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Search Results on IPOD instead of prc file


nostrada

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Not sure if this is an old hat, my search didn't yield anything - but wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow convert this MobiPocket Reader prc file into a format to download and view the caches on an IPOD?

 

My old Palm is reaching its limits, but my IPOD could hold a huge number of caches beside the music.

 

Any thoughs?

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If you get your Pocket Query in GPX it is straight XML, so the only thing you need would be someone with mad skillz to write an app to read it in. Unfortunately I don't have an IPod nor know how to hack it.

 

frog.gif Jeremy Irish

Groundspeak - The Language of Location

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quote:
Originally posted by Jeremy:

Unfortunately I don't have an IPod nor know how to hack it.


 

For what its worth, reading note files is a standard feature with the new iPods, no hacking required. It expects a straight ASCII text file and will accept two or three very basic HTML commands. IIRC, it knows the TITLE BR and P commands only.

 

The method I currently use is to bring up the cache page, hit Apple-A to select all the text, Apple-C to copy the text to the clipboard, switch over to TextEdit and Apple-V to paste the text in. I usually clean it up a wee bit by eating some of the crap at the top and bottom and adding the star rating if I feel like it (the graphics don't transfer and the cache page doesn't have the rating as actual text anywhere ). Then save the document as a plain text file (this is important, notes on the iPod doesn't do Rich Text). From there, just drop the file into your iPod and you're good to go.

 

I might look at writing a quick parser to convert the XML Jeremy makes into a easy to read text file so you can suck your whole pocket query into the iPod in one fell swoop. It would be cool. If I do it, it won't be all Mac pretty. I live on the Unix side mostly, so it'd be probably be a Perl script.

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Yes, this is the way to go, no doubt. Jeremy's first answer gave me an idea, and some googling later I think I am getting closer without having to start learning Perl. I will of course update this thread with my findings, but it will look along the lines of this:

1) Run a report for the caches in my area (Premium Service) - using GPX format

2) Use gpx2html to split this up into html files

3) Use plucker to look at this on my palm - much smaller than the mobi book

4) Or convert these individual html files into txt files by stripping out the markup

5) and copy these onto the IPOD, as you outlined

 

I will play with this a bit more, but find the idea truly intriguing. Instead of GPS, Palm and iPod I would now only 2 devices ;-)

 

Are we geeks yet?

 

... where is it?

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OK, I think I have it sorted out.

 

Assumption: You are using Windows, have perl installed, own a Palm and/or Ipod (new model)

 

1) Get the Premium Subscription and support geocaching.com :-)

 

2) Run a report and select GPX format. Wait a day :-( ---> Or download the test file found under the next link...

 

3) Get gpx2html from here (Careful, this will change in the future, but google should be your friend when attbi moves to comcast)

gpx2html

 

4) Run gpx2html against your *.gpx file, it will create a HTML directory with all the caches as individual html files and a nice index file as well

 

5) Get the following tool to strip HTML files into TXT (needs perl installed)

Perl Html->Txt

 

You can use the following batch file to get the job done:

C:> for %%f in (*.html) do perl h2txt %%f

 

Now you will have a heap of txt files, which you can move into the notes folder of your IPOD. It will take a while for the IPOD to open this folder, but hey, nothing compared to a nice level 4 cache hunt.

 

Bonus:

6) Get plucker - linked on the same page - or from here in order to geocaching enable your Palm!

Plucker

Run it against your INDEX directory - might have to read/play a bit for this one, but great tool!

 

This will create a handy compact file for viewing the caches on your Palm, including a viewer.

 

... where is it?

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I've written a small utility in awk that does much the same thing without converting to HTML. It also does a few nice iPod things like moving the hint to a seperate file with a hot link from the main file and creating a master index of all caches which you can scroll through and select by name or cache_id.

 

In order to use it, you need to be willing to run it from a Terminal window, but I think you will find it more useful than the approach yowu describe.

 

It has one known bug: if the original description was in HTML, some of the formatting looks like crap on the iPod. You can read it, but there is bunch of <li&gt looking garbage in the file. It also might not handle every possible XML tag correctly, but it knows a bunch of them. It also strips a whole lot them from the text file, because I thought they looked dumb.

 

If you are interested, e-mail me and I'll send you a copy. If enough people care, I might even take another evening and wrap it up all pretty in AppleScript so that it is easier to use. I always wanted to learn AppleScript.

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... still don't have an apple. I have mailed the author of gpx2html and asked him to consider a txt filter as well.

 

I got my sun at work, so please do mail me the script over. I will be out for 10 days soon, but will certainly report back next month. Thanks!

 

... where is it?

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quote:
Originally posted by Team Lawrence:

all Mac pretty


I quite like this term!

 

In general, I really like this whole thread. Thank you for all the information thus far. I may end up emailing some of you for some more detailed instructions as I am not as technical as others of you here. I hope that's OK?

 

-- I recognize fun when I see it.

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quote:
Originally posted by MissJenn:

I hope that's OK?


 

I wouldn't mind. I've loaded a whole buncha data into my iPod today and I still think it is pretty cool. I'm glad Nostrada made the suggestion. Now that I have around 500 caches loaded, it takes the note reader about 30 seconds to initialize but it is pretty cool once it does. There are some issues I'd like to change, but this is a lot easier for me than printing out a million pages and trying to keep them straight. Plus on those hoepfully rare times I need the hint, I don't have to do rot-13 in my head in the middle of the forest.

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You are most welcome. I second the experience T.L. made - it takes a while, but then you are all up and running.

 

MissJenn - I am not an Apply guy, so I can not help you there, nor have I looked into any fancy iPod stuff either. I have to admit, I took my palm along today. With my son on the back listening to music is out of the question :-(

 

I will be out for a week, hunting in the Tahoe area and having some time off. But once I am back, I am glad to help!

 

Cheers!

 

... where is it?

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