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The Wherigo Foundation


Ranger Fox

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That's almost all there is. Here's the complete list:

1) Upload the GWZ/zip to the WF site.

2) Choose things like your cartridge's poster image, cartridge type, and description. Link your existing Wherigo geocaching by putting in the GC code on the right. When everything else is done, click the button at the bottom of the page.

3) Give the cartridge some attributes. If you don't, the site will allow the first person who completes the cartridge to do it for you. If you're not going to do it, I'm going to let someone else who knows your cartridge. Yeah, I'm serious.

4) If you want to share ownership of the listing with anyone who helps you with your cartridge, add them as a cartridge contributor.

5) When you're ready for the cartridge to be seen, publish the cartridge by creating a publication log. If you linked a Wherigo geocache, the cartridge listing will be published automatically the first time a non-contributor visits the listing. How cool is that?

 

I am continuing to modify the site, be that adding features or redoing some pages. I would like to redo the entire cartridge submission process over Christmas to update it to my current level of design and coding capability. Until the site replaces Groundspeak's Wherigo site (this has always been the plan), I will update the site without prior notification. All cartridges owned by my account are considered test data and will be removed from the site prior to its official launch. Please only use the Wherigo Foundation URL, not anything at rangerfox.com or rangerfox.net because, when the site is launched, the rangerfox.* domain linking will be removed. I will preserve the WF URL. Also, please continue to update your Wherigo.com listing. If for some reason Groundspeak decides not to partner with the WF, the WF site will need to be taken down. You will, at least, be able to download your cartridge before the whole site becomes inaccessible, so don't worry about that.

 

Per Groundpseak's request, I'm not starting discussions on the WF site until they can finish deciding if and how they're going to partner with the Wherigo Foundation. However, they also know that if I'm to improve the site, I need community feedback about it long before it's time to go live.

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I'll answer several questions here, jellis:

 

How do I know it's published?

Since Wherigo is a Groundspeak property, I applied the relevant parts of geocaching to the Wherigo Foundation site. Since Wherigo cartridges are almost always related to geocaches--and I doubt a cartridge reviewer system would be a popular or effective decision with everyone--you control cartridge publication. You can either publish the cartridge at your leisure or link your cartridge to a geocache. For the former, just make a publication log entry or choose "Publish Cartridge" from your Owner Tools menu. For the latter, you'll need to link a GC code to your Wherigo cartridge's listing (done in the "Edit Listing" link). I'm using the geocaching API to interact with gc.com. However, the API doesn't allow me to pull unpublished geocache listings even if I have your permission. The WF site will simply record whatever GC codes you give it. Next up, you need to provide people a link to your cartridge on your geocache listing. When the geocache is published and someone uses the link to go over to the WF site, the WF site will see they wouldn't normally have access to your cartridge, and would then check to see if it can pull the geocache listing's details. If it can, that means the geocache listing has been published and the WF site will then publish the cartridge listing and allow that person and everyone else access to see the listing. I guess you can call this a hack, but it's the best thing I could come up with to make sure the cartridge publishes after the geocache (without spamming gc.com, asking every few minutes if a geocache is available).

 

By the way, you know the cartridge listing is published if you don't see that blue box with the "Not Published" header at the top of your cartridge listing.

 

 

How do I see my listing?

If you have a cartridge that hasn't been published, you can access it by going to your account (the hyperlink on your user name at the top-right corner of the page), click "My Cartridges" on the menu bar, and click on the "View my unpublished cartridges" link. Also, if you know your cartridge's WG code, you can access your cartridge by putting that into the text box at the top right of every page. Not many people will know their WG code, but that box is available as a quick go-to for those who do.

 

I want to redo the user account landing page as I've never liked the page you come to. I've never liked the one on gc.com, either, but that's just my opinion. I was trying to mimic that one, though, because I'm still trying to keep with Groundspeak's established look and feel from gc.com. It's a corporate image thing.

 

 

How do I know it's published? (part 2)

You can also sign up for email notifications when a cartridge is published in your area. This acts close to what you expect from gc.com. If I remember correctly, if you're the one who makes the action, you do not receive a notification. I wanted to cut down on that sort of "no duh" email, if I may coin a phrase.

 

-----------

 

I need to do something about the menu navigation. I'm considering rearranging it so I can add links to your account pages within the navigation. I also need to get some links to Landon's YouTube videos onto the site. There's a lot to do if I can only find the time.

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Something is not making sense. I did publish it. I don't see a

"Publish Cartridge" from your Owner Tools menu. anywhere

 

What blue box?

By the way, you know the cartridge listing is published if you don't see that blue box with the "Not Published" header at the top of your cartridge listing.

 

I also don't see

click on the "View my unpublished cartridges" link.

 

1) Upload the GWZ/zip to the WF site.

Did all this.

3) Give the cartridge some attributes.

Didn't see an option for attributes

4) If you want to share ownership of the listing with anyone who helps you with your cartridge, add them as a cartridge contributor.

Not needed

5) When you're ready for the cartridge to be seen, publish the cartridge by creating a publication log. If you linked a Wherigo geocache, the cartridge listing will be published automatically the first time a non-contributor visits the listing. How cool is that?

So if nothing is showing does that mean I have to do it again?

Edited by jellis
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I'll try again on my home computer. I tried doing it from another computer but it again asked me for a poster image. Not sure why when I added one the last time it asked me.

 

Then it asked if a non-play anywhere cartridge it needs a country ID. Huh? Where am I suppose to add that?

Edited by jellis
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I used my admin account to give my non-admin test account, Wherigo Illuminati, access to your cartridge through the contributor feature. Essentially, that gives my non-admin account the same user privileges to your cartridge as you have. I've attached to this post a screen shot of what I'm seeing. What differs from what you're seeing?

 

By the way, to give your cartridge some attributes, that's in the Owner Tools menu. I don't know if this feature will survive to production, but if an owner doesn't supply attributes, anyone who completes the cartridge can add them for you.

 

Edit

In case the forum has trouble with the screen shot image, I uploaded it here.

post-633150-075097000 1419401955_thumb.jpg

Edited by Ranger Fox
Added a URL to the screen shot.
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Okay I found it and archived it to replace the cartridge. Don't know if that was necessary. The trouble I was having was I tried to send it by using the link to Publish to Wherigo Foundation. Instead I did it by manually uploading from the WF site. Added attributes and GC# and finally sent it to be published. So will it link up when the geocache gets published? Where will you see the link on the cache page or do I have to manually do that with the related web page?

Edited by jellis
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First, it wasn't necessary to archive the previous listing. You can upload new versions by going to "Version History". Those watching the cartridge listing will receive an email notification as all version changes result in a log entry. You could, however, upload a version as a test version. Test versions will be important later, when you're able to access your two test version slots via the Wherigo Player app.

 

You published your cartridge, but your geocache is not published. The right way to do things would be to link the geocache to your cartridge, as you have done, and select "Use auto publishing" in the cartridge's "Edit Details" section (you won't see this after the cartridge is published).

 

You're assuming a bit much when you're asking if the cartridge will "link up" with the geocache when it is published. It's up to the cartridge's author to include a link to the cartridge on their geocache listing. I might be able to do something via the geocaching API, but I can only pull published cartridges with it. It'll be too late by then as you need to do the geocache to cartridge linking before your geocache is reviewed. In a perfect world, once Groundspeak partners with the Wherigo Foundation, they should add a Wherigo WG code text box to their Wherigo geocache listing page to make it easy for people to link their geocache to their cartridge.

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First, it wasn't necessary to archive the previous listing. You can upload new versions by going to "Version History". Those watching the cartridge listing will receive an email notification as all version changes result in a log entry. You could, however, upload a version as a test version. Test versions will be important later, when you're able to access your two test version slots via the Wherigo Player app.

 

You published your cartridge, but your geocache is not published. The right way to do things would be to link the geocache to your cartridge, as you have done, and select "Use auto publishing" in the cartridge's "Edit Details" section (you won't see this after the cartridge is published).

 

You're assuming a bit much when you're asking if the cartridge will "link up" with the geocache when it is published. It's up to the cartridge's author to include a link to the cartridge on their geocache listing. I might be able to do something via the geocaching API, but I can only pull published cartridges with it. It'll be too late by then as you need to do the geocache to cartridge linking before your geocache is reviewed. In a perfect world, once Groundspeak partners with the Wherigo Foundation, they should add a Wherigo WG code text box to their Wherigo geocache listing page to make it easy for people to link their geocache to their cartridge.

I did do the auto publish. What I did is copied the url for the Wherigo and put it in the Related Webpage. I worried if the cache went live before the Wherigo there would be some upset cachers who see an unfinished cache. I know because there was one here recently where the cache went live and Wherigo wasn't there. I'm still learning. And wish there was a little more info on how to do them, like a FAQ. Though yours is a lot easier for me it still has some areas that would have helped with instructions on putting them together and to publish them

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Question is how do you upload to your iphone like you do on the regular Wherigo site.

The iPhone app needs to be updated to allow this (because I'm not going to expect people to hook their phone up to their computer, run iTunes, and copy the cartridge file over). We're also working on another app that will be able to do a lot more than just download a cartridge.

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What is the Wherigo Foundation player?

The WF Player is an app we're working on. It is a player app that uses the same underlying code across cell phone operating systems. This means when we release a feature or fix a bug, it will be for all phones at the same time rather than having to modify three separate software packages. This significantly reduces the amount of work we'll have to do to support everyone's phones. We've talked about it a little for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. I've been playing around with some early builds of the iOS player app and it looks better and has less issues (such as it was the only player app I tested that played some mp3s I loaded into a cartridge I'm developing for release).

 

What is the generic player?

Until we release the WF player, this generic player is for things we don't know about or that aren't on the list. It's a catch-all.

 

Is it allowed to download the cartridge to the Wherigo site too?

Huh? Are you asking if the WF site can send your cartridge over to Groundspeak's Wherigo site? Are you asking if people can download cartridges from both places?

 

Why are you given a choice between player apps when you want to download a cartridge?

This is a question I think you're implying, but never come right out and ask. It's a good one, too. Why do you have to select your player app, anyway? The reason comes down to two: different devices and player apps. The different player apps have different capabilities. The easiest difference to illustrate this is between the Garmin player and the cell phone apps. Garmin cannot play audio, but can make beeps. It's possible to make a cartridge that says, "If this is a Garmin player, play this sound made specifically for Garmin; if it's a cell phone, play this mp3." Between cell phone apps, the differences are smaller, such as if the apps support image scaling. If an app does not, the site (compiler, really) needs to resize the image files before you can download it to your app. For example, I had larger images in a new cartridge I was working on. The WF Player supports image scaling (hooray!), so the pictures are guaranteed to fit my cell phone's screen width. PiGo, the current official player app for iOS, did not seem to scale the pictures, so the larger ones were shown clipped. It's these little differences the Wherigo Foundation is trying to either eliminate altogether or handle ourselves so you don't have to think about it. So until we have a community standard app and get rid of Garmin compatibility, we'll have to ask you for your device when you download a cartridge. Now, if you were downloading a cartridge directly through an app that uses our WF Wherigo API (none do at the moment), you wouldn't be asked that.

 

Where is the app download list coming from?

The WF site uses the WF compiler. The compiler supplies the site with a list of devices for which it can compile cartridges. In turn, the WF site shows that list to you. I can remove items from the list if necessary. Once we've standardized on player app features, this list will no longer be necessary. By the way, I'm not against having PiGo and the WF Player app on iOS and available to everyone. I certainly don't mind having two player apps available to people, so long as we don't run into compatibility problems that make it necessary once again to enable the targeted compile feature.

 

Groundspeak's site is easier to download a cartridge

Okay. Is it because there are fewer options you have to look through? Is it because it takes you a page that explains things? Can you be more specific in your critique? Is there something I can do to improve your experience with using the site? I've been working a lot on the back end lately, so a lot of the things are subtle. You can see a list of most of my work in the change log on the site. I have cache logging, home shopping, geocaching, other projects, and holiday activities to compete with my time. I'm holding off on doing some big changes until I can afford the time to hammer them out. I'm still working on a big code change, gut that won't affect anything anyone sees. I'm trying to make sure the site continues to be responsive by separating its API from the site itself. That's going to take a while, but is necessary for when a ton of people are using the player app, especially for what I have planned in the future.

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Like when I first encountered the WF I was confused what cartridges to use for GPSs like the older Oregon and others that used them. Would that be the Generic one? My Wherigo cache went live and I got a message "where is the cartridge?" even though I put the website on the Related Web Page.

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Do you have to be signed in to the wherigofoundation.com website to download a cartridge?

 

Or am I (as a owner) able to allow anonymous cartridge downloads somehow?

 

This may be as stupid question, as player-dependent information is normally added to the cartridge.

But as this could be just left at the standard-values for anonymous downloads, it should be technically possible...

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Do you have to be signed in to the wherigofoundation.com website to download a cartridge?

 

Or am I (as a owner) able to allow anonymous cartridge downloads somehow?

 

This may be as stupid question, as player-dependent information is normally added to the cartridge.

But as this could be just left at the standard-values for anonymous downloads, it should be technically possible...

Yes, you do have to be signed in to the web site to download a cartridge for the very reason you suggest. The two user items that are added are the user's name and completion code. At times, authors show the user's name in the cartridge. Once we have apps using the Wherigo Foundation API, automatic cartridge completions will use a combination of the completion code and the logged-in user's name to tell the site the cartridge has been completed and that the user can create a completion log entry.

 

If I allow anonymous downloads, I feel people may forget to log in, download a cartridge, and not be able to mark it as complete when they finish it. They'd have to log it as incomplete and contact the owner, who would then have to go in and upgrade their log to complete. Since cartridge completions count for your Wherigo stats and, later, achievements and fun things, people would want to make sure they get their completion credit. I feel that if anonymous downloads are enabled, this would be a problem from which we'd hear no end, year after year.

 

I feel this is the disadvantage to the idea. Do you have an advantage in mind that might outweigh that?

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Most cartridges I did up to now were also listed as geocaches at geocaching.com. In this case there is no problem, as players already have an account.

 

But some are e.g. also nice sightseeing guides. One of them doesn't even have a physical cache container, but is pure virtual.

And all of my Caches are listed elsewhere on the net, most on alternative cache listing sites, some on personal webspace.

 

For this reason I have to host a second version of each cartridges outside of Wherigo.com to allow people without an account to access them.

This essentially more then doubles the effort I have to put in maintaining the cartridges and listings during Cartridge-Updates...

 

An (owner setable) anonymous access to the cartridge would really help A LOT in this use cases!

 

The two user items that are added are the user's name and completion code. At times, authors show the user's name in the cartridge.

 

I am using the "Name"-feature myself. It's funny, but nothing more. When allowing anonymous download, the name just has to be set to a sensible value by the owner before uploading and everything is fine.

 

Once we have apps using the Wherigo Foundation API [...]

If I allow anonymous downloads, I feel people may forget to log in, download a cartridge, and not be able to mark it as complete when they finish it.

 

An easy (and generally desirable) solution to that issue: don't allow cartridge downloads via the API when not authenticated.

 

People who are not registered at the Wherigo Foundation won't be using the API anyway.

So it is sufficient to support the anonymous downloads only via the website (where a warning could be issued, if desired)

 

An additional advantage: It could make it easier to let people test cartridges, that are not yet published, just by supplying the link of the listing.

At the moment, I can make unpublished cartridges only availaible to people that have been logged in to wherigofoundation.com before.

But on second thought this may be unconnected to the possiblilty of anonymous downloads...

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I can see your point. You have cartridges that don't have anything to do with geocaching and, therefore, shouldn't need a Groundspeak account to download them. One of my success factors with the Wherigo Foundation is if I can get Wherigo to stand on its own apart from geocaching--especially generating its own revenue stream so it can at least pay its own bills. Wherigo is still a Groundspeak property, so I wonder if I'd be able to get away with that with Groundspeak.

 

Let me think how much work that's going to take and, mostly, what would need to be modified. I can allow anonymous downloads, but I won't be able to allow a unique completion code, but at least I can create something. (It would be even more work to allow owners to specify their own code.) I can still allow cartridge completions on a cartridge downloaded anonymously if I allow for a cartridge-wide completion code (of course, people will then have to log in, but it's a fair compromise). Yes, I'll need to think about what all I would have to change. I'm tracking unique downloads based on user name, so that would have to change, but there isn't a lot about the downloads themselves that are dependent upon the user. I might have to add to my gargantuan search stored procedure the ability to filter cartridges by anonymous download ones.

 

Actually, about the API, my personal intent is to get to a state where Wherigo lives only on cell phone apps. The API will be more than essential at that point, because that might as well be the only way you can load cartridges. You can be on the site and add the cartridge to your download queue, load your app, and your app will download your queued cartridges automatically (the queue requires a user account). You should be able to do with the API almost anything you can on the site.

 

Yeah, the concept of allowing anonymous downloading of unpublished cartridges gets really weird. I suppose I could provide a URL for anonymous downloads while the cartridge is unpublished.

 

Let me think on the matter for a little while, make sure this would be useful in many ways as well and outline the changes in my head. I have to balance how much time I spend on this project because I've been looking at houses.

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Yes, I see now that this is vastly more complex than I thought...

 

And I am also impressed by your thoughts on this - you are thinking ahead of me here.

 

The ability of completing anonymously downloaded cartridges would be cool. This could also help to solve some specific cartridge distribution scenarios e.g. at events at places with limited or no web access (this was actually an issue for an event in Germany some months ago, if I remember correctly).

 

I am not sure though why you would need to add the anonymous option to your search function... People who routinely play wherigos will be members already and will not be searching specifically for cartridges with an anonymous download option.

 

Anonymous downloads would be most interesting when pointing people from elsewhere to a cartridge ("Look, I created this interactive location based story... just download it and try it out, it's fun! ").

This also brings me to a major advantage of non-member-downloads: Promotion!

It may be a good idea to allow people to easily try it out and perhaps get hooked...

 

As for the API-centered, mobile-phone-app-driven approach: Interesting idea, sounds like it would be really convenient!

On the other hand I don't like the idea of neglecting the website completely. This is partly a gut feeling but is also based on some real fears, like lack of the aforementioned promotion (which is easier when a full featured website exists, I think).

Another risk is the possibility that a pure API-based approach could be some kind of cul-de-sac, either technologically, from a user-basis-viewpoint or generally when conditions change again... (as they already did with the emergence of smartphones not too long ago....)

 

Anyway, thanks for thinking about it and much luck for your house-search!

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I don't have to add anonymous cartridges (to shorten the term) to the search stored proc. However, I can see a scenario when someone using the app is not logged in. In that scenario, only anonymous cartridges would be available to the person. So I was wondering if I should let the app show only anonymous cartridges until the person logs in or show all cartridges and tell the person when a cartridge is not anonymous.

 

For promotion, if I was going to try that, I'd also give people the chance to play it in Webwigo, the online emulator, through a link. I can always give the cartridge owners the ability to show the link.

 

The API, by the way, is the entire reason for the site. Wherigo needs an API so we can build apps that search for, download, and log cartridges from within the app. Imagine Wherigo's current situation with the geocaching app: You look on gc.com on your computer for a geocache you want to find, you launch the app and click to get a GPX file, this launches a browser to gc.com's home page, you then find the cache again through the web browser, you log in, then you click the button to download the GPX. If you want to find out what else in near you, you'll have to know your coordinates and search that way--each time, unless you copy the search URL. Wherigo with apps and without an API is dumb. To create an API, we need to modify the site's code. To do that, we have to have the site's code. Because we don't, we had to create a site and database in order to make an API. With an API, the builders can interact with the site to store your cartridges, then the apps can download then.

 

As you mentioned with a pure API approach, I'm working on the site and API together. When I add a feature to the site, it gets added to the API. I'm also working in the code to fission the API off the web site code so I can run both from different servers to increase the number of simultaneous connections each will support. I'm not going to enable this at the moment, however, because the data caching service I'd have to use is expensive. I was going to do the preparatory work up to the point of no return, then leave the code like that until I needed to finish it because the performance was degrading without it.

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Check out the updates I made to the site, Schnatterfleck, and see how you like it. You can even search for anonymous download cartridges. However, I don't have a special way of displaying this distinction on the cartridge listing's page, so you just have to click the download link to see. For the record, it was already possible to download cartridges without logging in. The changes included moving control of this to a central place, defining the word for the player's name in the anonymously-downloaded cartridge, and validating the correct completion code. We'll see how it all works out. Try it out and let me know what you think.

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Okay I am getting better at this. Still think there should be a better tutorial. I tried to submit my second one to the Foundation and still got an error about cartridge poster. Mine did have one but I guess it just doesn't see it. So I went to the Foundation site and just like last time, uploaded the cartridge there and put the poster in there. Still waiting for my cache on GC to go live. I don't like it to have it go live at night because I don't want FTFers to enter the park at night. After the FTF I don't think anyone will.

Now I have a question/suggestion. The Wherigo Foundation pages look like the cache pages but why isn't there any Difficulty/Terrain rating?

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I wondered about what rating to put on the cartridge pages. I like the concept of having only a couple ratings for a listing as having too many make things more difficult to deal with. One of the ratings I wanted to carry over was time. I believe that's important to know so you don't commit yourself to a three hour tour (Gilligan's Island reference) when you only have time for one hour. I have concerns with porting over both the difficulty and terrain ratings from geocaching, though I can understand how they both can play a part in a cartridge. The majority of cartridges I've come across aren't that difficult and just require a little observation, so that makes a difficulty rating for the cartridge component (we're ignoring the geocache) less of an issue. As for terrain, I've seen cartridges played in urban areas and on simple nature trails, though that's not to say I haven't seen a few that required tons of strenuous hiking or a boat.

 

To keep things simple, I'd like to have only the most important things in a rating, and not too many individual numbers. I believe the play time is one of these. Perhaps we could combine difficulty and terrain into a "challenge" rating--though I do not want to use that term because "challenge" has already been used too many times with geocaching. But how would I guide people to choose the appropriate challenge rating so the ratings can be kept fairly consistent within a region? Such a rating is too subjective to be as useful as the play time.

 

If we (the community) can come up with and define a good, usable rating system for Wherigo, I'll implement it. Also keep in mind I'm tottering on the brink of saying I don't like the whole "one completion is one point" thing as completing a cartridge that takes twenty minutes isn't the same as completing a four hour hike up and down mountains. Yeah, it saddens me that finding a cache on a sign next to the road carries the same weight as a finding a cache that involved forty-plus miles of hiking (yes, I have a multi that requires that effort). Besides, if I can come up with an idea for a fun, engaging scoring system, I'll implement it.

 

On a side note, please do keep in mind reviewers have been informed that for a Wherigo geocache to be official, a link to a Wherigo.com-hosted (not WF-hosted) cartridge should be on the cache page. (I guess you could have both links.) Some reviewers may publish the listing regardless of where the cartridge is hosted, but the geocaching guidelines do state the cartridge should be on Groundspeak's Wherigo listing service. Every now and then, someone does remind me to remind others of this.

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There should be one official listing service so the cartridges are kept all in one place. The WF site is publicly available at this time so I can have feedback and perform integration testing with the WF player app and Wherigo\\kit. Both Groundspeak and I are aware the site should not be used for production cartridges because if our negotiations fail (yes, we're negotiating, but it's really slow), my having to shut the site down would not have such a negative affect on the community. By now, all reviewers should be aware to watch for the cartridge links. I've gotten some good feedback so far, but I still need to know if other people are experiencing any problems. My work on the site is slow as well because my time is split very thin between that and a ton of other things: putting out Wherigo fires, answering private requests for help, geocaching (I'm almost at 50K), helping others with their cartridges, questions about Wherigo\\kit, forum stuff, finding & buying a house (it's a long process, but needs to be done by July), work, logging caches, etc.

 

Anyway, that's why I remind people every now and then that while I appreciate people trying out the site and providing feedback, they need to use Wherigo.com as their official cartridge listing service.

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I am building a series of "play at home" (and also later in the field) wherigos and I would like to include on my cache page a link to the "play in Emulator" webwigo link from the Wherigo foundation website. I tried creating a link on my cache page but when I click on the link it begins to load but never finishes. Is there a way to link a webwigo/Wherigo foundation link to a geocaching.com cache page?

 

I get the following error when I try:

 

Status:

UNSENT, OPENED, HEADERS_RECEIVED, LOADING, DONE

164 bytes received

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I believe you're following these steps:

1) In the "Edit Listing" section, you're checking the box for the Webwigo emulator link.

2) You're copying the emulator URL to your geocache listing page.

3) You're then clicking the URL later.

 

I tried that by copying the link and using it in a browser where I'm not logged into the WF site. I got what looked to be the same message. I waited for what seemed five or ten seconds and the cartridge opened anyway. After the first time I loaded Webwigo into my browser, things seemed to work faster in that browser. As I mentioned, I wasn't logged in with that browser (Chrome; my primary browser is Firefox as I like its debug tools a little more).

 

These are my test URLs:

WGX

WG8Y

Your "Monsters" cartridge

 

Can you reproduce this with any of these?

 

(Wolfman is just a regular guy with Hypertrichosis. Poor misunderstood guy, being labeled as a monster all this time. Get him a razor.)

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It should have worked in Firefox as well. Perhaps something just needed some time to "warm up"?

 

I visited two friends over the weekend. They're taking care of some hairless dog. The thing was shivering during its walk even though it was fairly pleasant outside. Poor wolfman might need a coat if he ends up looking like that dog! Well, that's another cartridge idea for you: wolfman is smitten with love and needs to get ready for a date with someone who likes her guys clean-shaven. Fortunately, it's a new moon.

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Okay I see what was happening now. I was copying the URL from the actual webwigo page w/ loaded cartridge. After looking more closely at the directions, I copied the "Play in Emulator" link from Wherigo foundation. It works great with either firefox or chrome now. Thank you again!

 

Ha ha, I love it. Maybe I can even make it so the game alternates between day time and night mode and he has to keep shaving himself at night in order to collect higher "date" points.

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The WF site's link is special. That extra "view=emulator" will cause the cartridge to compile and become available to Webwigo for a few minutes, which is more than enough time for it to contact the WF site to download the cartridge. It's a fun little handoff. That type of link will work for any of your cartridges and any others where the author has allowed others to play in the emulator.

 

Every time I see the WF site, I'm reminded about how significantly I've improved over the last couple years and how much work it's going to be to update the UI so it follows more responsive design patterns (for cell phone use). I think I'll wait until Groundspeak continues talks about partnering with the Wherigo Foundation. They're starting to resume the dialog, by the way, but an announcement of anything significant is still a while away.

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Thank you again for helping me to get this setup and for the update on the Wherigo foundation. I was beginning to get worried that the Groundspeak/Wherigo foundation partnership was not to be. It is always nice to hear that they are still open to discussions. I think we are all waiting with high hopes for the foundation.

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I am building a series of "play at home" (and also later in the field) wherigos and I would like to include on my cache page a link to the "play in Emulator" webwigo link from the Wherigo foundation website. I tried creating a link on my cache page but when I click on the link it begins to load but never finishes. Is there a way to link a webwigo/Wherigo foundation link to a geocaching.com cache page?

 

I get the following error when I try:

 

Status:

UNSENT, OPENED, HEADERS_RECEIVED, LOADING, DONE

164 bytes received

You should write to Geocaching HQ to see if you are allowed to do this. I would not publish a cache with this link unless authorized by HQ. Good luck with your project!

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You think? Actually, I've been told by a few that when they asked a question needing an official answer sometime back, they were told to ask in the forum.

 

I provided the links in answer to the question. I've never flat out said WF site links are sanctioned by Groundspeak; I've always done the opposite. As I've said many times, discussions are ongoing based on Groundspeak's free time, which is very little, making this an unexpectedly glacial process. This is also why the link to the WF site has never been added to my signature line and how the WF site's cartridge upload page has always stated it's a preview tech demo and, for cartridges to be published, they must reside at Wherigo.com. That's also why the WF.Player is not public in any app store.

 

No need to write to HQ. I've been handling things, and it's understandable there's impatience. But there's always a need to remind people not all tools can be used/mentioned at this time. The only official players are for the two Garmin GPS receivers, Pocket PC, and the iPhone, plus Groundspeak's builder that I've patched a few times. For the rest of the player and builder tools, there's an informal understanding they're tolerated, considering they're what is keeping Wherigo alive and accessible. Still, the reviewers haven't even been given the list of official products, meaning nothing is allowed to be mentioned, leading to some collateral damage when some geocachers discover an audio-required cartridge can only be downloaded in Pocket PC format and no reviewer will allow a cache owner to communicate this to geocachers because such warnings mention product names, albeit official ones. So things are already in a none-too-happy, confusing state.

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The service you provided prompted me to issue one of my reminders. I think the last time I did that was a couple months ago. I should have mentioned something when I helped with the links.

 

I hear it from all three sides: players, reviewers, and Groundspeak. It's difficult staying in the middle, but it's a good place to be to help.

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@Keystone: Ah, that's nice. An official, which answers questions. There are many of them regarding Wherigo and the official websites. Perhaps you could answer some of them.

 

The biggest problem with the website is, that the unlock code often has 16 characters, while the website only accept codes with 15 characters. When do you think, Groundspeak repair this?

 

Because I archived a Wherigo Geocache, the next question is: how could I archive a Wherigo cartridge on the official website?

 

It would be phantastic, if you could answer this first two questions.

 

Thank you.

 

Best regards

Dirk (Charlenni)

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Oh, I'm sorry to hear this. You are the only official Groundspeak person writing in this forum for a long time. The Wherigo Foundation seems to be the only group supporting Wherigo. And the few times a Groundspeak lackey writes something, they doom the work of the Wherigo foundation. So, what's so terrible supporting the community with a website, which could handle things, the official couldn't. That's a strange situation :(.

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Yes, it has been quiet.  I can only speak for myself, but I think the sentiment is close to the same.  Groundspeak speaks like they're eager to recognize the project, but their actions say the opposite.  As far as I can tell, geocaches mentioning any of our work aren't supposed to be published.  Over the years, I have gotten a few draft partnership agreements.  The last few took nine months of waiting before getting some minor word changes.  I finally wondered if Groundspeak even cared, so I went silent for more than a year to see if anyone would contact me.  Nope.  They do talk like they're excited to do something, but the action feels like one of apathy.

 

So for me personally, I'm just exhausted.  It has taken about a decade for my self-generated drive and energy to thin out.  Short of a group of people miraculously appearing and supporting me, egging me on, I imagine it'll take a couple years for me to replenish all that motivation.  Apathy does tend to be destructive towards your volunteer base.

 

So, why do I care so much about Groundspeak's involvement?  It's like this: the builders and players we have are the main things keeping Wherigo afloat.  Pretty great, right?  But those who want to thank you in their cache listings can't because the company your work is benefiting doesn't want your work to be mentioned.  So is what you've done welcome or not?  Should you continue putting effort into it?  Why help when you don't know if it's appreciated?  And you really want to innovate, but you can't because the site that lists the cartridges won't be able to compile any of the new things you want to add.  You'd really need to control the compiler on the listing site in order to do anything fun, hence the Wherigo Foundation's listing service.  So the Wherigo Foundation site was created so we can have our own compiler so we have the ability to innovate.  However, the site would need to become the de facto listing service so the new stuff can compile.  And that's where the wall was hit.  The reviewer rule as stated to me is caches aren't going to be published if they're listed on anything but the official listing service.  If it doesn't look like Groundspeak is going to allow it, how can you justify spending a lot of time working on something that might not see the light of day?  I've considered making major updates to the Wherigo Foundation site and Kit, but that's going to take several hundred hours of my life (the site, API, Invaders, spec improvements, streaming service, multiplayer, owner HUD: the project would take several years of my time when what we need would be a team of people, plus an eager community to keep everyone's motivation high).  For the Wherigo Foundation site, that just feels like a losing gamble, creating something that can't be used.  I've considered giving it one last hurrah, with the intent of a hostile takeover.  But if Groundspeak could legally force me to take down something I create (or have their reviewers refuse to publish caches), and if I manage to create something people would want to use regardless of that, I fear that situation might cause the destruction of the very thing I meant to save.  Or perhaps I'm just overstating everyone's importance and Wherigo would have gone along all right without us.  You never can tell.

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I can relate to your words, from a different angle. One should embrace volunteer work and even support it (a little).

I see no reason for Groundspeak to give support, like resources, to get issues fixed and the whole infrastructure improved.

 

Currently it looks as if it was originally developed and then thrown into the bin.

Like a 12 year old Formula 1 car trying to compete in today's day and age F1.

 

Is the term "Wherigo" a protected name?  *thinking of things* ?

 

GeoGorkum

 

 

 

 

 

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“Wherigo” is a trademarked term. If we came out with a separate game that didn’t use tasks, we would not be in violation of the Wherigo patent (as I understand patent law), but the work couldn’t be listed as a Wherigo geocache, so that means developing an audience for a fully separate game. 

 

The support I wanted from Groundspeak was mainly an agreement that the WF site could eventually replace the current Wherigo site. That would give us the ability to make modifications to the Wherigo spec and host other services needed to offer new gameplay features such as multiplayer and Invaders. I also would want Groundspeak to pick up the bill for the site’s hosting because it’s their product. And if revenue was generated from something, I wanted to split it between everyone based on contribution. I’m a little too particular about making sure things are fair for all involved. I jut want development to continue. If not us, who?

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Ranger Fox,

Wherigo caches are really appreciated by cachers in my area, my one was built with your Wherigo kit, and I've pointed several folk to the kit to get started on building a Wherigo without having their brain explode due to the complexity of the other builders .So thank you (again) for your efforts,  with the Foundation, the  'kit' and your unfailingly helpful work here in the forum.: TPTB may not value it, but plenty of cachers do.

 

I know that's not any practical help , and I'd better not say what I think of how Wherigo has been left to  decay : as you say. best not precipitate the destruction of something ... unlike GeoGorkum : I DO see a reason for GS to give support to get issues fixed, and the infrastructure improved : every cache they list is an asset to their business, a plus on the database they sell us access to, and here they have a novel cache type and a dedicated expert giving his time and expertise freely to something he cares for. Not supporting him is , frankly, madness.

 

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I appreciate that.

 

One sad thing about the whole geocaching game is that the last cache type innovation was Wherigo.  Yes, there were the labs caches (one time you could make one), a virtual some of us got to create, the very quick demise of the (in my opinion) very poorly named Geocaching Challenges, but Wherigo is the last cache type innovation that is open to all to create.  Business-wise, if you don't innovate or grow, you tend to stagnate.  I look at the Munzee game and see how it has taken off, plus how they keep introducing new types to keep the game fresh.  I'd love something new to liven up the game.  I've been to many places and found a ton of caches.  I feel like there isn't much I haven't seen, save for going some place new and doing the same old thing there.  So even in caching, my drive has been flagging.  I still keep in it, but I'm witnessing an overall decline in my area.  (And permanently banning some prolific desert cache hiders does not show that every cache is an asset.  However, I must concede I do not know the full story on that, so I can't really blame anyone.  But making one or two trips out to Nevada was just so convenient.)

 

Man, if we could innovate on Wherigo, we could try several things.  Wherigo is perfect for fooling around with augmented reality.  And I wanted Invaders as a meta game to keep people in the overall game while waiting for more cartridges.  And the scoring system I wanted to explore would give you points from creating and playing, but eventually cap out until you either contributed (made something) or saw what other people are making (played something), whichever you weren't doing much of.

 

It might sound like fun, but it'll be a ton of work.  And I'd rather not embark on that unless I have some assurances what I'm going to spend the next several hundred hours of my life on will see the light of day and people will get to enjoy it.  The risk is just too high and the price too great.  Even then, this is a job for a team of people, not just one person.  I feel like if I'm to restart the Wherigo Foundation project, I'll need to create a new site (all the data will carry over), new API, and add some fresh things (video, cross-cartridge and inter-cartridge state, multi-player, etc.).  I can then try to get all the others in the group to pick up where we left off, heedless of what might happen.  What will kickstart me on doing this is if I ever meet an artist who can do better web page design and layout, plus have a core group to offer opinions and suggestions to make sure what's being made is still fun and looks nice.  But if that fails and nothing comes of the work, I doubt I'll regain motivation to ever try again.  It's just too much time invested.

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