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please add UTM to cache submission page


riotwarrior

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Here to say that I prefer UTM and use it almost exclusively and would much prefer seeing the addition of UTM co-ordinates in the submission page.

 

Seeing as Groundspeak already provides 1/2 of the equation by providing UTM for caches, lets provide an option of submitting them for caches please.

 

Thanks in advance

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Here to say that I prefer UTM and use it almost exclusively and would much prefer seeing the addition of UTM co-ordinates in the submission page.

 

Seeing as Groundspeak already provides 1/2 of the equation by providing UTM for caches, lets provide an option of submitting them for caches please.

 

Thanks in advance

Now that you have come to the Feature Discussions and Suggestions thread with a constructive post, let me predict what will come of it. Nothing, except you will have the satisfaction of having officially made your preference known to Groundspeak. There are many old issues that have much wider support here, that have not been implemented. Many requests are only added to a very long mythical internal list of things that hardly ever get implemented. Much more often something that has never been asked for pops up, and usually adding more bugs to the system. Unless you get a landslide of support on this issue, nothing is going to come of it. But at least you tried. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

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Now that you have come to the Feature Discussions and Suggestions thread with a constructive post, let me predict what will come of it. Nothing, except you will have the satisfaction of having officially made your preference known to Groundspeak. There are many old issues that have much wider support here, that have not been implemented. Many requests are only added to a very long mythical internal list of things that hardly ever get implemented. Much more often something that has never been asked for pops up, and usually adding more bugs to the system. Unless you get a landslide of support on this issue, nothing is going to come of it. But at least you tried. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

 

Do I detect some cynicism? <_< This is not constructive at all. We've all seen "less critical" changes implemented (and griped about it). Maybe this will be one of those quick-fixes that will be helpful for some people and won't be any noticeable change for the rest.

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Do I detect some cynicism? <_< This is not constructive at all. We've all seen "less critical" changes implemented (and griped about it). Maybe this will be one of those quick-fixes that will be helpful for some people and won't be any noticeable change for the rest.

Any cynicism would have been directed at Groundspeak only. The OP had stared a previous discussion about UTM. The OP was advised to come here and make a feature request for this preference. I was just giving my opinion that this was extremely unlikely to happen. I did not say I was against it (I'm not). The only harm that could come of it is having a bug introduced to Lat/Long entry by bad code. Quick fix? Seriously? Now who is not being constructive by offering false hope.

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Do I detect some cynicism? <_< This is not constructive at all. We've all seen "less critical" changes implemented (and griped about it). Maybe this will be one of those quick-fixes that will be helpful for some people and won't be any noticeable change for the rest.

Any cynicism would have been directed at Groundspeak only. The OP had stared a previous discussion about UTM. The OP was advised to come here and make a feature request for this preference. I was just giving my opinion that this was extremely unlikely to happen. I did not say I was against it (I'm not). The only harm that could come of it is having a bug introduced to Lat/Long entry by bad code. Quick fix? Seriously? Now who is not being constructive by offering false hope.

 

I have read the original thread that led to this feature request. Putting the OP's tone from that thread aside, I see no reason to carry the negativity elsewhere. And this thread is not a discussion about Lat/Long vs UTM.

 

False hope infers that you have absolute knowledge that an addition like this could never happen. I say "maybe" for the very reason I stated above.

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Maybe it's a technical consideration? I would think that uploading UTM coords would be different than downloading them. Any person who uses UTM has the Datum for their area programmed into their GPSr; my unit lets me choose from a list of 113. Uploading coords...Groundspeak would have to also list every possible worldwide Datum in a scroll down on the submission page, wouldn't it?

Edited by ByronForestPreserve
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Do I detect some cynicism? <_< This is not constructive at all. We've all seen "less critical" changes implemented (and griped about it). Maybe this will be one of those quick-fixes that will be helpful for some people and won't be any noticeable change for the rest.

Any cynicism would have been directed at Groundspeak only. The OP had stared a previous discussion about UTM. The OP was advised to come here and make a feature request for this preference. I was just giving my opinion that this was extremely unlikely to happen. I did not say I was against it (I'm not). The only harm that could come of it is having a bug introduced to Lat/Long entry by bad code. Quick fix? Seriously? Now who is not being constructive by offering false hope.

 

I have read the original thread that led to this feature request. Putting the OP's tone from that thread aside, I see no reason to carry the negativity elsewhere. And this thread is not a discussion about Lat/Long vs UTM.

 

False hope infers that you have absolute knowledge that an addition like this could never happen. I say "maybe" for the very reason I stated above.

Tone nor intention cannot be read from words printed. Understand that? I sure hope so, you cannot read body language or tone or inflection or anything else, just words! Just like now you cannot infer what my tone or frame of mind is. You may think you can when in all reality you can only read words on a page and to think otherwise is just plain ludicrous!

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Tone nor intention cannot be read from words printed. Understand that? I sure hope so, you cannot read body language or tone or inflection or anything else, just words! Just like now you cannot infer what my tone or frame of mind is. You may think you can when in all reality you can only read words on a page and to think otherwise is just plain ludicrous!

If only somebody had told that to Shakespeare before he waisted all those years!

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Anywhoo...

 

I have a technical question, that I never thought of before this topic came up.

 

If one has a choice of formats to upload to the cache submission page, what format will be displayed when the cache is published?

 

Would it not be displayed as HDD(D)° MM.MMM?

 

 

B.

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Anywhoo...

 

I have a technical question, that I never thought of before this topic came up.

 

If one has a choice of formats to upload to the cache submission page, what format will be displayed when the cache is published?

 

Would it not be displayed as HDD(D)° MM.MMM?

 

 

B.

I would hope so or I'll take up curling.

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Anywhoo...

 

I have a technical question, that I never thought of before this topic came up.

 

If one has a choice of formats to upload to the cache submission page, what format will be displayed when the cache is published?

 

Would it not be displayed as HDD(D)° MM.MMM?

 

 

B.

 

I would hope it shows up as UTM and lat long as the caches now do.

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A response I recieved VIA email today.....

 

Hello Al,

 

 

 

Thank you for contacting us and for your patience. I have read both forum strings and wanted to inform you that we do not have this feature. However, FizzyCalc (www.fizzymagic.net/Geocaching/FizzyCalc/) will do this conversion for you. I will be sure to pass this suggestion to add this feature on to our developers.

Please let me know if you have further questions or concerns.

 

My concerns have been noted and responses have been provided both ways....lets hope this goes somewhere and quickly!

 

Thanks for listening

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Seems like a subject of very minimal interest. (One user has expressed interest in this.) Probably an easy fix, but there are sites available for this conversion. Many requests have a lot of support from other users. Those would probably be a higher priority.

Ya know...it's funny...just cause someone does something different...they get a bunch of flack for wanting to do things that way, I know that in millions of people that do geocaching I cannot be the ONLY one who would prefer to use UTM, for logical reasons of their own of course. They are just less likely to try to push the envelope, cause that's what I do best!

 

So...without further addo...I can only hope that this simple easy change is brought to fruition.....

 

Three kinds of people in the world....

 

Ones whom wonder what's happened....

Ones whom watch what's happening....

 

And those ....

Whom MAKE things happen...

 

Which one are you?

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I was wondering if a simple link to a multi way converter (like as stripped down conversions from FizzyCalc) placed on the submission page might be the best way. It would be optional to use, and not difficult to do. Enter what you have and get what you need to enter. We have one that will give other formats from the DD MM.mmm entries on the cache pages themselves, I used that to get other results by reentering other coordinates, then learned that you can go straight to that page without the cache page. However since FizzyCalc I use that. Of course that page only does a one way conversion as far as I can tell.

 

Like most of us, converting isn't a problem for me. But thinking about the described situation and choices, the above link would be a reasonable modification to something that exists or could exist.

 

Doug 7rxc

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Seems like a subject of very minimal interest. (One user has expressed interest in this.) Probably an easy fix, but there are sites available for this conversion. Many requests have a lot of support from other users. Those would probably be a higher priority.

Ya know...it's funny...just cause someone does something different...they get a bunch of flack for wanting to do things that way, I know that in millions of people that do geocaching I cannot be the ONLY one who would prefer to use UTM, for logical reasons of their own of course. They are just less likely to try to push the envelope, cause that's what I do best!

 

You are probably not the only one that would like to use UTM coordinates, but realistically I suspect that you among only a 1% or less that would actually use that feature. In the software development world one has to weigh the amount of development effort something takes (because there are a finite amount of resources available) against the impact it has. When prioritizing feature requests something that is going to produce a tangible benefit for the greatest number of users is going to have a bigger weight. Groundspeak is a relatively small company and just doesn't have to resources to implement every feature request, even if it is a good idea. Ironically, even if you could submit or view coordinates in UTM format, they would be converted to decimal degrees (DD.DDDDD) when being transferred to/from your GPS. The Degrees, Decimal Minutes (DDD MM.MMM) format is only the *standard* format used to display coordinates on cache listings.

 

Technically, it would probably not be that difficult to implement your request, but practically it would take development time away from something else that was deemed to be a higher priority.

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This suggestion ties right in to the expert mode for cache submission suggestion. If we had an expert mode for the cache submission page then a field for UTM could be an option for the experts.

How do you become an "expert"? Some measurable metric, or just proclaiming yourself an expert? I have no problem with adding a UTM option (as a drop down available to everyone). I might even use it some places if it was a single box to fill. I hate all the separate boxes we currently have to fill. Totally kills copy/paste. I also see no problem with making the old submission page only available as a link from that other new fiasco. If you really are an expert, you will find it. Nobody else will find it because they don't read.

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This suggestion ties right in to the expert mode for cache submission suggestion. If we had an expert mode for the cache submission page then a field for UTM could be an option for the experts.

How do you become an "expert"? Some measurable metric, or just proclaiming yourself an expert? I have no problem with adding a UTM option (as a drop down available to everyone). I might even use it some places if it was a single box to fill. I hate all the separate boxes we currently have to fill. Totally kills copy/paste. I also see no problem with making the old submission page only available as a link from that other new fiasco. If you really are an expert, you will find it. Nobody else will find it because they don't read.

You don't become an expert or proclaim yourself an expert. You turn expert mode on or off depending on your own preference. With expert mode off you get the new submission procedure. The one that holds your hand through each step, double checks your entries, has multiple screens and presents nothing that could trip up someone who is new to geocaching. With expert mode on you get something like the old submission page. Everything is very compact on one page, very little hand holding or on screen explanations to make thing compact. Features like being able to use multiple DATUMS for cache location can be added to the expert mode and hidden from those that prefer not to use the expert mode.

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How do you become an "expert"? Some measurable metric, or just proclaiming yourself an expert? I have no problem with adding a UTM option (as a drop down available to everyone). I might even use it some places if it was a single box to fill. I hate all the separate boxes we currently have to fill. Totally kills copy/paste. I also see no problem with making the old submission page only available as a link from that other new fiasco. If you really are an expert, you will find it. Nobody else will find it because they don't read.

You don't become an expert or proclaim yourself an expert. You turn expert mode on or off depending on your own preference. With expert mode off you get the new submission procedure. The one that holds your hand through each step, double checks your entries, has multiple screens and presents nothing that could trip up someone who is new to geocaching. With expert mode on you get something like the old submission page. Everything is very compact on one page, very little hand holding or on screen explanations to make thing compact. Features like being able to use multiple DATUMS for cache location can be added to the expert mode and hidden from those that prefer not to use the expert mode.

What if you're Cardinal Red and don't know if you're an expert or not? There should be a guided process to help you determine that.

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