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Images at ends of cache titles


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Occasionally I come upon a cache, where the CO has decorated the ends of their title with an image. These cause problems for my Garmin etrex30. Either the title appears blank, or the cache doesn't show up at all. I can't be the only person to find these unnecessary decorations problematic. Why are they allowed?

 

Example shown.

Tree at end of title.jpg

Edited by Goldenwattle
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Emojis aren’t separate images, they are embedded into the Unicode fonts as standard characters. They are supported by every operating system, browser, phone, Groundspeak app, other apps, etc.  Garmin needs to fix their devices to be compatible. 
 

Sorry they are giving you trouble. 

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9 minutes ago, HoochDog said:

Emojis aren’t separate images, they are embedded into the Unicode fonts as standard characters. They are supported by every operating system, browser, phone, Groundspeak app, other apps, etc.  Garmin needs to fix their devices to be compatible. 
 

Sorry they are giving you trouble. 

Yes, I figured they work on phones, but many people still use GPSs, so geocaching should ban them to cater for everyone. They are not needed. People shouldn't need to go out and spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new GPS, just so these caches with decorations that aren't needed, show up.

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10 minutes ago, HoochDog said:

Emojis aren’t separate images, they are embedded into the Unicode fonts as standard characters. They are supported by every operating system, browser, phone, Groundspeak app, other apps, etc.  Garmin needs to fix their devices to be compatible. 
 

Sorry they are giving you trouble. 

Now I see, you have used them. That's why you were so protective of them. They weren't needed. Obviously you don't want some people to find your caches.

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7 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

Now I see, you have used them. That's why you were so protective of them. They weren't needed. Obviously you don't want some people to find your caches.


? ?‍♂️  You got me. When I was taking the time to put out caches, on the forefront of my mind I was thinking... how can I keep some people from finding these things by including a technological glitch that may occur on some  old devices that I’m not even aware of. Case closed.   Nice sleuthing skills. 

Edited by HoochDog
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4 minutes ago, HoochDog said:


? ?‍♂️  You got me. When I was taking the time to put out caches, on the forefront of my mind I was thinking... how can I keep some people from finding these things by including a technological glitch that may occur on some  old devices that I’m not even aware of. Case closed.   Nice sleuthing skills. 

The "old device" is a year old.

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52 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

Occasionally I come upon a cache, where the CO has decorated the ends of their title with an image. These cause problems for my Garmin etrex30. Either the title appears blank, or the cache doesn't show up at all. I can't be the only person to find these unnecessary decorations problematic. Why are they allowed?

 

Example shown.

Tree at end of title.jpg

Do you mind if we see the rest of the title? People use them because they are fun (unless it makes the cache or title not show apparently...) and add to the theme. I doubt anyone (practically, but there's always one or two people...:()does it deliberately to annoy people.

Edited by TmdAndGG
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Just now, TmdAndGG said:

Do you mind if we see the rest of the title? People use them because they are fun (unless it makes the cache or title not show apparently...) and add to the theme.

I don't want to identify the cache and therefore the CO. This isn't an attack on them personally. The cache was very well thought out and fun to do. I have removed most of the title, only showing the first and last letters, plus the trees. This is a screen capture, so exactly as it appears.

Tree at end of title.jpg

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5 minutes ago, Goldenwattle said:

I don't want to identify the cache and therefore the CO. This isn't an attack on them personally. The cache was very well thought out and fun to do. I have removed most of the title, only showing the first and last letters, plus the trees. This is a screen capture, so exactly as it appears.

Tree at end of title.jpg

Okay. Just wondering, do the trees have anything to do with the theme of the cache?

Edit: I found the cache. They seem like they do. There's no need to make a big fuss about it. I understand it's annoying, but not very many caches have them anyways.

Edited by TmdAndGG
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1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

Occasionally I come upon a cache, where the CO has decorated the ends of their title with an image. These cause problems for my Garmin etrex30. Either the title appears blank, or the cache doesn't show up at all. I can't be the only person to find these unnecessary decorations problematic. Why are they allowed?

 

Example shown.

Tree at end of title.jpg

I think many people just use them because they look fun. It’s not an attack on people with Garmin’s, and does it really matter if you can’t fully read the title

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13 minutes ago, FootyFan123 said:

I think many people just use them because they look fun. It’s not an attack on people with Garmin’s, and does it really matter if you can’t fully read the title

The cache doesn't show up at all. When I do a search for the cache; it says not found.  So if I look for a cache when in an area, without having checked on the computer before leaving home, I wouldn't know it existed and there was a cache to find.

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4 minutes ago, TmdAndGG said:

There's no need to make a big fuss about it. I understand it's annoying, but not very many caches have them anyways.

 

Yeah...  A big difference in annoying and problematic.       :)

The other 2/3rds finds them annoying at times on her phone too, but there aren't enough of them that it's problematic.

Lately we're seeing a few using a lot of emojis in their "Found It" logs, often a cut n paste batch that's the same in every log, maybe for stats.

 - Not helpful, and it's all just blather, but that's just annoying too.

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27 minutes ago, TmdAndGG said:

not very many caches have them anyways

I once visited an area of London where almost every cache had those decorations. Made searching for caches there near impossible. And I couldn't check my phone for them either, as only visiting, I didn't have a British phone, and  the cost of using data on my Australian phone, would have been horrendous.

Geocaching should be inclusive, and those decorations have no real purpose.

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10 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

often a cut n paste batch that's the same in every log, maybe for stats.

 - Not helpful, and it's all just blather

I don't get why people do that. That average log length stat is useless...

Edited by TmdAndGG
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OK, so first of all, there's no question that your first reaction should be to complain to the people that sold you a GPSr a year ago that can't handle the standard mechanism for dealing with unusual characters. You're complaining about people doing this for fun, but you'd have just as much trouble with cache names that needed to use unicode because there's no other way to express the local language. This stuff has been in use for decades, so there's no excuse for a modern device not being able to handle them in some reasonable fashion. That's just flat out a bug, and an obvious one, so you should be outraged.

 

It's OK to suggest that people not use them when they don't need to. But remember that you're asking them as a favor. They aren't required to know about, much less code around, every flaw in every device out there. On the other hand, they might not know how dumb those characters look on devices that do handle them correctly but don't have that font. Personally, I think those pictures in titles are silly, but it's not the first annoying fad I've had to put up with.

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Most GPS devices I have seen are able to show the part of the name up to the special sign. They cut off immediately as soon as the image appears.

So if the cache is called "name123 *emoji*" then only "name123" is shown which doesn't make to many problems. But if the name starts with the icon nothing is shown and there are several other problems with the cache - it won't appear into fieldnotes for example.

 

There is a simple solution to the problem: just put the icons at the end of the name.

 

I have asked an owner to do so and he has changed all his names - he uses these icons in almost any cache name and usually isn't open to any ideas so luckily he was this time.

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2 hours ago, TommyGator said:

I also use an Etrex30 but load it using GSAK, which removes special characters from titles and text.  Haven't had any problem with rejected caches.

 

Seems to do the trick just fine.

 

 

 

This probably explains why I've not come across this issue with my Etrex 20x. I think it would annoy me too.

OTH I've not come across any examples when using computer to access GC.

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9 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

The cache doesn't show up at all. When I do a search for the cache; it says not found.  So if I look for a cache when in an area, without having checked on the computer before leaving home, I wouldn't know it existed and there was a cache to find.

 

First, what dprovan said.

The "pictures" are images that are, today, standard characters within the character set that's actually intended to provide for other languages' lettering and characters. Devices that don't support this standard (and extensive) character set, are either knowingly outdating themselves, or it's a bug.

To compare - apps/services that don't support such character sets tend to display odd characters in place (eg, if a special character takes two 'bytes'/characters to display properly, it might be incorrectly interpreted and displayed as two characters instead of the proper single character).  If that display does support the special character but the font doesn't, typically that's when you see the square character placeholder.

That said, if your device is stopping display of the rest of the text when it comes to one of these special characters, I would firmly consider this a bug with the device, especially if it's a year old.

 

Now, alternatively, HQ could provide an 8-bit safe character translation of their unicode titles - knowing that the titles will not be accurate to their intended display - but at least they'd be provided in a character set that shouldn't cause those devices to effectively crash.  But that 'feature' is likely never to happen.

 

Best thing would be to report to Garmin that special characters are not displaying properly and are cutting off the rest of their string. That should not happen, that is for absolute sure.

 

(unless, and I haven't checked this, HQ isn't defining the character set properly for the data it's providing, and the device is therefore trying to interpret the text according to the format it's told, which is incorrect; but I doubt that's the case)

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Extending on some ideas from thebruce0...

 

15 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

Geocaching should be inclusive, and those decorations have no real purpose.

 

Many languages' alphabets are placed in the same Unicode extension block as emojis. Hanzi, Kanji, Arabic, Dẹvanágári, Indigenous peoples scripts — you name it. Are they too "decorations that have no real purpose"? If we were to go ahead and ban them, many (but not all) geocaches located in literally any region that doesn't use a variation of the Latin alphabet will suffer. So, if we're being inclusive, we should allow those characters to appear in geocache titles.

 

My belief is that it is Garmin's responsibility to address this issue with their product. Recall that the UTF-8 and Unicode standards have been around since the 1980s and 1990s. That's back when selective availability was still a thing. Garmin will now have had thirty-one years to implement this standard; it can't be that hard for them to find some code online and copy-paste it. I'm not saying that Garmin has to go out and commission glyphs for the full Unicode 13.0 range right now, but they could at least patch their systems to recognize the standard.

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47 minutes ago, Hügh said:

Extending on some ideas from thebruce0...

 

 

Many languages' alphabets are placed in the same Unicode extension block as emojis. Hanzi, Kanji, Arabic, Dẹvanágári, Indigenous peoples scripts — you name it. Are they too "decorations that have no real purpose"? If we were to go ahead and ban them, many (but not all) geocaches located in literally any region that doesn't use a variation of the Latin alphabet will suffer. So, if we're being inclusive, we should allow those characters to appear in geocache titles.

 

My belief is that it is Garmin's responsibility to address this issue with their product. Recall that the UTF-8 and Unicode standards have been around since the 1980s and 1990s. That's back when selective availability was still a thing. Garmin will now have had thirty-one years to implement this standard; it can't be that hard for them to find some code online and copy-paste it. I'm not saying that Garmin has to go out and commission glyphs for the full Unicode 13.0 range right now, but they could at least patch their systems to recognize the standard.

Even if Garmin fixes it now, what about all the GPS units still in use. You expect people to have a few spare hundred dollars to go buy a new GPS, and then throw out a perfectly working GPS unit. Just so that something that isn't necessary can work. You might have the money for this waste, but many of us can't justify it. It would be a waste, and add to the huge E-waste problem.

Also, how did people get on with GPS units in countries that don't use a variation of the Latin alphabet, before some people used phones for geocaching? Actually, that is a good question to ask. Can someone please answer this?  Does you language show up on Garmin GPSs, particularly etrex 30s? (And I imagine etrex20 would suffer the same way), if non Roman alphabet languages are used in the title?

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2 hours ago, Hügh said:

Extending on some ideas from thebruce0...

 

My belief is that it is Garmin's responsibility to address this issue with their product. Recall that the UTF-8 and Unicode standards have been around since the 1980s and 1990s. That's back when selective availability was still a thing. Garmin will now have had thirty-one years to implement this standard; it can't be that hard for them to find some code online and copy-paste it. I'm not saying that Garmin has to go out and commission glyphs for the full Unicode 13.0 range right now, but they could at least patch their systems to recognize the standard.

 

What about GPS units that are no longer supported (e.g. Delorme)?  What about non-Garmin GPS units?

 

Note every geocacher has the funding or inclination to buy shiny new toys every couple of years.

 

Weird coming from me, but while I agree that Gramin should fix their products to work with unicode, a little less attitude might be nice.

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I don't know if it will help ->  the most current update for eTrex 30 is version 4.9  Is your device running it?   It specifically mentions better support for Arabic ~ it's possible  there is  better support for emojis unicode as well -  or  not.

 

Also, GSAK is  now free, as mentioned by TommyGator.  You can download caches to it, then load from it to your device. It will clean up those titles.  GPS Babel likewise would accept those gpx files, remove problematic content and send them out to your device.

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I really wish emojis were prohibited in cache titles. Besides any technical issues (fair mumber of people still using older GPSr, sortation issues) I usually find them more annoying than cute. They remind me of terrible old internet screen name trends (xxxCoolPersoNxxx) and the devolution of language brought on by the internet (gr8 c u l8r XoXo).

 

I can't wait until we're communicating entirely in modern hieroglyphics.

Edited by JL_HSTRE
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1 hour ago, JL_HSTRE said:

I really wish emojis were prohibited in cache titles. Besides any technical issues (fair mumber of people still using older GPSr, sortation issues) I usually find them more annoying than cute.

Do they really bother you that much in a cache title?

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On 6/13/2020 at 10:17 AM, FootyFan123 said:

I think many people just use them because they look fun. It’s not an attack on people with Garmin’s, and does it really matter if you can’t fully read the title

 

Some people think using the word hashtag in a sentence is fun too.  I agree with GoldenWattle.  They really are unnecessary, but then I lobbied to keep html out of email messages too when that debate started.  

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3 hours ago, TmdAndGG said:

This is why we need emojis. I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

 

We really don't need emojis.  Words can convey emotion if they're carefully chosen.  Then a lot of people think that TFTC is a sufficient means of expressing gratitude and can't even be bothered to type out "thank you for the cache".

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54 minutes ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

We really don't need emojis.  Words can convey emotion if they're carefully chosen.

Very true. The problem is people rarely ever do that these days. I'm not which happened first: Emojis came so people got worse at writing, or: People got worse at writing so emojis came. I'm going for option A.

Edited by TmdAndGG
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36 minutes ago, TmdAndGG said:

Very true. The problem is people rarely ever do that these days.

I'm not which happened first: Emojis came so people got worse at writing, or: People got worse at writing so emojis came. I'm going for option A.

 

I feel some has to do with "tone" a lot of times.  There's been a few instances in the forums when folks didn't realize folks were helping them.

There are some who seem a bit too fragile these days, and something as simple as an emoji may help.

 

None of this has to do with images in cache titles though...   ;)

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That are very interesting suggestion. Have I missed one?

 

- Buy a newer GPS that is able to show the emojis (It's not just the Extrex 30 but my Oregon 450 and my father's GPS map 64 and I am sure there are more.(

- Use GSAK fo filter out the icons.

- Edit the gpx by hand??!

 

No, I won't buy a new GPS device just because some people have to use emojis in cache names. (Especially as it partially works if it is not in the beginning.)

And no, I'll sure won't use GSAK just to get rid of these signs.

And no no no, I'll surely will not edit anything by hand.

 

I want to use my Oregon 450. I want to download the pocket query directly to my GPS device. And I want it to work.

 

It worked for years now and if there is one cache with a problem - I don't care. But please, please - not every cache needs an emoji icon. It's not getting better that way. Use it if it is necessary (use it at the end of the name please). But don't use it everywhere thinking that would be cool.... :-(

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"PC" is a bit vague.  My PC runs Linux and Firefox, on which that cache appears to show as intended: tree, pair of leaves, spider, snowman.

 

It also renders this one correctly (as best I can tell) as "원주휴게소".

 

(I did some map scanning to find a good example of a fully non-English cache title, but to my surprise, had a very hard time finding one.  Most caches it seems, worldwide, include at least some English - or Latin characters at least, to look at Europe - in the title.  Convenient for us English speakers, but it make me feel a bit like an imperialist.)

 

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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4 hours ago, TmdAndGG said:

I'm not which happened first: Emojis came so people got worse at writing, or: People got worse at writing so emojis came.

 

Either way, people's writing got worse, which is unacceptable whether cause or effect.

 

Effective communication is one of the most important things in the entire world.

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After the Great GPX1.1 Debacle, Groundspeak has steadfastly refused to update their GPX content to include favorite points, user notes, corrected coordinates information, etc., claiming that it might "break in GPS units."

 

The inclusion of unicode that does break in GPS units apparently eluded detection.

 

And yes, I do have an attitude. :rolleyes:

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8 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

Then a lot of people think that TFTC is a sufficient means of expressing gratitude and can't even be bothered to type out "thank you for the cache".

I put TFTC (name of CO). Putting the CO name is fast, as I can highlight it and drag it down. A big reason why I use the old logging page too, as doing this quick method only works in that. It doesn't in the new logging page and it's slower to need to highlight, copy and paste. No spelling mistakes of the CO's name then either:). Could get very tiresome typing out Thank you for the Cache, after a busy full day of caching. Can take long enough doing individual logs for each find without that.

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3 hours ago, Viajero Perdido said:

It also renders this one correctly (as best I can tell) as "원주휴게소".

I have done some tests on my Garmin with some other language scripts. Japanese Kanji shows up (didn't check Hiragana and Katakana, but if the more complicated Kanji shows up I imagine they would too), Chinese shows up. I had to put coordinates in to find Korea, as when I type Korea in it goes to a place in the USA (now that's a bug, that a locality in the USA gets preference over the country). Korean didn't show up. I didn't check any other scripts.

So, some languages, such as Japanese and Chinese show up. When Korean didn't show up, I now wonder if Hiragana and Katakana would show up, as Kanji is based on the Chinese script. However, other scripts that are not based on Latin, can't be searched for on my Garmin (and I imagine many other GPSs), as I don't have these other scripts to click on to search, loaded. But at least I can see Japanese and Chinese.

It's not so bad if the cache can be found without searching, but the problem I had with the tree image, is that the cache wasn't showing up at all.

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13 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Do they work in Geocache Descriptions? That's sad that the software knows how to handle them, it just doesn't in one place.

I don't know, but if these images were placed in the Description, it wouldn't be as bad, not being able to read the description, as not being able to see the cache, because of the image, on my Garmin at all.

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Is the problem the placement of the emojis  or the fact that they are in the title? I just started including them in the title of some caches because I thought it looked good and fit with the theme. But if the issue is mostly the placement, what is the best place for them? The title of the thread tells me don't put them at the end, but the beginning is ok. 

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