Player Compatibility

[+Tequila]

Not sure if this has been discussed.

 

A new Wherigo geocache popped up within 50 miles of my home. When I downloaded and gave it a quick look in the Emulator, I noticed it had sound effects and Tasks, two things I don't think work in the Garmin players.

 

Sure enough, when I queried the owner, he had field tested it in a Windows Player and neither of the Garmin players. Since there aren't many Wherigo's I couldn't resist and drove the distance only to confirm my worst fears. It wouldn't work in the Oregon.

 

Oddly, it didn't appear to have anything to do with audio. At the second stage, after completing the required actions (Tasks were not required but rather used for documentation), no further zones became visible. Having run a bit of it in the Emulator I knew where the next zone was but even when I walked there, it did not become visible.

 

Despite three emails, the owner has not expressed any interest in modifying the cartridge to run with Garmin players.

 

Now finally for my question:

 

Has anyone else seen this issue? It raises an interesting dilemma. It does not appear there is any obligation on the part of the author to ensure the cartridge works on the more popular units.

 

Don't want to make this an inflammatory issue. Just curious if others have had similar issues. And maybe some suggestions as to whether audio will kill the Garmin player.

[Ranger Fox]

I've heard of a couple cases where a cartridge wouldn't work on an Oregon, but would work on a Colorado or PPC. I have a Colorado and am not planning on getting an Oregon at this time to test the issue (sorry, people) and determine what to avoid when coding a cartridge for the Oregon.

 

As far as I know, it's Garmin's job to feed the updates to the Players. I'm not sure how changes are released to Garmin, but I do know Garmin is responsible for what goes into their receivers. A version change log is not available for Garmin Players. From what I know of Groundspeak's determination to get Wherigo out and fix bugs, I don't think they can do more to get the Garmin Players in line than what they are doing.

 

As for the issue with the cartridge's owner, it's the same with a geocache; the owner has the ultimate say over how s/he will maintain the cache experience. If the author doesn't have a Garmin unit, I'm not surprised s/he refuses to get it working for Garmin Players. It's difficult for someone to learn the fine differences between Players and almost impossible to tech support a mysterious problem on a device you don't have available to you.

 

(An "inflammatory issue"? Nah.)

 

Very few cartridges I'm aware of rely on audio for clues or completion, so I don't see the lack of audio being a factor in the near future that will kill interest in the Garmin Players. However, if you put a Player on another audio-capable, popular device (e.g. the iPhone), we'll start to see a shift in interest into how multimedia cartridges can enhance the experience.

[a_snail]

Task do work on the Oregon as does sound, but only a beep. To get the beep working see topic "Anyone got sound out of the Oregon?"

 

I've got the opposite problem, I've got an Oregon but nothing else, so with a bit of luck I will get the Wherigo finished in the next couple of weeks and we will see how well it goes. I am a bit worried in case I've exceeded numbers of zones, characters etc or made it Oregon specific.

 

Really all I can do is make sure it works on the Oregon and the emulater and say that in the description, and then just wait for feedback.

 

As for updates, Garmin has an updater program that you download from their website, plug you GPS into the USB slot and then run it. It will scan for any devices attached and then update them. Currently they are on version 1.6 (out a week or so ago, and its a much nicer interface for entering coordinates, however I don't know of any Wherigo changes). I do seem to be getting zones duplicated at the top of the list now which I didn't previously, but that might be my Wherigo when I was testing it over the weekend.

 

Ranger Fox, do you know if its possible to post completely different cartridges for each device when you upload them (I've not tried this yet). I was thinking I would have a full version working how I wanted it, and a slimline version that has half the stuff chopped out, but has a very high chance of working on most devices thus allowing all users to find the geocache.

[+Tequila]

When I asked about audio killing the Garmins, I didn't mean that it would kill people wanting to use them.

 

I meant would a Garmin have a problem running a cartridge that had audio in it.

 

Hope that makes more sense.

 

I wasn't aware the Tasks had been fixed. That is good news.

[+Tequila]

It is interesting that a cartridge would run in the Oregon and not the Colorado and vice versa.

 

I notice that when you download a cartridge, there are options for the OR and the CO. Not sure if there is a difference. But when you use the builder to publish a cartridge to your machine, there is only a CO option.

[Ranger Fox]

If you download a cartridge for a specific device, Tequila, the Wherigo site application will make a cartridge file for that device. In specific, audio should be stripped out for the Garmin units. That's, at least, my experience with it.

 

As for posting two different versions of a cartridge, a_snail, the aforementioned "compile on demand" code is designed to eliminate the need. That such an issue has come up proves there are still some things not fully understood about why the Garmin Players act the way they do.

 

(I hope that's understandable. There are too many people at work talking about the election and it's difficult to drown them out mentally.)

[+binzi]

It is a well known problem by now that the Oregon does have problems with playing some cartridges. By now I tried a couple of very simple cartridges that would not play on the Oregon but would work perfectly well on the Colorado or Windows Devices.

 

Since Garmin is responsible for updates to Oregons Wherigo-Player there is not much you can do except to wait for an update. So far there has not been any update to the Wherigo-Engine (Engine: v.2.11) on the Oregon. Garmin keeps incrementing the Wherigo-Player Version with every software update, but to the best of my knowledge this doesn't have any effect whatsoever....

 

From a couple of Forum posts I learned the following two things that might help making a specific Wherigo-Cartridge playable on the Oregon:

 

- When something doesn't work while playing the cartridge, press the button on the right side of the Oregon, wait for the "Lock Screen" page to come up, then press the button again to make that page disappear again. Sometime this will make a missing dialog or stuff like that appear in the Wherigo-Cartridge

 

- downgrade the Oregon software to 2.2. Apparently there were some users which were able to play certain Wherigo cartridges on Oregon software 2.2 but would no longer be able to play that cartridge anymore when upgrading the Oregon software to anything above 2.2 (up to version 2.6)

 

I'd be happy about any comments, additional hints and your experiences...

[+Tequila]

It is a well known problem by now that the Oregon does have problems with playing some cartridges. By now I tried a couple of very simple cartridges that would not play on the Oregon but would work perfectly well on the Colorado or Windows Devices.

 

Since Garmin is responsible for updates to Oregons Wherigo-Player there is not much you can do except to wait for an update. So far there has not been any update to the Wherigo-Engine (Engine: v.2.11) on the Oregon. Garmin keeps incrementing the Wherigo-Player Version with every software update, but to the best of my knowledge this doesn't have any effect whatsoever....

 

From a couple of Forum posts I learned the following two things that might help making a specific Wherigo-Cartridge playable on the Oregon:

 

- When something doesn't work while playing the cartridge, press the button on the right side of the Oregon, wait for the "Lock Screen" page to come up, then press the button again to make that page disappear again. Sometime this will make a missing dialog or stuff like that appear in the Wherigo-Cartridge

 

- downgrade the Oregon software to 2.2. Apparently there were some users which were able to play certain Wherigo cartridges on Oregon software 2.2 but would no longer be able to play that cartridge anymore when upgrading the Oregon software to anything above 2.2 (up to version 2.6)

 

I'd be happy about any comments, additional hints and your experiences...

 

OMG. That scares the hell out of me. I moved from the CO to the OR because the CO is full of bugs. I had three defective units and Garmin finally gave me an OR to shut me up. LOL

 

The power button suggestion is scary but I will give it a try. I find it hard to believe that doing that would suddenly make zones appear but who knows?

 

I don't see going to 2.2 as a viable alternative. There are two many enhancements for other GPS issues to justify doing that. But thanks for the info. I might try it for troubleshooting purposes.

[+X$r]

I just finished my third Wherigo. turned out great but for some reason the buttons are missing for the tasks when played on any Garmin device... Anyone know a fix? Works perfect in the emulator and on my android phone. My old cartridges still work on my Colorado and Oregon but not this new one. Seems odd since it does not look like anyone has done any thing to further the Wherigo builder software since 2009. It's NEW though! What a joke. Seriously though, any help?

[Ranger Fox]

Garmin created their Wherigo Player without buttons or events associated with tasks. Some people have tried to do things when a player clicks on a task, but that doesn't work on Garmin's devices. Therefore, tasks, on a Garmin device, are for display only.

 

It's all up to Groundspeak as to when they want to resume developing Wherigo. They keep making indications, but I haven't seen any action as of yet.

[+bretina]

I've got some task events to work, onComplete for example (I think that's the name of it). Even on the Oregon it fired the event when I marked the task complete (triggering other tasks).

 

I know buttons, onClick, etc. don't work on tasks.. but the 'state change' events do seem to work. Of course that said I used the state change events in my first Wherigo (Grand Europa) and then promptly ripped them out when I migrated to URWIGO. I could accomplish the same things by doing it directly rather then shuffling it off to the onCompletion event.

 

Garmin created their Wherigo Player without buttons or events associated with tasks. Some people have tried to do things when a player clicks on a task, but that doesn't work on Garmin's devices. Therefore, tasks, on a Garmin device, are for display only.

 

It's all up to Groundspeak as to when they want to resume developing Wherigo. They keep making indications, but I haven't seen any action as of yet.