geocaching.com Google Map Enhancements

[+Lil Devil]

What complaints do you have with the geocaching.com Google Map?

• I don't want the map to refresh as I'm panning around.
  
• The map is too short. There is too much wasted space above and below the map.
  
• The geocache list on the right is too short. It should be the same height as the map.
  
• When looking at the map, it's hard to tell which caches are disabled.
  
• I'd rather hide the disabled caches completely.
  
• I don't like those white ovals that are around each cache icon.
  
• The Filters section takes up too much space.
  
• I would rather see the cache names or GC codes instead of a meaningless number next to each cache icon.
  
• I'd like to click a link to open the current view in Google Maps or Google Earth.
  

If you agreed with one or more of those complaints, then you need to install the Geocaching Google Map Enhancements script.

 

Additionally, if you think the map (or any page on the site) is too narrow, check out the Hide Navigation Bar script. It will hide the left-hand Navigation Bar, and on a cache page, it will also hide the right-hand Navigation Bar.

 

Both scripts are compatible with Firefox, Opera, and Chrome.

[+The Cheeseheads]

Awesome. Thanks for coding this!

[+Avernar]

Sweet!

[+Avernar]

Feature request (yeah, already )

 

Can you duplicate the "Refresh Map" link up in the toolbar where the View in Google Maps and View in Google Earth are? When the Automatically check box is cleared and the right hand panel is hidden you can't refresh the map easily.

 

Thanks.

[+DavidMac]

Excellent! The ability to show cache names on the map is incredibly handy!

 

Additionally, if you think the map (or any page on the site) is too narrow, check out the Hide Navigation Bar script. It will hide the left-hand Navigation Bar, and on a cache page, it will also hide the right-hand Navigation Bar.

 

Is there any way to hide the nav bar by default on every page?

[+Avernar]

Regarding my feature request, you might want to only show the extra refresh link when the Automatically checkbox is not checked. That way if the other links on the toolbar are hidden it would let the bar hide away like normal.

[+Lil Devil]

Feature request (yeah, already )

I take feature requests as flattery. They mean that people are actually using my work.

 

Can you duplicate the "Refresh Map" link up in the toolbar where the View in Google Maps and View in Google Earth are? When the Automatically check box is cleared and the right hand panel is hidden you can't refresh the map easily.

Regarding my feature request, you might want to only show the extra refresh link when the Automatically checkbox is not checked. That way if the other links on the toolbar are hidden it would let the bar hide away like normal.

Excellent idea. And pretty easy to implement.

 

Excellent! The ability to show cache names on the map is incredibly handy!

Yeah, that was a fun feature to implement. And incredibly gratifying to see it work. I'll grant that it can be a mess is cache dense areas, but when plotting a short cache run for just a few caches, it is awesome.

 

Additionally, if you think the map (or any page on the site) is too narrow, check out the Hide Navigation Bar script. It will hide the left-hand Navigation Bar, and on a cache page, it will also hide the right-hand Navigation Bar.

Is there any way to hide the nav bar by default on every page?

Sure, that could be done. I'll add it to the list for the next version.

 

I'm taking off tomorrow for a 2 week cache run down to Phoenix for Easter. Keep the ideas coming and I'll work on adding them when I get back.

[+Avernar]

I take feature requests as flattery. They mean that people are actually using my work.

That's good to hear. I was worried it was "Uh oh. Here's Avernar wanting something again..."

 

Excellent! The ability to show cache names on the map is incredibly handy!

Yeah, that was a fun feature to implement. And incredibly gratifying to see it work. I'll grant that it can be a mess is cache dense areas, but when plotting a short cache run for just a few caches, it is awesome.

Yup! Already came in handy today.

[+TheBeanTeam]

I just played with this a bit and can only say that this is an outstanding and very useful script.

 

Many thanks.

[+Tequila]

I love the PHX area. Enjoy your trip. Thanks for all the great greasemonkey stuff.

[+Ike 13]

You are AMAZING Thanks!

[+isuquinndog]

Awesome job. Love it.

[+Semper Questio]

Oh, WOW! Those scripts are amazing! Can't wait till I have more time to play with them! Thanks SO much for doing these!

[+mtn-man]

Feature request (yeah, already )

I take feature requests as flattery. They mean that people are actually using my work.

Can I get like a random appearance of a pony on the map every now and then? That would be awesome.

 

Great work as always!

[+FancoverFive]

Is it supposed to look like this? This has managed to make the list of caches (and the map) much shorter, as I can't scroll down the page at all.

Edited March 26, 2010 by FancoverFive

[+Semper Questio]

Feature request (yeah, already )

I take feature requests as flattery. They mean that people are actually using my work.

Can I get like a random appearance of a pony on the map every now and then? That would be awesome.

 

Great work as always!

 

Eating a bacon donut?

[+larryc43230]

Lil Devil, you definitely deserve a raise for developing this one. I've been a fan of your scripts for a very long time, but this one's the best to date. Thanks for all your hard work!

 

--Larry

[+hallycat]

Thanks Lil D! Have a hoppy EaSter

[+Sunny Arkfam]

Can anyone tell me if you hide the navigation bar, how do you get it back? If you mouse over it, will it come back? Thanks for explaining. I'm concerned I might download the script and not know how to get the nav bar when I want it.

[+DavidMac]

Can I get like a random appearance of a pony on the map every now and then? That would be awesome.

 

Here ya go!

 

Here ya go again!

Edited March 27, 2010 by DavidMac

[+Lil Devil]

Is it supposed to look like this? This has managed to make the list of caches (and the map) much shorter, as I can't scroll down the page at all.

The script makes the map the full height of the window. It makes the list take up all the space it can on the right without scrolling the window at all. So if your window is only 700 pixels tall, as it appears to be from your pic, then yes your map and list might be shorter. But do you gain anything by having to scroll? You can still see only what is in view at any given time. That's why I made it so you'll never have to scroll.

 

For those with very small displays, you can maximize space by right-clicking on the Greasemonkey icon in the status bar of your browser, select "User Script Commands..." then "Map Enhancements." Turn off the first 5 options, and you'll regain about 60 pixels from the top of the page. And when you're not actively choosing filters, click the little minus button in the upper-right corner of the Premium Member Filters box to get close to 200 pixels that will then be used for the cache list.

 

Which gives me an idea to add way to hide the "Zoom to Address" section. I don't think I've ever used that feature.

[tiiiim]

What complaints do you have with the geocaching.com Google Map?

• I don't want the map to refresh as I'm panning around.
  

...snip...

 

If everyone used this script, we could probably reduce server load for GC.com by quite a bit due to this feature alone! Maybe, perhaps, potentially...

[+ace862]

Great work Lil Devil!

[knowschad]

Feature request (yeah, already )

I take feature requests as flattery. They mean that people are actually using my work.

Can I get like a random appearance of a pony on the map every now and then? That would be awesome.

 

Great work as always!

Nice shades!

[knowschad]

You rock, Lil Devil! Some of those are features that I've wanted for ages, and others are features that hadn't even occurred to me, but I love. Just because you don't hear feature requests from some of us doesn't mean that we don't use, and love, your scripts! I just turned a friend on to them yesterday, by the way.

[+aB5dEglYeS5P]

Is it intentional that Hide My Finds doesn't hide my finds that are disabled?

I'd expect it to be OR not AND if you see what I mean...

Also there seems to be some reclassing of divs to unique ids... shouldn't this be by id... it makes restyling more difficult

 

(I'm liking the general idea though )

Edited March 28, 2010 by aB5dEglYeS5P

[+Lil Devil]

Is it intentional that Hide My Finds doesn't hide my finds that are disabled?

I'd expect it to be OR not AND if you see what I mean...

No it's not intentional. I didn't change the original HideFinds function any, so I was going to say that bug was there before, but I just tested that and it worked before. I have no clue how I broke that.

 

I'm on a road trip right now and debugging on my little laptop screen just ain't worth it. I'll look into this when I get home around April 12th.

 

Also there seems to be some reclassing of divs to unique ids... shouldn't this be by id... it makes restyling more difficult

I'm not sure what you mean, but feel free to send me an email with more specifics and I'll do my best to adjust things so you can do restyling easier.

 

(I'm liking the general idea though )

Awesome!

[+rob3k]

Just installed it and took a quick look at a map and it looks like another great LD script. Thanks!

[+Lil Devil]

Can anyone tell me if you hide the navigation bar, how do you get it back? If you mouse over it, will it come back? Thanks for explaining. I'm concerned I might download the script and not know how to get the nav bar when I want it.

I was just going through this thread and documenting the requests for myself, and noticed I never responded to this one.

 

It works by pretty much duplicating the way you can hide the right-side info bar on the maps page.

 

The script adds a little left arrow button like this:

Click it to hide the Nav Bar.

 

When the Nav Bar is hidden there is a little right arrow button like this:

Click it to show the Nav Bar.

[+benh57]

The forcing the maps to screen-height only (disallowing scrolling) can actually give you slightly less map height on smaller screens, because with a big map and the scroll bar, you can scroll down half an inch to 'gain' the ~100 pixels of header space at the top of the screen.

 

Personally i'd keep the 3 'map size' buttons, while adding a 'release map' button (which zooms the map to how it is in your macro now) while defaulting to what you have the macro doing now.

 

Another request, it would be cool if Pocket Query google map searches displayed the Premium Member Filters box. So i could temporarily filter out various cache types from PQ Google Maps.

If that code is on the page and just hidden, you could just un-hide it in the DOM. (or just re-implement it i suppose)

[+benh57]

Also, minor bug: the 'automatically' checkbox shows up ono PQ Google Map page, but does nothing. (since there is no 'refreshing' for PQ google maps views)

 

And there is no way to enable/disable the disabled icons or white circles on the PQ Google Map page.

Edited April 4, 2010 by benh57

[+Lil Devil]

Hmm, I now realize I never tested the map page showing the results of a PQ. I'll look into those issues after the 12th when I get home.

[+Frank Broughton]

LD a HUGE big time thank you for this most AWESOME script! Thank you for taking the time to create, release to the public, and maintain it even. You are the best!

[+Avernar]

The script adds a little left arrow button like this:

Click it to hide the Nav Bar.

The arrow shows up on the Print version of the cache page. That page shouldn't have it because there is no nav bar.

[hoyshnin]

Great script, thanks! One issue, though, in Chrome the names won't show up, only the numbers. It works great in Firefox, though. Thanks!

[+Lil Devil]

The arrow shows up on the Print version of the cache page. That page shouldn't have it because there is no nav bar.

Oops.

 

Great script, thanks! One issue, though, in Chrome the names won't show up, only the numbers. It works great in Firefox, though. Thanks!

I admit I only tested in Firefox and Opera. I made the assumption that it would work the same in Chrome, but I'm seeing that's not the case.

 

I'm currently away on vacation with a tiny laptop and when I get home in about a week I'll be able to use my massive dual-screen system to fix the bugs and add some more enhancements. I'll also have to actually install Chrome

[hoyshnin]

I'm currently away on vacation with a tiny laptop and when I get home in about a week I'll be able to use my massive dual-screen system to fix the bugs and add some more enhancements. I'll also have to actually install Chrome

 

Be careful installing Chrome, you might never go back.

Edited April 5, 2010 by hoyshnin

[+all hat]

I installed this script last night and it worked great - Firefox 3.6.3, Windows Vista - although I did encounter some problems with Google maps loading slow when not using geocaching.com - I went to about:config and set the permissions.default.image property to 0 then back to 1 to try to correct this.

 

Tonight, the Map Enhancements features are gone, although Greasemonkey indicates that the script is enabled - when I right-clicked the greasemonkey icon at lower right. The User Script Commands option is grayed out so I can't change the script settings.

 

I really like this script. I want to get it working again. Oh yes, I tried uninstalling and re-installing.

[djhobby]

I really like this script but it seems to have quit working. Did Groundspeak change something?

[knowschad]

I really like this script but it seems to have quit working. Did Groundspeak change something?

Are you sure you didn't disable Greasemoney? Hover your mouse over the monkey in the lower right and see if it is enabled.

[djhobby]

I really like this script but it seems to have quit working. Did Groundspeak change something?

Are you sure you didn't disable Greasemoney? Hover your mouse over the monkey in the lower right and see if it is enabled.

 

No everything is enabled, checked, uninstalled and reinstalled, but still it doesn't work. It worked recently, I think it worked yesterday, but this morning it doesn't work.

 

DJ

[knowschad]

I really like this script but it seems to have quit working. Did Groundspeak change something?

Are you sure you didn't disable Greasemoney? Hover your mouse over the monkey in the lower right and see if it is enabled.

 

No everything is enabled, checked, uninstalled and reinstalled, but still it doesn't work. It worked recently, I think it worked yesterday, but this morning it doesn't work.

 

DJ

Wow!! You're right!! I just tested on two computers... we're back to the normal maps!

[+Ike 13]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[+rob3k]

Many users in the thread on being throttled have said they were browsing a map when they got booted. Maybe they made an update to that page to alleviate this, that has broken this script as a side effect? Bummer.

[+Raine]

I added a checkbox to the page to turn off the automatic refresh of the maps when you pan them. This is probably what broke his grease monkey script.

 

-Raine

[+TheBeanTeam]

I added a checkbox to the page to turn off the automatic refresh of the maps when you pan them. This is probably what broke his grease monkey script.

 

-Raine

 

Thanks for letting us know.

[+Avernar]

I added a checkbox to the page to turn off the automatic refresh of the maps when you pan them. This is probably what broke his grease monkey script.

No, it was the change to the map size button toolbar.

 

For those that know how to edit the script, here's a quick fix until Lil Devil is back to his main machine. Change line 42 from

 

topLinkBar = topLinkBar.parentNode;

to

 

topLinkBar = topLinkBar.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode;

and change 205 from

 

	topLinkBar.childNodes[5].style.display = 'none';

to

 

	topLinkBar.childNodes[7].style.display = 'none';

[+rob3k]

I added a checkbox to the page to turn off the automatic refresh of the maps when you pan them. This is probably what broke his grease monkey script.

No, it was the change to the map size button toolbar.

 

For those that know how to edit the script, here's a quick fix until Lil Devil is back to his main machine. Change line 42 from

 

topLinkBar = topLinkBar.parentNode;

to

 

topLinkBar = topLinkBar.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode;

and change 205 from

 

	topLinkBar.childNodes[5].style.display = 'none';

to

 

	topLinkBar.childNodes[7].style.display = 'none';

 

Nice! Only side effect I see is that now you have two checkboxes to control the auto-refresh, but that's not a big surprise.

[+Team Cotati]

I added a checkbox to the page to turn off the automatic refresh of the maps when you pan them. This is probably what broke his grease monkey script.

 

-Raine

 

How about setting the initial view to NOT have every single cache type check marked?

[knowschad]

I added a checkbox to the page to turn off the automatic refresh of the maps when you pan them. This is probably what broke his grease monkey script.

No, it was the change to the map size button toolbar.

 

For those that know how to edit the script, here's a quick fix until Lil Devil is back to his main machine. Change line 42 from

 

topLinkBar = topLinkBar.parentNode;

to

 

topLinkBar = topLinkBar.parentNode.parentNode.parentNode;

and change 205 from

 

	topLinkBar.childNodes[5].style.display = 'none';

to

 

	topLinkBar.childNodes[7].style.display = 'none';

Hmmm... didn't change a thing for me. I tried restarting Firefox, closed and reopened the map, and went back and verified my changes. No go.