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Long, Repetitive Cache Names


BigOpe

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I've vacillated back and forth about whether to even post this, as it may only be a concern to cachers like me who still use vintage GPS's and software, but what the heck, forums are where you ventilate.

 

I still use, and am perfectly happy with, an early-generation Garmin Etrex H and EasyGPS software. The ETrex does all I want it to, but when loading cache data it only allows six characters. When people put out a whole series of caches with long names that differ only in the last couple characters ("My Uncle Ed's Arthritic Right Elbow Memorial Cache #1, #2, etc.) EasyGPS tries to crunch those long names down to six characters, but they all tend to come out the same, so when dumping them into the Old ETrex, the first one goes thru and the rest are rejected. It would be a service to my small sliver of the world's 6 million geocachers if COs would try to put the DIFFERENT part of those repetitive names somewhere toward the front. Otherwise, it can get tedious manually editing all the names to be different. (See the "Desert Paw" series in Tucson -- probably a couple hundred caches, and they all translate the same in my particular technology environment.)

 

(OK, so now will come the smart-alecky responses: "Man up, buy a better GPS and software." As they said in the Battle of the Bulge, "Nuts!" All that foofy newer stuff reduces the challenge as far as I'm concerned.

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Not gonna say what you put in quotes. :)

 

I will say that if you are using EasyGPS, it may well be possible that you can edit the name to the LAST characters of name instead of the FIRST characters of the name within EasyGPS before loading them to the unit.

 

I don't use EasyGPS, so that is only a guess on my part.

 

My normal suggestion would be to use the CacheID #, dropping the GC prefix as they all use that. That's what we used to do with the older Garmins and their 6-character field.

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My Uncle Ed's Arthritic Right Elbow Memorial Cache #1

Even the latest GPSrs clip the long titles in a list. A newer one can display by GC number without special software. The long similar name caches still can require extra work to sort & hunt. I don't ensure my cache names will fit every GPSr screen - some early ones showed maybe eight characters - but I also don't name mine "[extra long title] #1, #2, #3", because that's obnoxious. :anicute:

Edited by kunarion
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I'm a Luddite. I read through each cache and its logs, and decide whether we want to search for it or not. The caches I do choose, I save the gpx file to a folder on my computer. At that point, I will change the cache name to something manageable/recognizable.

 

I also create a Notepad file for the day's caches. In it, I include the GC code, the name I have given the cache, the coords, the decrypted hint, and any helpful notes or coordinates from other people's logs.

 

To load them into our Garmin GPSmap 60CSx, I use GPSBabel. http://www.gpsbabel.org/

 

Long, repetitive cache names are a pain sometimes. But I can see how cache owners want the series of caches to be related.

 

 

B.

Edited by Pup Patrol
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It would be a service to my small sliver of the world's 6 million geocachers if COs would try to put the DIFFERENT part of those repetitive names somewhere toward the front.

I definitely support the sentiment in the OP. My GPSr is newer, but it still shows only 10 or 15 characters in various places just do to screen space constraints, so I've run into this problem, too, but to a lesser extent. I definitely agree COs should be aware of this problem and consider naming variations to accommodate it.

 

But I have to admit, 6 characters is sufficiently constraining that I was going to resist asking all COs to abide by that limit, until I read...

 

Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch.

 

001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

...

etc, etc, etc

humboldt's suggestion neatly solves the problem within the 6 character limit, so I endorse it. I've seen my share of such series, but, unfortunately, in modern times, the case I run into more often is something like

 

"Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: Trail Head!"

"Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: On the way!"

"Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: At the top!"

 

but I still think making it "001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: Trail Head!" is not too much to ask. (Although that doesn't solve the other problem I have, which is the title being "Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: 20 feet up in the tree!" and the CO assuming that's enough for me to know it's 20 feet up in a tree even though I can't see that part of the title. Most amusing when the hint is "it's in the title", and I'm looking at the fifth cache in a row titled "Hiking to the top of Ol". But that's a different topic.)

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Of course the answer is gsak. There is a section that allows you to do this

 

Start with Hiking to the top of Old Baldy: Trail Head!

 

Input: Hiking to the top of Old Baldy=HTOB

 

And it becomes HTOB: Trail Head!

 

And you can do this while still using your current device.

 

BTW the newer devices and software don't reduce the challenge of finding the cache you so have to go out and get it.

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I had a similar issue with my eTrex and the plugin:

 

DECLINED - [FEATURE] Garmin plugin cache uploads overwrite each other

 

I ended up paying for GSAK (worth every penny) when they introduced the API integration. I used the "Smart Name" feature to craft 6-character identifiers to alleviate conflicts when sending to the GPSr

 

I also have a series with long-ish repetitive cache names -- awareness of this issue caused me to put the unique part at the beginning of each cache name.

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We hate when the number is at the back of series name so we have the number (or letter) in front of the name in at least a dozen of our cache series.

 

This item makes me wonder what other cachers choose to display in the name field in their gps. I use the geocaching dashboard on the compass screen of my 62S which gives me 16 spaces for the name. Rather than display the cache name I choose to display part of the GC code, the cache size and the first 8 spaces in the actual cache name.

 

So for our regular sized cache GC4Y5M4 named 15 Route 933, the gps shows the following

 

4Y5M4 R 15 Route

 

So when looking for a cache in a series, I can often avoid looking at the cache description.

 

We accomplish this by placing the following code in the name field in GSAK when sending to the gps

 

%drop2 %con1 %name

 

PAul

Edited by Ma & Pa
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OK, thanks for all the Day 1 responses. As I anticipated, half or so were in the vein of "buy something better," but there's some helpful stuff here I'll investigate. I do know how to manipulate HTML code to find and truncate certain strings, but it can still be a little tedious. Just trying to plant a seed in the minds of those who hide long strings of caches with almost-identical names that with very little effort they could make some other cachers' lives a bit easier.

 

Had a great caching day today, love this hobby despite all frustrations. And six million others (wow!) seem to feel the same. Y'all keep on cachin'!

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Pup Patrol wrote: <<I'm a Luddite. I read through each cache and its logs, and decide whether we want to search for it or not. The caches I do choose, I save the gpx file to a folder on my computer. >>

 

You're not a Luddite. If you were a Luddite you wouldn't have a GPS. You'd be using a cut nail suspended from a piece of twine for a compass and parchment maps depicting a flat earth. :anibad:

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I use an etrex 20, which allows for considerably more characters per a title, but also cuts off a lot of these sorts of cache titles. I usually keep a paper log while I'm out in the field so that I can take notes as I go, and if I'm going after a series, the numbers at the end are often cut off, making it difficult to keep track. I usually have to backtrack into the description so I can get the GC code to go by instead. To get to the general cache site, I manually punch things into my auto GPS, and usually just make an acronym. It might be easier if COs labeled the differences in their caches in the beginning rather than the end - but then again, would that make it more difficult to know which caches were part of a particular series? For example:

 

The Witching Hour - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series

Yukarism vol 1 - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series

Skip Beat! - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series

N0S4A2 - MMaru's Reading Challenge Book Series

 

If all you're seeing are the first parts of these titles - The Witching Hour, Harry Potter, Yukarism, etc - would you necessarily know that they were all part of a specific series? I think that whether the differentiating factor is at the beginning or the end, it will present a challenge.

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I'm a smartphone cacher, yet I completely agree with the OP that it's pretty annoying when folks name their caches that way.

Some time ago I made the suggestion for allowing cache groups...a single heading for caches in a series. I suppose that would ultimately make things trickier for downloading to GPSrs and such, but it certainly would make viewing a series online much easier, rolling a series into one icon that you click on and then get a list of caches in the series...instead of hovering and clicking them one by one.

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But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee.

 

I'm sure that you just intended that to be an exaggeration and there are certainly areas where it's heavily saturated but that's certainly not universal. There are still a *lot* of places where finding five on a long day is more typical than being able to find five during your lunch break.

 

 

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Of course the answer is gsak. There is a section that allows you to do this

...

This lets you translate cache names that you recognize and want to deal with in advance, but for me, this typically comes up in the field, it's not a problem I anticipate when I download the caches.

 

Besides, even if I used GSAK and even if I anticipated the problem, it still seems more reasonable for COs to think about this problem when they name their caches so other people don't have to recognize and correct the names for themselves.

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Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch.

 

001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

 

002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

 

003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy

 

 

But the currently available search routine then cannot display all these caches as it allows only to search for title starts with.

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Placing the cache designator number at the front end would help out a bunch.

 

001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy

 

 

But the currently available search routine then cannot display all these caches as it allows only to search for title starts with.

 

The new advanced search does (PM only at the moment ;-) )

 

The problem with the above suggestion is if you have a number of series in the area they all get mixed up, e.g.

001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

001 Walking round Old Baldy.

001 Old Baldy Views.

002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

002 Walking round Old Baldy.

002 Old Baldy Views.

003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy

003 Walking round Old Baldy.

003 Old Baldy Views.

 

Better to add an acronym+number then title:

 

HTTOB001 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

HTTOB002 Hiking to the top of Old Baldy.

HTTOB003 Hiking to the top of Old baldy

OBV001 Old Baldy Views.

OBV002 Old Baldy Views.

OBV003 Old Baldy Views.

WROB001 Walking round Old Baldy.

WROB002 Walking round Old Baldy.

WROB003 Walking round Old Baldy.

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To address the OP's conundrum (caches not loading because the first 6 characters are the same) : Back in the dark ages, I'd use GSAK and load them onto my eTrex Venture HC using smart names. Conflict resolved.

 

Alternatively, instead of the cache title, use the GC code. That should assure that they name unique. Conveniently, in GPX, the GC code is "name" and the title is "desc".

 

When going after a cache, I use the map view, so the name is immaterial. I only look at the name if I'm searching for hints.

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But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee.

 

I still mainly identify caches by GC code because so many names are repetitive. It's easier to use the built-in naming convention that is both short, and unique to each cache.

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Well, with the "Desert Paws" series in Tucson that I mentioned, I manually changed the troublesome names to just DP1001, DP1002, and so on (actually there are two such series, so I have DP1001 and DP2001). Using a text editor and find-and-replace made it a bit easier, but still somewhat tedious. I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks. EasyGPS has always been adequate for my needs other than this one thing, and hey, free is my favorite color. As for using the GC codes, whenever possible I prefer an at least somewhat meaningful name to help me remember which is which when out in the field.

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But back then you were lucky to find five on a long day of huntinG. Now you can stumble across that many going out to get morning coffee.

 

I still mainly identify caches by GC code because so many names are repetitive. It's easier to use the built-in naming convention that is both short, and unique to each cache.

That's certainly the best way to do it. But I can never remember a GC name when I need to. Usually the location is first on my mind, and name of cache the second. Curse my brain!

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I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks.

It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it

 

Which is why I stick with EasyGPS. Its developers don't seem to feel that way.

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I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks.

It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it

 

Which is why I stick with EasyGPS. Its developers don't seem to feel that way.

 

Actually, it's developer just chose a different approach to getting people to pay for the software they developed. They're hoping that after trying the "free" EasyGPS app that many will purchased the full featured version called ExpertGPS.

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I tried GSAK once, but got annoyed when I started getting nag screens after a few weeks.

It really is annoying when a developer puts years of work into a program and then expects you to pay for it

 

Which is why I stick with EasyGPS. Its developers don't seem to feel that way.

Two things

 

Comparing EasyGPS which is a good program with GSAK like Atari to HAL

 

He only asks a one time fee that is the same as you pay each year for GS and probably 1/10 of what you paid for the GPS and lets not get into gas cost.

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Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ?

Problem is it's not their problem

Some may have or maybe the community adjusted. A couple of new series' for the event in Yuma start with the sequence number. Of course if you sort all by number they are mixed together. There is no perfect solution

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Would it be possible for Groundspeak or maybe to reviewers to point out the problem to the cache owners when the caches are submitted for approval ?

Problem is it's not their problem

 

A lot of things aren't necessarily problems but they take care of them.

Once the listing guidelines are updated to include a rule saying that repetitive cache names need a variable element at the beginning, then I'll feel empowered to hold up cache publication over the issue. Until then, not so much. Let the community complain to the owner of such a cache series.

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