Palm app development for Geocaching

[Guest chrome]

I'm writing a database app that will keep notes about caches you are seeking or have sought. I have a Visor with the Magellan Companion so I already have it with me, I figured I might as well use it for something besides GPS. On those days where we go after multiple cahes, by the time we get home, eat, shower, watch the news, etc, you tend to forget what you took and left from where. So here are the fields I was going use:

 

Cache Name

Found: Y/N

Cache condition:

Observations:

Item(s)Took:

Item(s)Left:

My Coord Reading:

Comments:

 

I would appreciate any other input. This app will be freeware. I think Jeremy would post it somewhere on the web site where it could be downloaded.

 

Please email your comments/suggestions to wknapp@tropictree.com

[Guest k2dave]

Date (hopefully you can use the shortcut date stamp)

Time (hopefully you can use the shortcut time stamp)

Attempt # (1st try at finding this one)

Parking location

Weather

Time from parking to cache

Distance walked from parking to cache

entry fees

Poison ivy/oak/sumack in area

Biteing/stinging insects

Environmental impact of cache

[Guest dan_edwards_1966]

As a fellow Magellan/Visor user I would love to see this.

 

In the "items left" section it would be nice if you could have it default to a certain item, such as a signature item.

 

Also since your a Visor user, it would be nice if it took pictures from the Eyemodule and stashed them in the same DB. Also would be nice if it moved those pictures to the Syncing computer.

 

Of course I would love it to read the GPS for any data it can get, rather then have to input it. For those without GPS you could always just type it in.

[Guest PharoaH]

I know this is in the software forum, but I would love to see a printable PDF form with this information. It would be the basis for a journal entry. Cachers could print them out, hole punch the pages, and keep them in a 3-ring binder in the 'CacheMobile'.

 

Would your project work on a Palm VIIx? I don't know anything about them, but my wife has one. I know she'd love it!

[Guest chrome]

Some great suggestions, Thanks very much. I was thinking only of my own use and not considering that other people might use it to create a journal page. So that opens it up to much more.

 

It will come with a couple of different reports but the way the report writer works is you have to sync and then run the report from your desktop PC (Sorry Mac people, but you are probably used to this by now).

 

I just thought of something that would be cool. If I knew the formulas for calculation the difference in distance and direction from what you read as the coords at the cache from what they were posted. The reason I say this is I have watched several geocachers with eTrex devices consistently search 35 - 50 feet West of the actual locations. If that was you and you used this app, you might find that all or a majority of your finds are a certain distance and direction off. Just a thought. Can anyone tell me how I would calculate this?

[Guest chrome]

quote:

---

Originally posted by PharoaH:

Would your project work on a Palm VIIx? I don't know anything about them, but my wife has one. I know she'd love it!

---

 

It will work with any device using Palm OS 3.0 or newer.

[Guest redd]

quote:

---

Originally posted by chrome:

I just thought of something that would be cool. If I knew the formulas for calculation the difference in distance and direction from what you read as the coords at the cache from what they were posted. The reason I say this is I have watched several geocachers with eTrex devices consistently search 35 - 50 feet West of the actual locations. If that was you and you used this app, you might find that all or a majority of your finds are a certain distance and direction off. Just a thought. Can anyone tell me how I would calculate this?

---

 

I've written some Pocket C code that does the "Great Circle" distance calculation. It's based on the code available at the very useful "Distance" site at http://indo.com/distance.

 

I should try to polish it up and share it.

 

Ideally, the Palm should be able to store any number of waypoints (in a dropdown perhaps) so that one could compute the distance between the points without having to write them in every time.

 

Regards...

 

Scott

 

[This message has been edited by redd (edited 07 August 2001).]

[Guest Peter Scholtz]

quote:

---

Originally posted by redd:

I've written some Pocket C code ...

---

 

I've looked for a Visual Basic type language for the Palm before and could only find a product that you had to pay for with no evaluation version available.

 

Do you know of such a language? I prefer VB more than C ...

 

------------------

Peter Scholtz

www.biometrics.co.za