Does anyone still use GSAK?

[+DRA6N]

I haven't been geocaching in a great while, and decided it was time to get back into it. I fired up GSAK and for some reason couldn't get it to export a .gpx file (it was telling me I had it already open.. )

anyway, does anyone still use GSAK or has it been since replaced with something newer?

[+WRASTRO]

We still use it when heading on a trip where cell service might be iffy. It is now open source so you should make sure you have the current version.

[+DRA6N]

6 minutes ago, WRASTRO said:

We still use it when heading on a trip where cell service might be iffy. It is now open source so you should make sure you have the current version.

Yeah I have the most current version and current patch. Still can't figure out how to get it to export the .gpx though

[+DRA6N]

Figured it out.

[+A J Pombo]

10 hours ago, DRA6N said:

anyway, does anyone still use GSAK or has it been since replaced with something newer?

Yes, it's the best offline database for geocaching.

[+Mockingbird559]

Yes indeed. It is a bit of a learning curve but when you figure it out, I can't imagine anything better.

 

Thank you Clyde

[+fizzymagic]

I use it all the time.  The macro language is amazingly bad so I just access it directly through SQLite, its database format.

 

But it does a great job of reading/writing GPX files and putting the data into a nice schema.

[+MartyBartfast]

I still use GSAK too. I was a fairly early adopter  but as I'm a Linux user I stopped using GSAK and used a few different Linux tools over the years - Open Cache Manager, Geoquo and GAPP - but GSAK is way ahead of anything else out there and so I came back to it and run Windows in a VM on my Linux box just to run GSAK.

Similar to @fizzymagic I do lots of my cache management directly through SQLite rather than using the GSAK macro features.
Although Clyde stepped back from developing/maintaining GSAK it is kept going by a few dedicated maintainers (thanks guys), and community support & advice is great.

[+HHL]

2 hours ago, fizzymagic said:

The macro language is amazingly bad

It's just the other way round from my point of view, and I'm a non-coder actually.

I use GSAK as the main dashboard to all things relating to geocaches (traveling, tour planning, populating units with caches, handle PQs and BM lists, etc. pp)

Example of the feature Custom Urls:

[+Viajero Perdido]

I only use it about twice a year (including right now, because this thread reminded me) to load my All Finds PQ and run a tweaked version of the PrintDiary macro.  For this I fire up a creaky old Windows XP virtual machine (yes, XP), and GSAK is the single remaining thing for which I ever need Windows, so don't nag me about using XP.  Linux and Android are my daily drivers now.

 

I'm pretty sure nothing touches GSAK for sheer functionality, but personally I don't need it anymore.  Caching with a phone now, I find I can do everything I need within the app I use (Locus Map), including direct loading of PQs, grouping into folders, and various filter options.  It's a small subset of what GSAK can do, but it's enough.  If I was a stats hound, it wouldn't be enough.  But I'm not a stats hound.

 

XP knows nothing about HiDPI, so I have to put my nose right up to the screen.  Good riddance.

[+JL_HSTRE]

There are 40,000 active caches in Florida, which I have culled down to less than 3000 I actually want to seek at some point. I can update their status before loading onto my Garmin and my phone. I have other databases for the rest of the country for when I travel. 

 

Without GSAK to manage and update a curated database I would probably quit geocaching.

[+Cushman Rider]

I used GSAK and loved it but last couple years can't get it to update seems to have stopped in 2022?

[+Bear and Ragged]

1 hour ago, Cushman Rider said:

I used GSAK and loved it but last couple years can't get it to update seems to have stopped in 2022?

https://gsak.net/index.php

 

Still works.

Make sure you have the latest version, and the latest patches.

 

Info on the gsak.net website

 

 

[+igator210]

17 hours ago, Cushman Rider said:

I used GSAK and loved it but last couple years can't get it to update seems to have stopped in 2022?

The base version is no longer being update. However, there will be patches for it as needed. Patch V10B11 is the most current (I think)

[+MartyBartfast]

14 minutes ago, igator210 said:

The base version is no longer being update. However, there will be patches for it as needed. Patch V10B11 is the most current (I think)

That is the latest patch and it's from 2022, I believe the guys supporting it have been having increasing difficulty in building patches due to the age of the underlying code & libraries,  and so unless something changes I very much doubt there will be any further patches.

Perhaps we need to start planning for what we will do when some outside component changes (e.g. the GC API) requiring a change to GSAK, which can't be produced, and then it might stop working altogether