care about it that I can finally, finally get the cache page maps to show up on my BlackBerry.

 

That right there makes me one happy Sassy.

 

Whole lotta thanks to the Lackies!

[Alan White]

But there is no 1:50,000 on a computer monitor.

Nor does there need to be. The map image is a fixed size. Therefore what would be useful is for the buttons to show what distance will be shown at each zoom level.

 

It looks to me like "Street" is 0.6 miles sq, "Neighborhood" is 2 miles square, "City" is 20 miles sq. So would that not be much clearer, and not open to problems of international interpretation (providing the units reflect the user's profile preference)?

[+Indigo Parrish]

Yahoo maps show county boundaries and Google maps do not.

I have no idea why.

 

It's very useful if you are attempting something like the

Texas County Challenges to know where the county

boundaries are since the cache pages themselves do not

list this information.

 

I generally prefer Google maps over Yahoo maps except for

this one key feature which appears to be a glaring omission

in Google maps.

 

I don't particularly care what map is on the page by default.

But please preserve at least the link to Yahoo maps until Google

supports county boundaries as well.

 

Thanks!

[+GCalum]

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... SNIP

 

Ditto.

[knowschad]

Clicking on the lower map works fine.

 

But clicking on the upper right map does not work.

Only a loading wheel ...

 

I just discovered that, as well. Pretty minor issue though, I think. I'm not sure that I have ever clicked on it in the past. Just did it today out of curiosity.

[+adam]

Yahoo maps show county boundaries and Google maps do not.

I have no idea why.

 

It's very useful if you are attempting something like the

Texas County Challenges to know where the county

boundaries are since the cache pages themselves do not

list this information.

 

I generally prefer Google maps over Yahoo maps except for

this one key feature which appears to be a glaring omission

in Google maps.

 

I don't particularly care what map is on the page by default.

But please preserve at least the link to Yahoo maps until Google

supports county boundaries as well.

 

Thanks!

 

TOTALLY AGREE!

I'm a maggie user, so in order to get all the caches in my eXplorist 500, I break up the cache listing up into counties. With the old maps, all I had to do was select zoom level 8 and the map would zoom out so I could see the county boundary lines. With the new maps, I can't see them at all. So I have to resort to referring to a printed map ... that has some pretty fuzzy county boundary lines in the first place.

BRING BACK COUNTY BOUNDARIES!

PLEASE?

[+En Fang Noss Athrado]

It would be useful if the new Google maps had distance scales, like those in the lower left corner of the old Yahoo maps (e.g., the bars for 2.5 km and 1.0 mi on Yahoo 'step 7'). This would help quantify the change at each 'magnification' step, and make quick distance estimates possible.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

En Fang Noss Athrado

Edited May 22, 2008 by En Fang Noss Athrado

[+edscott]

Overall I like the google maps a bit better, but be careful as they can be very sloppy with the text placement on roads and towns.. some small towns in this area are marked miles away from their actual location and lots of street names are misplaced. It's not a matter of moving them a bit to keep from obscuring map detail, they are misreading one map and transferring their errors to the new version. Yahoos main problem was old data, Google's is wrong data.

[+edscott]

 

.......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

 

Yes a real scale expressed as a ratio would be great. Don't know why 1:10000 hasn't caught on over here. It's so simple. 1mm of map is 10 steps ... 1cm of map is 100 steps and we do something like 25/32 of an inch is a mile.

[+geojane2u]

And what purpose is being served when you replace a perfectly good map with one of lesser quality? I'm referring to the map above the attributes. I guess my biggest complaint is the zoom level is off. All you can see is the red pin. It would be nice if the zoom went out to region/country. Now, I have no idea where in the country the cache is. I have to go to another map to get an idea of where the cache is. (To zoom out to where I need to see it, it's too far out. I get the message, "Adjust zoom level to view caches.) I REALLY did like seeing where in relation to Seoul city center the cache was placed. It's one or more steps in the process....not an improvement.

[+FireRef]

It appears that panning the map now works with IE Explorer again.

 

Woo hoo!

[+JDandDD]

For the most part, I like the new maps. It would be better if there was one or maybe two more zoom out levels. Here in Ontario, it is often difficult to tell on the City view exactly where the cache is in the province. It was easy to zoom out on the Yahoo maps to see that and the small map also provided a better idea of that.

 

JD

[+treponema]

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... SNIP

 

Ditto.

 

I definitely agree with this one. I am fortunate enough to live in an area where there are over 500 caches within 10 miles of my house. I use the upper map to see if it is really worth my time to drive past all those to get a new cache.

[+treponema]

I like the changes to the cache maps page, except for one. If you zoom in on the map when it show more caches than fit in the window on the right, the cache listing does not narrow down to only the caches shown on the map like it used to. You have to move the map to a point where it will re-request the caches for the list on the right to refresh to only those on the screen. This behavior exists in both IE and Firefox.

[ertyu]

I kinda prefer the old style maps. It gave a better overview of the cache location. The zoom levels don't really go out far enough and I have to zoom to get the view I want. The old maps were useful with the default presentation.

[+uktim]

 

Yes a real scale expressed as a ratio would be great. Don't know why 1:10000 hasn't caught on over here. It's so simple. 1mm of map is 10 steps ... 1cm of map is 100 steps and we do something like 25/32 of an inch is a mile.

 

That works great on paper because once printed it always remains the same size. It wouldn't work online because the size of the image will vary due to monitor size, resolution and maybe even the size of the browser window.

[+small oaks]

Atleast Geocaching google map is now showing gc codes. That is great change! Or when this came?

 

Some problems opening that small map bigger. Dial ring comes like others. Never ending...

I have no other problems with these new maps.

 

I'd like too that somekind of scale line with distance in km's or miles would be nice.

[+Kiwi Nomad]

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.

 

1) Hadn't thought about this, just so happy to have more than a grey blob and two roads showing, how about the top one showing a larger area and the bottom one staying as it is.

 

2) I get around this by shrinking to fit page, get it down to about 80% (from memory) and you get to see all of the map and still have the names down the right hand side. If I am going to a new town I tended to do this as the map at the bottom of the cache page was of little use to me. Still would be nice to have the more detailed maps on the printer friendly page.

 

Over all still think the new is better than the old.

[+genegene]

I have Just noticed the new look this morning and I have to say that I like the way it looks as of this morning at 6:30am Eastern time. It looks more user friendly with the broken lines in between each cache, and each GC# in a row.

 

Now if we can get the bubbles back BUT have a box on the side that will allow you to turn them on or off. Also have the option to look for sizes, ie... 10, 25, 50, in an area.

Some cachers like them, some don't. I was one of the many that did like them.

I believe that new feature was pulled to soon for many cachers to decided if it was a good idea or not.

[+Corey]

My thoughts:

- zoom out the upper map as mentioned before

- possibly sort by name instead of GC# on the main maps page?

- add a few more zoom out levels (also mentioned); California is a big state.

[+Raine]

Still would be nice to have the more detailed maps on the printer friendly page.

 

The Google Maps page isn't really meant to be printed because of the nature of it's content and the translation of web viewing to printed page.

 

Eventually I'll be able to create a good representation that can be printed out but until that time I can't do much more to that page to allow it to be printed without issues.

[+Raine]

add a few more zoom out levels (also mentioned); California is a big state.

 

Honestly you should really know where that cache is relative to you that you shouldn't require a map that zooms out to show all of California.

 

Those are just my thoughts of course

[+Corey]

add a few more zoom out levels (also mentioned); California is a big state.

Honestly you should really know where that cache is relative to you that you shouldn't require a map that zooms out to show all of California.

It would be more useful when I come across some non-nearby cache...

say GWVI - the farthest out zoom level only tells me it's near Yuba City & Beale AFB.

Not a high priority.

[+monstermunch]

The Isle of Man isn't mapped. No streets to give you an idea of location.

[OpinioNate]

The Isle of Man isn't mapped. No streets to give you an idea of location.

 

Unfortunately Google doesn't have data for the Isle of Man. Yahoo, MapQuest and MSN Maps do though.