geo-knot

(Cachly 5.0) I have a cache with several user waypoints, and two cache waypoints. The first time I navigated to the cache, the map showed all the waypoints as I would expect. However, if I navigate to it again, it only shows the cache waypoints. I can go into the list of user waypoints, click on the one I want, and it will navigate to that waypoint, but now none of the other waypoints are displayed. One way it seems I can get it to show all waypoints again is to quit the app, and restart it.

I know I’ve touched on some of this in another post, but wanted to elaborate a little. Navigating to a cache while using the map screen could be improved… Sometimes navigating with the compass makes sense, and sometimes navigating with the map make sense. When the map makes sense, it is often hard to see the little red arrow that spins around your location on the map that shows your heading. I have good eyesight, but sometimes due to map details, that target line, or sun glare, it is hard to see or make out which way it is pointing without spinning your phone around. I’m also an advocate of having the phone orient the map when navigating to a cache. When this is done, the red target line clearly points to the cache and the little red arrow is not so important. I know cachly can do this, but unfortunately the implementation is not great. The problem is that in order for the map to stay oriented, the map has to be centered on you. That means if you zoom out so that you can see both yourself and the cache, you have 1/4th the detail on the map that you could have if you could manually scroll them map so that it was centered on your target line such that you are at the bottom of the screen, and your target is at the top. I was recently listening to “Inside Geocaching HQ podcast: episode 16: Geocaching app update”. In that episode they chronicle the way that they decided their maps need to orient themselves automatically by default. (also called track-up) Basically they went to a bunch of people, with all different exposure levels to caching. (including some with no exposure). They found that when navigating to a cache, having the map oriented was a big win. You can listen to the podcast for the full details. The end result is that if you try the geocaching app now, the initial map that shows all the caches around you defaults to North-up, but as soon as you start navigating to a cache, the default is track-up. (admitedly: the geocaching app also stops rotating when you are not centered) This setup feels ideal to me for some reason. north-up when choosing a cache to go to, and track up when navigating. Certainly there are some people who prefer north up all the time, but similarly, there are many (and I would argue more people) who would prefer it track-up. The other apps I’ve been using over the years all let you keep your map oriented if you like. Geosphere even let you automatically center the map on the target line in a way that kept you and the cache on the screen, and it slowly zoomed in as you got closer to the cache. I’m really liking cachly, but this is one spot I feel that the other apps I’ve used have a leg up. How would I improve things? I have a few ideas. -when you are navigating to a cache, and set the map to track-up, that it does not stop orienting just because your location in not in the center of the map. -remember that my “navigate to cache” map was north up last time I used it so that the next time I’m on that screen, it is still track-up -add a small compass or some other indicator in the upper right of the map that always points to the cache. This would help especially when you are using the map as north up and whenever using the map to navigate to the cache.

I see that you can copy the GC code from many screens including the cache details. It would be nice to also be able to copy the cache name and CO-name on this screen, also with a long press. Similar behavior might be nice on the logs screen for the usernames. Sometimes you want to mention a log or a user that was helpful and want to get the spelling right.

Yeah, now that I think about it again, that makes sense. A single setting that works for both maps might work well. Thanks Nic!

That all sounds terrific on the other items! Thank you for being so attentive! Are you meaning a way to lock the map rotation so no matter which screen you view the map on, it will always be the same? That would be a fine solution, but I'm primarily thinking about the map you see when you are navigating to a cache. It would be better not to have to adjust the orientation of the map every time I go to a cache. If the two maps (the one that shows all the caches, and the one you see when you are navigating) each had their own persistent setting for this, I think this might be ideal. For some reason, when I'm trying to figure out what cache to go for next, north up makes sense, but when I'm navigating to a cache, an oriented map seems best. OR, if that seems like it might confuse some users, a single setting that would work for both maps, but is easy to access so it could be easily switched.

I've been caching with an iphone ever since you could. I started out with Geo-sphere and made the move to Looking4Cache when the Geo-sphere developers seemed to disappear. I tried Cachly when it was new, but it was an early version and was missing some features I liked. Recently I noticed that all my friends use Cachly, so I decided to give it a serious workout. I've decided I like it, but I do have some suggestions that I hope will make cachly even better. I realize that there is a major version coming out soon, and I don't know if some of these things will be addressed in that version, but if not, it would be nice if they were eventually included. ( I heard you will be able to see other caches while navigating to a cache, that's great! ) 1. Map rotation/orientation - The default map is north up. I have two problems with the current system. First, I generally like my map to be oriented. If I click the arrow button twice to orient my map, it automatically centers on me. As soon as I scroll the map, it stops orienting. Second, every-time I navigate to a cache, I have to re-ask that the map is oriented. A persistent toggle switch that does not require the map to be centered on me that is available from the map scree would be very nice. 2. Number of Finds in Logs - When viewing logs, it would be great if each username had their number of finds next to it. This is particularly useful when looking at a cache with a few DNFs. If the users with the DNFs only have 2 finds, well it's probably still there! Both the other apps I used before had this feature. 3. Scrolling Description - Every time I open the cache description, it scrolls back to the top. This was particularly frustrating when working on a couple of earth caches with lots of questions recently. I would carefully scroll down to find the questions I needed to answer. Once I found the answer to the first question, I went to the cache note and entered a few words that I could use to elaborate later. Back to the description I go, but now I've got to find the questions again. Seems like if I have not changed my target cache, it should just stay where I left it. 4. satellite view. I don't know how google's licensing works , but it would be nice to have them as a satellite map option. In an urban environment where the satellite view is king, I found myself frequently changing apps so that I could see the google version of the satellite view. apple vs. google: You can see that not only does google's satellite view have better color balance and more detail, but they have tried to minimize buildings from getting in the way. Also in the satellite view from apple seems to restrict how much you can zoom in. In the example above, the apple map is basically zoomed in all the way. The google map zoomed in all the way is below. Granted some of this is just enlarging pixels, but it is still helpful when your phone is in bright sun, and you are trying to see details. Thanks for all the work you do for this great app! I hope you find this feedback useful.