Jump to content

Geocaching.com site update May 4th 2011


Recommended Posts

I have to say with the possible exception of personalization not being on by default on the beta maps, (why would you want to view the map with out it?) that I very much like the new site.

 

I have tested the new maps in both IE9 and Firefox 4 and all personalization and filters are working just fine.

 

I have several cache pages with backgrounds and have checked others including all the examples mentioned here, all are perfectly readable.

 

Extra white space not a problem for me but I guess thats because I happen to be running a resolution that works with it I can understand others with a higher res will have issues.

 

Several people have mentioned text boxes such as the "email a user" and cache description being to small, these and others can all be enlarged by dragging the bottom right of the box out.

 

Nope, No can do - Doesn't work for me.

Sorry just checked and that only seems to work in Firefox not IE :(

Link to comment

The img class "Pointer" is seriously destroying the layout with more images in a cache description (when there should be no spaces). This can cause havoc on some mysteries ;) but at least it destroys a lot of work by your cache-owners!

 

At LEAST it should be possible to add a class="Ignore" (or something like that) to our own listings to get rid of "improvements" like this. How someone can add "functionality" like that (without warning to the owners, whose caches are the reason others visit and use this site) to a site, where puzzles were designed with a lot of heart and sweat, remains the biggest mystery to me ...

 

Hope to get that one fixed soon!

Marcus

 

PS: Generally I like the new design :) and I like the new search-button on the "home-site". But why not - after 11 years (!) - add it finally to the header?

Link to comment

Recent Activity

I have no interest in what happens on the other side of the earth! Show events near you based on the home coordinates!

Just to put the other side of the argument, I actually quite like this new feature. Don't use this home page as my gc.com landing page so it doesn't get in the way, and it's actually quite interesting to randomly dip into one of the scrolling activity markers and have a quick read about fellow cachers and caches around the world.

 

Would I want it to be local? No not really

Local caches I am interested in are on my watch list. Local events and newly published caches are on my notifications and in the weekly GS newsletter. People I know are on my friends list. Events let you keep up with what is going on locally as does meeting people out and about.

 

So having this little window on the world of caching beyond our doorstep, and involving places, caches and people we would otherwise know nothing about, is an interesting addition.

I don't think it's meant as a news feed that will be compelling reading for everyone.

Link to comment

Geocaching.com UI and Performance Update

 

26060: One account per email address

New user accounts need to be created with a unique email address to allow for login by username or email, current accounts have been grandfathered

 

What is the purpose of this change ?

I can think of several good reasons why more two or more members of a family might need or want to use the same email account for their individual user accounts.

I would consider this a "reduction in service" if it is left in place.

 

i can't think of even ONE good reason why more than one person would share the same email

 

an email address is no different than an envelope, do you open your family member's mail?

 

besides ISP's offer at least 5 free email addresses, use them

Link to comment

I quite like the changes that have been made however there is one issue I'm not happy with. I like to include a background image on my cache pages. That background image has become a watermark image behind the text on the cache page. It's diminished the quality of the print as well as makes the whole page too "busy". As a result, I've removed all background images from my cache pages to make them easier to read.

Link to comment

Biggest issue for me is the background image showing through the cache listings now. It's horrible and makes the pages hard to read.

 

Second big thing I noticed was the ad between the Attributes and the Trackables section. Was that always there? It's rather obnoxious, especially when I'm already on your site using your product.

 

Maps? Never use them on the site -- I always browse maps using Mapsource and my most recent PQ data. I can see where it would be annoying for people though.

 

Fixed width? Works great on my caching netbook -- in fact, it's an improvement because those large images don't force me to scroll like crazy now. I'm sure I'll hate it when I'm working on my desktop with a large monitor though.

Link to comment

Recent Activity

I have no interest in what happens on the other side of the earth! Show events near you based on the home coordinates!

Just to put the other side of the argument, I actually quite like this new feature. Don't use this home page as my gc.com landing page so it doesn't get in the way, and it's actually quite interesting to randomly dip into one of the scrolling activity markers and have a quick read about fellow cachers and caches around the world.

 

Would I want it to be local? No not really

Local caches I am interested in are on my watch list. Local events and newly published caches are on my notifications and in the weekly GS newsletter. People I know are on my friends list. Events let you keep up with what is going on locally as does meeting people out and about.

 

So having this little window on the world of caching beyond our doorstep, and involving places, caches and people we would otherwise know nothing about, is an interesting addition.

I don't think it's meant as a news feed that will be compelling reading for everyone.

 

That's how it comes across to me - compels my eye to look at it - motion does that. It drives me crazy. It's great that someone in Germany or Australia logged a cache, but what difference does it make?

Link to comment

 

Second big thing I noticed was the ad between the Attributes and the Trackables section. Was that always there? It's rather obnoxious, especially when I'm already on your site using your product.

 

 

sounds like you need adblock, i don't see any advertisement in that spot except for a link that says "Advertising with Us", which has always been there

 

Biggest issue for me is the background image showing through the cache listings now. It's horrible and makes the pages hard to read.

 

 

i would like it if the image wasn't tiled

Edited by t4e
Link to comment

The satellite image layer on the new maps has lost at least two levels of zooming in on the cache. This change will really cost me a lot of time toggling between this site and an adequate map site. I guess i just have to accept that maps are not important to most people and adjust.

Link to comment

The new pages don't load correctly at all for me. :unsure:

 

Seems to be due to using a small netbook while on a slow connection in a 3rd world country (and the Internet cafes have outdated versions of browsers usually so it won't load properly there). I'm sure it looks slick for those with faster connections etc, but I always liked the simplicity of the site because I could count on it to load but geocaching has just become harder to access from a lot of countries- pity for what's supposed to be an international game!

 

Also none of my countries in Asia are showing up on the stats page map... <_<

Link to comment

The opaque cache listings is making it difficult to read.

 

With fixed width: I think it is not that bad, as shorter lines may make it easier to read (no need to turn hgead too much, but need to scroll)

 

Beta Maps: Really need the list of caches (names) and the ability to remove the one i have already found.

Link to comment

The fixed width of the new website looks really good...

 

...on a 16" square monitor set to 1024x768 resolution. (Seriously, just tried it.)

 

For a hobby that requires a GPS or at least a smartphone do we have many users with such obscelecent monitors? Serious question.

Link to comment

I don't think it's meant as a news feed that will be compelling reading for everyone.

 

That's how it comes across to me - compels my eye to look at it - motion does that. It drives me crazy. It's great that someone in Germany or Australia logged a cache, but what difference does it make?

I took a look at that page for the first time in ages today just to see what people are talking about. I can't see much on that page which a regular user would want to access regularly as the vast majority of the page is taken up by a huge blue box linking to a video of what caching is all about. There are the 4 'news' links on the right but they don't seem desperately up to the minute.

 

I have my bookmark set to the /my page as that's where all the important stuff to me is, and all the links I need are there.

 

Just don't see the need to have the main home page open on the screen other than for a quick check now and then.

Link to comment

Can not enter logs with Firefox or Chrome. When I go to the log page, the fields pop-up for a second and disappear.

 

You have GreaseMonkey scripts? Turn them off.

That may or may not help. I have Greasemonkey scripts on and I log on fine with Firefox.

Link to comment

The fixed size I can live with (aslong as it doesn't keep changing). But the fact that it resizes images WAY too much and does not let us override bothers me A LOT.

I mean, if I resize the image in my <img> tags, then the site doesn't still need to resize it.

My own cache listings aren't so much affected, but an Event for which I made the layout is totally wrecked (event was in mid-april so not THAT important anymore). Some images that were 950px wide are now resized to 50px and I cannot seem to increase the size without actually modifying the image :mad:

 

Anyway, if you change the width, then atleast grandfather older layouts or resize pictures only when they are too big AFTER HTML size reduction

Link to comment

Can not enter logs with Firefox or Chrome. When I go to the log page, the fields pop-up for a second and disappear.

 

You have GreaseMonkey scripts? Turn them off.

That may or may not help. I have Greasemonkey scripts on and I log on fine with Firefox.

The GC Tidy script causes the 'log a cache' box to pop up then disappear again. There may be others but that's the one that caused the same problem for me this morning. All other scripts back on and it works fine now (even though many of the scripts don't do anything anymore :( ).

Link to comment

Lil' Devil is working on the scripts. I have had 3 updates for them already.

Guess I will have to go through each of my cache listings and remove the background picture because of the transparency is not helping cachers see it well. I don't understand why they did that? What purpose does it do?

Glad I can at least have the option to use the old maps now. Whew.

Link to comment

I think the new look of the web site is great, I really like it. :) It works fine for me on chrome.

I only have one question : Is there a way to make Personalization on by default?

Edited by fradjoh
Link to comment

I've been on GC.com since 2003 under one handle or the other. I love the new look, so much so that I am thinking of taking in the wife for an overhaul. I've been with you guys 7-8 years and with her for nearly 16. Somebody's due.

 

(Thank God she doesn't read the forums.) :laughing:

Link to comment

Why would you produce a map without a key?

With the beta map I see more territory and more caches. But, I can not find a way to identify those icons? How am I supposed to know which cache goes with which icon?

The old maps had a numbered key which corresponded to numbers next to the cache icons. The 'beta' maps aren't really far enough along in development to be called 'beta'. They need lots of work.

Also, I hope someone is doing some testing with functionality of the site on the iPad. The geocaching app is pretty good. The geocaching site should be iPad friendly, too.

 

And why would you produce a map with NO SCALE??

 

I WANT the transparent icons back on the map. The bordered icons are over bearing.

Link to comment

Why would you produce a map without a key?

With the beta map I see more territory and more caches. But, I can not find a way to identify those icons? How am I supposed to know which cache goes with which icon?

The old maps had a numbered key which corresponded to numbers next to the cache icons. The 'beta' maps aren't really far enough along in development to be called 'beta'. They need lots of work.

Also, I hope someone is doing some testing with functionality of the site on the iPad. The geocaching app is pretty good. The geocaching site should be iPad friendly, too.

 

And why would you produce a map with NO SCALE??

 

I WANT the transparent icons back on the map. The bordered icons are over bearing.

 

Oops, I see you did add a scale. Wasn't there yesterday.

Link to comment

I thought that this upgrade was going to improve navigation, but really it hasn't.

 

As a web developer that's been designing websites and user interfaces for over 12 years there are a few things that I've picked up as common place practices in web design. One of these is the drop down navigation bar. These things are marvelous and when I saw that you were going to put one on the site I was excited. Unfortunately it too me all of 10 seconds to realize that it hasn't been used to its fullest potential.

 

The concept of a drop down navigation bar is to allow necessary links to be available on every page. Nearly all the links on the My Profile page could be placed into the nav bar and make this site so much easier to find things. I highly recommend you add the following to the nav bar: (items without dots are menu names, items with dots are the choices once the drop down shows up.

 

Premium Features

 

Account Options

 

 

User Routes

Your Profile

Now admittedly some of these are duplicates and the lists could be trimmed, but at least you'd be able to access, say, the Pocket Queries page from any other page on the site rather than having to go back to the Profile page every time you need to manage your queries, etc.

 

Please make this change. If I need to put it in the feedback section I will, but I beg of you, make it simple to navigate to ANY point of the site FROM any point of the site by adding these menu items.

Link to comment

The only single thing that really annoys me with this update is the images resizing.

 

I understand that, if the page width is to be fixed (to my opinion it is a discutable update but I doesn't bother me that much), then you have to shink the image to fit within that page width. But I just cannot see why it would be necessary to shrink images that are already small enough to fit. And also I don't understand the ratio of these resizings. Sometimes the image is still "readable", sometimes it is barely icon-sized. And it also seems to affect mostly images that are inside a table. Therefore the resizing ruins the table as a whole, by resizing all cells.

 

I know, this is only cosmetic, but still, I do take time to take a nice picture to illustrate my caches, and then some time to create the table and description below. Why should I be punished for this when it still fits within the new standard width ?

 

Here I have an example to illustrate my point. (I know, many people have said it, but maybe this picture will point out how silly this idea of resizing can sometime be)

 

 

whya.jpg

Edited by Kebeon
Link to comment

...check out a friends cache page. Funny house material!!!!

http://coord.info/GC216M5

 

Man! That is horrible!!

 

Mrs. Car54

glad there is not much to read. Imagine if there a story there.

So far I don't see too much to change on mine. Yes the background is not always great and Yes there should be an option. Someone may have a puzzle where the background is part of the puzzle and want it hidden not expose to the world. Guess I have to rethink one I was going to use.

Edited by jellis
Link to comment

For a hobby that requires a GPS or at least a smartphone do we have many users with such obscelecent monitors? Serious question.

 

Maybe not many with 1024x768, but 1024 at least used to be a rather common width for netbooks. Works rather well on such small display as mine has, 1024x600.

Nevertheless, I would prefer seeing dynamic size instead of fixed - the main display I use has 1600x1200, and the fixed width does not really work very well with that. Yes, I use browser in full screen ;)

At least please do not make it fixed wider, the current one is fine for the netbook :P

 

A bigger pain is the transparency of cache pages. Some pages have become really difficult to read.

Edited by ekhoc
Link to comment

Lets just face it, geocachers are the loyalist group of people on earth, no other company could get away with what GS does with the extremely poor implementation of site updates. Just update at will, create a zillion bugs and have the loyal customers figure it out. Let's face it, these updates are done to foil the excellent third party apps and such that use the site outside of an API under the guise of db progress ( if this is progress I am UBL). It is high time to stop this nonsense and just open up an API for these peoples or better yet, do as other companies do when someone comes up with a better idea - buy them out.

 

Now I need to spend a few hours fixing up my messed up cache pages. No more custom code for me....

Edited by Frank Broughton
Link to comment

I've got two gripes so far. The fonts are just too small. I use a netbook for caching a lot and it's just terrible there. And it's not that much better on a standard monitor either. And HTML rendering in cache descriptions is broken. Table widths and centering seem to be being ignored.

Link to comment

Big dissapointment: The fixed width.

My cachepage (http://coord.info/GC2B23C) is designed to be liquid. The information fills the available space. This gives a user with a wide monitor all the information with less vertical scrolling and u user with a small browser window all the information without the need to scroll horizontal.

 

What's even worse,I'm tempted to call it a bug, is the way the tables are mungled. The cache formula on that page (A = ..., B = ..., etc.) had a width smaller than the photo's. The formula's where situated as last photo. Now the tablecells are way to width and is it placed below the photo's (even more scrolling)

 

Furthermore, the TB map page http://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=2703188 is cluttered with the markers, please make them smaller. When I used to hover, I could see the cache it represents, unfortunately not anymore.

 

Please fix these issues.

 

Tc

Link to comment

Domo!!!

 

Performance Update, for future improvement, GREAT!!!

Please keep on expanding. More is always better.

 

UI Update, a mixed bag...

Overall, lots been fixed and/or improved. Good job Hampsters!

 

BUT, W H I T E S P A C E, less-appealing Smilies, Image resizing...

 

Yuck.

 

Thanks for trying.

Yet, still needs a TON of fixing.

Link to comment

The use of dates appears to be a bit inconsistent.

 

On my profile page, dates switched nicely to DDDD/MM/YY format that I selected from account settings. Would have preferred the standard DDDD-MM-YY or DD.MM.YYYY, but even this format with slashes this is a big improvement, thanks :D

 

On the pocket query page, the format still appears to be MM/DD/YYYY

 

Switching the format does correctly change the dates on the profile page, but pocket query page is consistently unchanged. Probably in the next release then :)

Link to comment

Looks as if I will need to re do all my cache pages.

Background images on cache pages used to be a subtle border. Now they dominate the page

See cache page example

 

I like the new look, but I think the text part could be a bit more opaque. The background is a bit strong. But I do like the effect, much better than before.

 

I think that translucency should be a cache page option. Fortunately I only used background images on a few of my current caches, but when I did, I used them because it suited the design. It no longer does that. Instead, it interferes with the design. A simple checkbox next to the input background textbox on the cache creation page could have made it a user option.

It really messed with some of the mystery caches in my area.

 

I have one myself that has a clock / angle aspect theme so I put a small animated pic of the hands of a clock in the background image, knowing that it would show up along the border of the cache page and be a little nudge to the solution. But now you can't read the cache description without feeling like the page is trying to hypnotize you. What was once a small feature along the edge of the page before now makes me a little queasy:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=5483c2ac-fbcc-4ded-94a8-ab4e0e708a4c

Link to comment

fixed width is terrible! But I do like the most of the other site updates ....

 

GC is not the only people/company around having problems with max/min width in CSS3 using IE 6/7/8. This is not an uncommon problem at all. You can find all kinds of JavaScript code samples out there to get around this issue considering IE is a very popular browser. With many languages - can't CSS be used to determine the layout based on language selected / defaulted? I really don't claim to be an expert by any means. Lots of developers in this global geocaching community. Just hoping that *maybe* there are options to solve this problem!

 

Good luck to GC trying to make everyone happy. I know, I know, it's just a game! :lol:

Link to comment

Geeesh... I have a template I use for all my cache and it is now broken. Why we cannot right align an image just like before? Maybe it was a mistake and you will bring that back? Tell me.

 

If you don't fix this and if there is no other way around to align a picture then I will have to think of a new template. I would be pissed because my archived cache cannot be edited so they will always look bad.

 

If there is another way to do it by cheating like using a div or span then fine, I will try to fix all my cache pages but again the archived ones will always look bad.

Link to comment

Geocaching.com UI and Performance Update

 

26060: One account per email address

New user accounts need to be created with a unique email address to allow for login by username or email, current accounts have been grandfathered

Not sure if my problem is related to this. I can (obviously) log into forums successfully. However, all three accounts in my household (myself and two daughters) can't log onto main geocaching.com site.

 

For ease of use and to monitor their accounts, I have my email as primary on all three accounts. I did this after an unknown adult male cacher attempted to 'friend' my 11 year old. So no, I do not want to change this setup.

 

It is fairly easy to disable the friend feature. I believe it is just in the account settings.

Link to comment

I, too, am not a fan of fixed-width pages. I like to make use of all of my browser window at whatever width I set it too. If the change was because of IE, code to only use fixed-width when using IE.

 

Also not a big fan of the semi-transparent page backgrounds (the bleeding images make text hard to read, especially for us in the older crowd), white borders just about everywhere else (makes the pages a bit bright and stark), and seeing the caches I have on my ignore list show on the maps (I ignore them because I don't want to see them - at all - anywhere).

 

I've never been a big fan of menus that drop down over content on mouseover, but if you're going to have them, why not add the member features, premium member features, and more and make it a true navigation bar?

 

On a positive side, I generally like the new style. I'll have to give it some more time to decide if these older eyes can adapt to the font shades and size.

 

Thanks for your efforts to make a better site!

Link to comment

I do not like that all the enormous amount of white space added to various pages. The result of the cache search delivers a large white space on the left (about 8cm) and and even larger on the right one (about 12cm). I use Firefox 3.6 under Linux. Some cache pages really look awful now, e.g.

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?guid=07e18d43-7c2d-460d-8a82-7db9fb80caf8 . That's annoying.

 

I am never using gc.com on a mobile device or small screen, but almost exclusively on PCs with large monitors.

 

Cezanne

Edited by cezanne
Link to comment

The changes have played havoc with my cache listing that use HTML. About 50% (OK it's only 4 out of 8) needed to be updated as a result. Some of the changes were to do with the use of the <P> tag which introduced lots of extra blank lines. Those I've managed to sort out.

 

One problem I've been unable to resolve is with the use of tables. The WIDTH and VALIGN attributes are being ignored, which means my formatting just doesn't work any more.

 

Mark

Link to comment

Wonder how much processing power the recent activity feature takes up.....

 

Do I really need to know that 'ghjuier' has found the cache 'plisndjfht' in the Czech Republic 14 minutes ago??????

 

Processing time could be better put to use.... like giving me a PQ result quickly for those 'spur-of-the-moment' caching trips, instead of making me wait sometimes 2hrs to make the PQ available for download......

Link to comment

A few more thoughts... Overall, I still like the new design. And I'm sure the infrastructure upgrades are a big win.

 

The date preferences are wonderful. THANK YOU! Like ekhoc, I would have preferred the standard yyyy-mm-dd format, but the yyyy/mm/dd format is fine, and a huge improvement over the ??/??/yyyy format.

 

I like the print style sheet. Thank you.

 

Those who want to use the same email address for a new geocaching.com account should check whether their email system supports address tags. Basically, username+foo@example.com and username+bar@example.com will both be delivered to username@example.com, but are otherwise treated as different email addresses. (Another option is creating a Gmail, Yahoo! mail, or other free email account and forwarding it to your real address.)

 

What is the point of the smiley icons? I don't mean the new icons themselves; I mean in general. Shouldn't they be easily recognizable, so they communicate something clearly? The new smiley icons are smaller and have much lower contrast than the previous ones. They may be prettier than the previous ones, but they aren't as visually distinct, and they don't communicate as clearly.

 

Finally, on the fixed-width issue, I agree with the comments several others have made:

  • There is no need for better browsers to be consistent with MSIE. No one but the site developers will compare the view in one browser with the view in another browser. As long as the site works in MSIE 7+, feel free to provide a better overall experience to users of better browsers.
  • Given the localization of the site and the user-provided content (i.e., cache descriptions), there is even more need for a simple flexible layout. A rigid fixed-width layout is going to cause problems.
  • I don't understand why anyone would use a full-screen browser window on a 2560x1600 monitor, but they do. And they probably don't understand why my browser windows are about 1000px wide regardless of the size of my monitor, or how anyone could stand to use a 1024px wide netbook (let alone a mobile browser). But a fixed-width layout is going to annoy everyone except those who just happen to be using browser windows that match the width you've chosen.

Link to comment

Overall, I find the site to be an improvement. The menu feels more intuitive than before. I think it might be a little more difficult to use at first because I'm still use to the old system. I also like the beta maps. They can use some improvements, such as better icons and creating pocket queries from the page, but I imagine that most will be implemented in the near future.

 

However, I do have problems with the fixed width and translucency of the cache pages. It breaks some pages and makes the text hard to read. From reading OpinionNate's explanation, it seems that the main issue with IE is that large images push off the menu bar to the right. So why not just resize the larger images and leave everything else alone, or post a warning on the cache submission form that using large images can break in some browsers and give a recommendation to the best image size to use?

Link to comment

OpinionNate has already noted that there are issues/concerns about the fixed width aspect of the new layout. Well, I'd like to add my voice in saying that this singular change has ruined the look, feel, and solvability of many of my cache pages and, in particular, puzzle caches. Here are four examples. Perhaps the worst of all is this cache, where the images have been removed from the page and are only viewable by clicking on a magnifying glass ... where did that come from?! I have already spent crazy amounts of time devising and establishing an attractive layout for these caches and I have no desire to go and attempt to recreate (80+ of) them in this new environment, that may well change once again. I urge the coders to reconsider this one change .. many of the other changes seem helpful, as opposed to the morass created by the fixed width change.

Link to comment
I have already spent crazy amounts of time devising and establishing an attractive layout for these caches and I have no desire to go and attempt to recreate (80+ of) them in this new environment, that may well change once again. I urge the coders to reconsider this one change ..

You're not alone... many are fancy and put time into nice presentation for their cache pages.

 

I wonder why they get so paranoid and disable so much code. What's dangerous in TD ALIGN?

 

I would instead use a Report forumla, I mean when a cache page abuse something in presentation then any user could click a Report button then the cache page would be analysed by the staff and if there is HTML abuse then the page could be put offline until fixed by owner. Much better than restricting everyone.

Edited by Rhialto
Link to comment

......................

Several people have mentioned text boxes such as the "email a user" and cache description being to small, these and others can all be enlarged by dragging the bottom right of the box out.

 

Nope, No can do - Doesn't work for me.

 

Sorry just checked and that only seems to work in Firefox not IE :(

 

Doesn't work in FF 3.0.

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...