html in geocache description

[+eliwe]

Hi!

 

Sorry if this topic is old and discussed since whenever, but I couldn't find it by searching the forums.

 

I want to add a pretty complex table to a geocache description. However, I can't seem to get the html code to work properly. It works when looking at it in a html editor, but not when pasting it into the cache description. For example, I wnat to have an outer border but no inside borders. I tride with:

<table border="2" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" rules="none" style="width:100%;" width="100%">

 

...but when looking at the cache page it shows inside borders around all cells anyway.

 

Earlier I have also tried to make an enumerated list with A, B C... instead of 1, 2, 3 but that also didn't work out for me.

 

Grateful for any comments!

 

Oh, and my apologies if this is in the wrong forum....

Edited October 14, 2014 by eliwe

[+GeoLog81]

The best way to do if you want to use advanced HTML in geocache description is to forget this, for the sake of the other people!

 

The HTML support in Garmins is rudimentary, they often doesn't render correctly, or what is worse, they crash the device!

 

So just keep things simple, or you'll be only annoying people.

[+eliwe]

Ok, thanks. Great point.

 

The thing is that I have a myst with a table of around 30x30, with numbers in all cells. I want to help people by making it possible to copy/paste this into a spreadsheet, instead of including it as an image so they'd have to retype all the numbers (which I've seen on times...). Do you have any good suggestions instead of an html table?

Edited October 14, 2014 by eliwe

[+Team Microdot]

Ok, thanks. Great point.

 

The thing is that I have a myst with a table of around 30x30, with numbers in all cells. I want to help people by making it possible to copy/paste this into a spreadsheet, instead of including it as an image so they'd have to retype all the numbers (which I've seen on times...). Do you have any good suggestions instead of an html table?

 

If you have any webspace - or even something like Google Drive - you could store the table in a document there - share the document and provide a hyperlink to it so that people can download it if they want to

[+eliwe]

Yep, that's what I'm planning for now. I'll post the table as an image file, with a link to a table in cupy/paste-able format.

 

Thanks for the input!

[+Team Microdot]

Just in case you're using google docs...

 

The default action when clicking on a google docs share link is to open the document in the viewer - from where the document can be optionally downloaded.

 

It is possible - by using a different link format - to bypass the viewer step and go straight to the download step - which can make things a little simpler / easier for your audience - as they don't need to go hunting for the download link.

 

Click here for an online article which explains how to do that

[+Isonzo Karst]

I want to help people by making it possible to copy/paste this into a spreadsheet, instead of including it as an image so they'd have to retype all the numbers

 

Thank you for this!

My own html skills are rudimentary, I'm no help with your question (I'd likely render an image on the page, with link to doc elsewhere).

 

I can't count the times I've looked a cache page where I'd love to copy numbers or text, but it's been rendered as an image.

[+Team Microdot]

Just in case you're using google docs...

 

The default action when clicking on a google docs share link is to open the document in the viewer - from where the document can be optionally downloaded.

 

It is possible - by using a different link format - to bypass the viewer step and go straight to the download step - which can make things a little simpler / easier for your audience - as they don't need to go hunting for the download link.

 

Click here for an online article which explains how to do that

 

In fact - it looks like some kind soul has published a website which will handle all the fiddly link changing bit for you!

 

Here's the link

[+Lieblweb]

Do you have another html editing program? Like Dreamweaver or...??

 

The Groundspeak editor doesn't take easily to changes in the editor and some things just don't function the way they should.

 

I create my html in another program (Dreamweaver) and copy & paste the entire thing in Groundspeak when I'm done.

 

Even if I need to make minimal changes - I still have to edit outside of Groundspeak & copy/paste.

 

Some things just don't work the way they should, and you just have to keep editing/ fiddling with the code to get an acceptable result (or change the design altogether).

 

Good Luck!

[+eliwe]

Do you have another html editing program? Like Dreamweaver or...??

 

The Groundspeak editor doesn't take easily to changes in the editor and some things just don't function the way they should.

 

I create my html in another program (Dreamweaver) and copy & paste the entire thing in Groundspeak when I'm done.

 

Even if I need to make minimal changes - I still have to edit outside of Groundspeak & copy/paste.

 

Some things just don't work the way they should, and you just have to keep editing/ fiddling with the code to get an acceptable result (or change the design altogether).

 

Good Luck!

 

Yes that's exactly what I usually do. It's just that Groundspeek doesn't seem to accept all my code, so it changes it into something else.

 

But the idea of linking out is great for what I'm aiming for in this case! Nice with the google docs link link

[+dprovan]

The thing is that I have a myst with a table of around 30x30, with numbers in all cells. I want to help people by making it possible to copy/paste this into a spreadsheet, instead of including it as an image so they'd have to retype all the numbers (which I've seen on times...). Do you have any good suggestions instead of an html table?

How about a simple HTML table? I haven't used tables in any cache descriptions myself, but I've seen them in cache descriptions for reasons similar to what you're thinking. I think the trick it to leave out folderol and just use a simple table. My guess is that the specialized tags are causing trouble. I've seen some descriptions that present the table twice, once in a picture where it's formatted just so, then a second time in an HTML table that didn't look as pretty but could be copied as you're describing. But then, one recent cache just had it in a spreadsheet available through googledocs.

 

Of course, I've also seen other ends of the spectrum: on the one end, large amounts of data in a picture precisely because the solver would have to copy it out by hand, and on the other end, the data presented in a way that was easy to copy, but was presented in a way that didn't look like a table so the first step was to figure out that's what it was.

[+Graculus]

The cache page won't accept a lot of HTML code, so as discovered, Dreamweaver may give you a wizzy clever page but the code may get stripped out or changed when you copy it to the cache page. The Help Center article on HTML shows the basics of what will work for you. It also includes how to add a basic table using HTML.

 

Chris

Graculus

Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com

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[+Team Microdot]

The cache page won't accept a lot of HTML code, so as discovered, Dreamweaver may give you a wizzy clever page but the code may get stripped out or changed when you copy it to the cache page.

 

My bold:

 

It's perhaps worth mentioning that HTML that you add to your cache page is parsed by something called HTML Tidy - described by the developer as:

 

a tool for checking and cleaning up HTML source files. It is especially useful for finding and correcting errors in deeply nested HTML, or for making grotesque code legible once more.

 

In my experience, HTML Tidy - or at least the way it's implemented on geocaching.com isn't perfect - and it can actually do the opposite of what it is designed to do and take perfectly legible code and make it grotesque and, in fact, a completely useless mess.

 

Therefore it's a good idea to keep a backup copy of your HTML code so that should find when you come to modify the code you use on the site you end up with a complete mess on your hands, you can at least get back to where you started without too much pain

[+6NoisyHikers]

Please link out! HTML descriptions look great on the web but are terrible on our Magellan GC screen. I wish all this fancy formatting could have the option to be converted to plain text when loading pocket queries into a GPS.

[+niraD]

I wish all this fancy formatting could have the option to be converted to plain text when loading pocket queries into a GPS.

I like that idea.

[cezanne]

Please link out! HTML descriptions look great on the web but are terrible on our Magellan GC screen. I wish all this fancy formatting could have the option to be converted to plain text when loading pocket queries into a GPS.

 

Actually, I think that almost all my cache descriptions are terrible on your Magellan screen even more when they were converted to text. Some caches are just not designed for paperless caching and that's by design and not a question of the format.

 

I cache with paper printouts (except for short traditionals where the coordinates suffice) and take the liberty to use my sparetime to hide caches that are ideally searched by relying on paper printouts too.

 

I prefer if the description can easily be printed (such that the printout is structured and well legible even for texts which cover a few pages) and I do not need to download/print additional documents.

 

In the specific example mentioned here I belong to those who prefer a html table as I would not need to download an external document to get something to which I could apply copy and paste.

Edited October 17, 2014 by cezanne

[+Team Microdot]

[+ziggiau]

I suspect that the limited use of HTML is so that the files can be viewed successfully on many platforms and devices. A little HTML is better than plain text alone but it's also a bit of a tease when all you want to do is pop in a plain jane table. When you consider that there are so many ways to view a cache entry it's probably a wise move to keep things simple.