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I just released a new version of GPX Spinner.

 

I've received a huge amount of complaints and suggestions from many of you, and I have tried hard to incorporate all those changes in this version. Read the full release notes here.

 

Please note you must be a Premium Member to make use of GPX Spinner.

 

There's also an all new, but familiar, website design, too.

 

Enjoy.

 

Lil Devil lildevil.gif

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Having a little bit of a problem with the "owned" property.

 

I got

Owner = 72057
in the .INI

 

My page:

<% sort caches by ID %><% if owned %> %name% <br><% endif %><% endsort caches %>

 

...and I know I have some of my caches in the GPX file, but it always returns all of the caches.

 

Waht gives?

 

CR

 

72057_2000.gif

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Did you add these lines to to your ini and template?

I don't have owner in my ini. I don't have sort if owned either.

 

Please clear up your question. Are you asking why are they not being omitted?

 

The sort caches by ID line looks like it is sorting and naming. Not omitting by owner.

 

39197_3100.jpg

Pepper playing nice!

Mokita!

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Doh! Sorry.

 

What I was trying to say with that statement was:

 

Sort by ID

If ownerID matches owner_specified_in_INI

print name_of_cache and LineBreak

End If

End Sort

 

What I'm wanting is a list of only my caches.

 

What I get is a list of ALL of the caches.

 

The statement is acting like all of the caches are owned by me. Only about 4 or 5 out of 27 in my sample GPX file are owned by me.

 

CR

 

72057_2000.gif

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I always used the "index by distance from location" feature, to get caches listed by distance from home co-ordinates. Not in the latest release. Tried adding a RefLocations.txt file to no avail. E-mailed LilDevil direct on Sunday, but must be out of town. I went back to a previous version.

 

"Gimpy"

 

--N2GLS--

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quote:
Originally posted by Gimpy:

I always used the "index by distance from location" feature, to get caches listed by distance from home co-ordinates. Not in the latest release. Tried adding a RefLocations.txt file to no avail. E-mailed LilDevil direct on Sunday, but must be out of town. I went back to a previous version.

 

"Gimpy"

 

--N2GLS--

 


There is still a reflocations file. You do have to insert your coords again.

Your old reflocations file was renamed .txt.bak. Move it to a different folder and rename it so you can open it. Cut and paste the coords to the new file.

Without coords spinner will not make sort by distance indexs.

 

39197_3100.jpg

Pepper playing nice!

Mokita!

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quote:
Originally posted by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy:

Or be hunting benchmarks

 

warm.gif


 

Ok. This sounds great. I got bmgpx, converted my files to .gpx, but now I'm having trouble manipulating them. Watcher loads one file, but can't merge a second file and Spinner seems to have some sort of error and doesn't create any files (or they're hidden somewhere with the new version.)

 

What's the best way to use these benchmark .gpx files? Can I convert them to a file I can use on my PDA? I'd love to do this with Spinner since I love the way it creates pages and links. (I'd really love it if we could get bm pocket queries, but I'm sure that's been mentioned before...)

 

So, which programs do I need to run? Do I just need to make some modifications to Spinner's files?

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quote:
Originally posted by leatherman:

_There is still a reflocations file. You do have to insert your coords again._

Your old reflocations file was renamed .txt.bak. Move it to a different folder and rename it so you can open it. Cut and paste the coords to the new file.

Without coords spinner will not make sort by distance indexs.

 


 

Thanks,leatherman. I'll look for it again. Appreciate your assistance.

 

"Gimpy"

 

--N2GLS--

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quote:
Originally posted by Man In The Wild & family:

Watcher loads one file, but can't merge a second file and Spinner seems to have some sort of error and doesn't create any files (or they're hidden somewhere with the new version.)


 

Depending on when you downloaded bmgpx, it had some bugs that made it create bad XML for some counties. If you downloaded it before sometime tuesday afternoon, you might try again.

 

warm.gif

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Did a template to produce the Tiger Census Map file.

 

<% links=false %>#tms-marker<% sort caches by name %>%longitude_raw%,%latitude_raw%:<%if found%>red4<%endif%><%if not found%>green4<%endif%>:<% endsort caches %>

 

Nothing to it!

 

It produced from a file of all cache within 150 miles and all of my finds [edit] minus the archived ones, this:

 

72057_3300.gif

 

Pretty painless, too!

 

Now, if the OWNER tag worked, some of those could be blue!

 

CR

 

72057_2000.gif

 

[This message was edited by Sissy-n-CR on May 17, 2003 at 05:05 AM.]

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quote:
Originally posted by Sissy-n-CR:

Any update on the OWNER problem?

 

Is it me or is the program broken?

 

The limit on the REFs works great, though!

 

Thanks for the good work!

 

CR


 

Why are you asking me the status? icon_smile.gif Maybe if you showed the template that is failing.

 

Thanks for the great idea. You gave me an idea for doing a Street Atlas lat/lon file. I tried your template to start, but I can't get the template to generate a file. What was your template file name? Was it a gpx file or html file or ??

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quote:
Originally posted by John E Cache:

 

Thanks for the great idea. You gave me an idea for doing a Street Atlas lat/lon file. I tried your template to start, but I can't get the template to generate a file. What was your template file name? Was it a gpx file or html file or ??


 

Spinner sounds like a really cool thing, and I don't want to undermine its utility at all here, but you guys do know that GPSBabel will read a GPX file and spit out a Tiger file, right?

 

It probably doesn't have the degree of user-level customization that Spinner has (and if you need it, pursue these questions you have) but I have inside information that the primary maintainer of GPSBabel is willing to accept geocaching-specific hacks to the Tiger output format because he uses it for similarly nefarious purposes.

 

It's even been rumoured that the following awk program will autoscale and autocenter your maps for Tiger output:

 

BEGIN { minlat = 99999; minlon = 9999; maxlon = -9999; maxlat = -999}

/[0-9]+/ { lat = $2 + 0

lon = $1 + 0

latsum += lat

lonsum += lon

if (lat > maxlat) maxlat = lat;

if (lon > maxlon) maxlon = lon;

if (lat < minlat) minlat = lat;

if (lon < minlon) minlon = lon;

recs++;

}

END {

print "lat="latsum/(recs)"&lon="lonsum/(recs) "&wid="maxlat-minlat"&ht="maxlon-minlon;

;}

 

and that the GPSBabel guy is considering adding an option to GPSBabel to emit the lat/lon/wid/ht stuff automatically without relying on external tools if there is deemed to be sufficient interest.

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quote:
Originally posted by John E Cache:

 

Why are you asking me the status? icon_smile.gif Maybe if you showed the template that is failing.

 

Thanks for the great idea. You gave me an idea for doing a Street Atlas lat/lon file. I tried your template to start, but I can't get the template to generate a file. What was your template file name? Was it a gpx file or html file or ??


 

Dude, that was your first post to this thread!

 

As for the template, it's an index file. I called it index_by_tiger.htm.

 

On the problem with OWNER, I posted a snipet I was originally used way above. I've since discovered that %owner% returns true anytime I don't leave the OWNER variable blank.

 

Have you been able to get the OWNER tag to work properly? I haven't heard anyone come back and tell me I'm full of baloney or I don't know what I'm doing or anything--just crickets. :|

 

CR

 

72057_2000.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by robertlipe:

 

and that the GPSBabel guy is considering adding an option to GPSBabel to emit the lat/lon/wid/ht stuff automatically without relying on external tools if there is deemed to be sufficient interest.


 

Robert, your program is nice, however for the Tiger maps it generates the file with the labels. I use the windows frontend, so if it will generate without the labels via commandline I don't know about it. IN my above example, the labels would create confusing clutter.

 

The reason I'm trying to use Spinner to generate the Tiger and MSS&T files is it's pretty much a single step solution. i.e. because it can. Obviously, it wouldn't be able to generate anything other than text output, but there no reason to use two programs if one will do.

 

The sample you get above of the "awk" program, how is that ran? I'm a simple hack that knows only enough about programming to be dangerous--to myself! icon_wink.gif It would be nice to be able to have the Tiger map auto scaled and centered for you. I took about 15-20 tries to get my map like I wanted it.

 

Now, what would be really slick is if GPSbabel could generate the imagemap links for a Tiger map--much like Buxley's maps! (This would be for an online solution for one's caching home page.)

 

CR

 

72057_2000.gif

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quote:
Originally posted by Sissy-n-CR:

Now, what would be really slick is if GPSbabel could generate the imagemap links for a Tiger map--much like Buxley's maps! (This would be for an online solution for one's caching home page.)


This is actually harder that it looks, as it requires one to know the projection that is used for the Tiger maps, and more importantly it requires one to have code to implement that projection.

 

It's really somewhat outside GPSBabel's charter, but I agree that a program to do that would be pretty nifty.

 

Incidentally, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else, but the Tiger Map Server outputs maps that use NAD 1927 rather than WGS 1984, so you might find that your points are a little off in some areas.

 

warm.gif

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Poof. I just added options to the tiger output that include "nolabels" to suppress the labels and "genurl" and "scale" which handle the generation of the centering and scaling options for you. You won't be able to get to these from the GUI thingy, but since you're probably automating this in a script somehwere anyway, it should be useful to someone. (Doing this allows my own programs that munch these things in the wee hours of the morning to not use that very awk script any longer, so is't useful to ME. icon_smile.gif )

 

If you don't know what awk is, you probably don't have it anyway. I really offered that program as an example of a way to compute the centering and the scaling factors for Tiger. It's reasonably readable as English and trivial to implement in your favorite programming language.

 

I flirted with the clickable image map stuff a little. It took only a few dozen lines of code to do it, but I can't trivially grasp the math involved. There's some kind of nonobvious scaling thing getting from the lat/lons to percentages of the gif. I'll bet it has something to do with the world not being flat. It's a bigger problem than I'm going to tackle right now.

 

If anyone is interested in a GPSBabel with these options, contact me.

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quote:
Originally posted by Sissy-n-CR:

Dude, that was your first post to this thread!

 

As for the template, it's an index file. I called it index_by_tiger.htm.

 

On the problem with OWNER, I posted a snipet I was originally used _way_ above. I've since discovered that %owner% returns true anytime I don't leave the OWNER variable blank.

 

Have you been able to get the OWNER tag to work properly? I haven't heard anyone come back and tell me I'm full of baloney or I don't know what I'm doing or anything--just crickets. :|

 

CR


 

Thanks. I thought I was on a different thread. I didn't see there was a new thread for the new Spinner page.

 

I like your Buxley map clone idea alot. I hope you can get that working.

 

I use Street Atlas lat/lon notes because I can plan driving directions before going out. I was hoping I could make a stand alone file like spinner.gpx, only with a SA lat/lon file. I tried .gpx as a template extention and it did nothing.

 

I haven't tried "if owned". Sorry for interrupting your thread.

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quote:
Originally posted by robertlipe:

I flirted with the clickable image map stuff a little. It took only a few dozen lines of code to do it, but I can't trivially grasp the math involved. There's some kind of nonobvious scaling thing getting from the lat/lons to percentages of the gif. I'll bet it has something to do with the world not being flat.


Precisely. I have an email in to the TIGER people to see if they'll tell me what projection it uses.

 

(Update) I got a response:

 

quote:

The TIGER Map Service maps are projected using a simple sinusoidal projection centered on the central meridian. This makes the response quick, but also makes it difficult to mosiac maps together. In this projection, distances are true to scale horizontally and vertically along the central meridian, but not diagonally.

 

Marjorie Nicolas

Geographic Products Management Branch

Geography Division

U.S. Census Bureau


 

A quick google later and I have the equations for a sinusoidal projection, which is indeed quite simple.

 

Speaking of GPSBabel and TIGER, would a filter to convert datums be in the scope of gpsbabel? It might be a bunch of code.

 

quote:
If anyone is interested in a GPSBabel with these options, contact me.

I'm interested. Should I assume it's in CVS?

 

warm.gif

 

[This message was edited by Warm Fuzzies - Fuzzy on May 21, 2003 at 09:33 AM.]

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Yes, I checked the code into CVS so those that can build code can get it immediately. The offer for "one-offs" is only necessary for those that need binary kits (i.e. Windows users w/o compilers) from me.

 

[ Discussion about Tiger and Babel with Warm Fuzzies moved to email. ]

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Robert -

 

I used Babel to go from a GPX to Delorme file for importing waypoints so I could print off large 3x3 sheet maps. Only problem was that going from gpx to delorme It used long WP names ( Mike and Ike summer hick GeoCahe ). What I would like to do is take a spun file and use only the GCxxxx type of name per cache, vs the longer waypoint name.

 

Would there be a way to do something long that line ?

 

-Robert

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quote:
Originally posted by RobAGD:

I used Babel to go from a GPX to Delorme file for importing waypoints so I could print off large 3x3 sheet maps. Only problem was that going from gpx to delorme It used long WP names ( Mike and Ike summer hick GeoCahe ). What I would like to do is take a spun file and use only the GCxxxx type of name per cache, vs the longer waypoint name.

 

Would there be a way to do something long that line ?


 

Yes. It's off-topic for this thread, but the short answer is that you can use the xcsv export and copy the xmap.style file, making a suitable modification to export the shortname instead. I have done this myself, so I can send you the .style file and instructions.

 

warm.gif

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The longer short answer is that Robert screwed up. A friend gently reminded me a few weeks ago that I dropped the 'prefer_shortnames' when we went to style sheets a few months ago. I never noticed it becuase I don't do GC#'s.

 

I just put the code back in GPSBabel to do this.

 

Always feel free to use the GPSBabel mailing lists for this kind of stuff instead of hijacking threads about other programs. :-)

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I finally figured out how to make a Street Atlas lat/lot file. It puts a dot on the map for each cache. I moified the Sissy-n-CR template slightly. It writes a txt file, the default file type for SA, and the format is slightly different. The "smart shortened name" works great on SA to reduce clutter.

 

index_sa.htm

<% output_filename=sa_lat_lon.txt %><% links=false %><% sort caches by name %>%latitude_raw%, %longitude_raw%, "GC%GUID% %new_name%", 12, 0,  <---no new line here <%if found%>3<%endif%><%if not found%>1<%endif%><% endsort caches %><---no new line here

 

The endsort caches must be the last line or SA will complain about the trailing CR or blank lines.

 

Thanks CR and LilDevil

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I just started my premium membership a few days ago so I am still coming up to speed on all the new stuff I can do. IMHO, one of the best things about GPX Spinner is that the output is customizable. I create two main HTML files for each cache, one for viewing and one for printing. I have a link to printable one on the other. I also created a template so that the Spun GPX file has all of the good stuff necessary to use Watcher. I did this because the original main reason I wanted Spinner was to munge the waypoint names. I use to do this by hand. This is much better. icon_smile.gif I wanted those cool waypoint names for use in Watcher and for use in Mapsource.

 

At the risk of having a long post, I'm including my template for GPX files here:

 

gpx_template2.gpx:

 

quote:

<% output_filename=spinner2.gpx %>

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="yes"?>

<gpx

version="1.0"

creator="GPX Spinner %version% - http://www.gpxspinner.com"

xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0"

xmlns:topografix="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/Private/TopoGrafix/0/2"

xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0/gpx.xsd http://www.topografix.com/GPX/Private/TopoGrafix/0/2 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/Private/TopoGrafix/0/2/topografix.xsd">

<desc>Geocache file generated by GPX Spinner</desc>

<author>Russ Burns</author>

<time>%current_date_xml%</time>

<keywords><![CDATA[cache, geocache, Groundspeak, gpxspinner, spinner]]></keywords>

<bounds minlat="%minlat%" minlon="%minlon%" maxlat="%maxlat%" maxlon="%maxlon%" />

<% sort caches by ID %>

<wpt lat="%latitude_raw%" lon="%longitude_raw%">

<time>%hidden_date_xml%</time>

<name>%new_name%</name>

<cmt>%new_description%</cmt>

<desc>%new_description%</desc>

<url>C:Documents and SettingsdefaultMy DocumentsGPS Stuffcache%ID%.htm</url>

<urlname>%name% by %placed_by%</urlname>

<sym>%new_symbol%</sym>

<type>Geocache</type>

 

<Groundspeak:cache id="%ID%" available="True" archived="False" xmlns:Groundspeak="http://www.Groundspeak.com/cache/1/0">

<Groundspeak:name>%name%</Groundspeak:name>

<Groundspeakicon_razz.giflaced_by>%placed_by%</Groundspeakicon_razz.giflaced_by>

<Groundspeakicon_redface.gifwner id="60146">%owner%</Groundspeakicon_redface.gifwner>

<Groundspeak:type>%type%</Groundspeak:type>

<Groundspeak:container>%size%</Groundspeak:container>

<Groundspeak:difficulty>%difficulty%</Groundspeak:difficulty>

<Groundspeak:terrain>%terrain%</Groundspeak:terrain>

<Groundspeak:country>%country%</Groundspeak:country>

<Groundspeak:state>%state%</Groundspeak:state>

<Groundspeak:short_description html="True">%short_desc%</Groundspeak:short_description>

<Groundspeak:long_description html="True">%long_desc%</Groundspeak:long_description>

<Groundspeak:encoded_hints>%decoded_hints%</Groundspeak:encoded_hints>

 

<Groundspeak:logs>

<% sort logs by reverse logID %>

<Groundspeak:log id="%logID%">

<Groundspeak:date>%log_date_xml%</Groundspeak:date>

<Groundspeak:type>%type%</Groundspeak:type>

<Groundspeak:finder id="%finderID%">%finder%</Groundspeak:finder>

<Groundspeak:text encoded="%log_encoded%">%decoded_log_text%</Groundspeak:text>

<% if latitude %><Groundspeak:log_wpt lat="%latitude%" lon="%longitude%" /><% endif %>

</Groundspeak:log>

<% endsort logs %>

</Groundspeak:logs>

 

<Groundspeak:travelbugs>

<% if travel_bugs %>

<% sort travel_bugs by name %>

<Groundspeak:travelbug id="%bugID%" ref="%bugGUID%">

<Groundspeak:name>%name%</Groundspeak:name>

</Groundspeak:travelbug>

<% endsort travel_bugs %>

<% endif %>

</Groundspeak:travelbugs>

</Groundspeak:cache>

 

</wpt>

<% endsort caches %>

</gpx>

 


 

You'll have to change the

quote:
<url>
line above to have a good link to your cache page from EasyGPS.

 

I also had to mess with registry to get Spinner to be in my OpenWith list because EasyGPS is evil and changes the registry so that you can't have alternate programs in your context menu.

 

That's all for now. Thanks for the cool program.

 

R

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LilDevil,

 

No, it's not any different (could have saved me some time if I hadn't been so BLIND). I did miss it in the download section because I only visited that page to download the software two weeks ago.

 

If you are looking for suggestions, I'd say add a link to the Examples page that references the download page. Or just put your templates there and reference them from the download page.

 

While I'm making suggestions, you might want to update your variable list to include %log_date_xml%, %minlat%, and other variables that are there and not implemented. It would also be nice to have some visibility to the input file name at the ini file level (yeah, I know, a whole new cncept there) so that I can create unique HTML directories for a few different gpx files. That's not a big deal, though. I can rename the directory after spinning.

 

Thanks for a cool program.

 

R

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