Nic Hubbard

Just now, MrGigabyte said:

Yes I know about "Clear Map on Refresh" as I suggested that feature to you. That is not what we are describing.

Sorry, so many people and so many requests, hard to remember who suggested things.

1 minute ago, MrGigabyte said:

If I load caches in an area, Geosphere ONLY loads caches that fit that area.  So, you can control how many caches you load by using the map zoom. In Cachly, you get 50 caches based on the center of the map including those that fall outside that current map view. This would result in (in my usual usage) hundreds of caches I do not want to load. 

This would need to be a new feature option that is added to Search Options. Will add that to our feature list.

14 minutes ago, MrGigabyte said:

I too used all the time for caches along a route. It was very quick to Search, pan the map, new search and preserve the previous caches.

You can toggle the Settings option "Clear Map on Refresh" so that caches don't get removed from the map when you refresh it. It won't limit to just the viewable area, but it will only load 50 caches at a time.

15 minutes ago, MrGigabyte said:

I am glad to report though, that the rewiring of my brain is coming along nicely.  :-)

Glad to hear this!

15 minutes ago, ShammyLevva said:

This happens to me regularly it appears to be related to the previous cache icon being on screen - the solution is always to zoom in until the one I want to change to the only one visible then click and it will always then open the right cache. Note it only seems to happen when I've logged the cache to upload later.

Are you able to replicate this reliably? So far I cannot and it has been hard to track down to fix.

There is currently not a way to "lock" rotation mode. But this is something that we are working on.

14 minutes ago, TheGreenTroll said:

The corrected coordinates wouldn't save and displayed "network timed out" or something like that, I will take some screen shots if it happens again.

I think the problem is that your phone still thinks it has a data connection, possibly? If Cachly doesn't detect a connection at all, such as in Airplane mode it will save the Waypoints offline. If it does detect a data connection it will try to upload them.

You can save Waypoints (and corrected coordinate waypoints) when you are offline and they will be uploaded later for you. These get uploaded when you return to Cachly and have a network connection.

8 minutes ago, TheGreenTroll said:

Today I tried to correct the coordinates of a number of multi cache's but found that the coordinates wouldn't update as I had no network coverage.

What did you mean that they wouldn't update?

2 hours ago, barefootguru said:

But I'd expect looking at a COs subset of caches — not on the main map — would zoom and scroll automatically regardless… in the same way as first going into an offline list.  Can't think of a reason not to?

Agree. I will get this fixed in our upcoming version.

46 minutes ago, brudderman said:

So it might be possible to do something similar in Cachly to access the Google Maps offline maps. 

We do offer integration with Google Maps, just go to the cache you want to navigate to and then to the Navigate to Cache screen. From there tap the ... button to see routing providers, one of which will be Google Maps if you have it installed. This will allow you to navigate to the cache and use the Google Maps offline maps if you have them. (I thought your previous question was about bringing those offline maps INTO Cachly.)

49 minutes ago, brudderman said:

One other thing that perhaps might deserve its own thread. The iOS Workflow app (https://goo.gl/FrD0Pz) permits some incredibly complex automations in iOS and might be a way for Cachly to be customized by users beyond it's native built-in capabilities.

This is something we have on our feature list (not specific to the Workflow app) so that you can use the Cachly URL scheme to open various things. We do currently have one available:

cachly://gccode=<gc code>

This worked correctly for me and centered on that users Hides. 

Do you have the "Fit to Map" option turned off?

2 hours ago, brudderman said:

Having Topomaps as a option here would also be quite nice since I have downloaded many megabytes of tiles for offline use. It would sure be nice to have a pin automatically dropped at the cache coordinates in both Gaia and Topomaps when the switch is made, but that may not be possible.

There are a couple of apps in the App Store called Topo Maps. Can you let me know which one you are referring to? What is the developers name?

Also, pretty sure that last time I worked on the Gaia integration it wasn't possible to drop a pin, but I will check again.

This is an excellent review.

2 hours ago, brudderman said:

I have downloaded my state Open Street map, and that appears to work quite well if that sort of map is all that I need. There are times, however, when I need other map types in areas where there is no cell phone coverage, but I don't see whether they can be deployed as map layers in Cachly.

Other map types besides our vector Offline OSM maps are not available for download. Mainly because they are tile based maps and they have license agreements prohibiting the use of their tiles for offline use.

2 hours ago, brudderman said:

1. Specifically, I have purchased and occasionally like to use Topomaps (https://goo.gl/QHm4pQ) and Gaia GPS (https://goo.gl/MvkxWI). Is it possible to navigate to a cache in Cachly using such maps? If Cachly would recognize them as additional map layers along with the standard ones, the would be great. That feature may be there, and I'm just missing it.

When navigating in Cachly we have a number of routing providers available (if you have them installed). Just tap the ... button when navigating to a cache. We do support Gaia GPS but I have never heard of Topomaps before. Will look into that. 

2 hours ago, brudderman said:

2. Using the Google Maps app, it's possible to download offline map areas. Is it possible to use these offline maps with Cachly?

No, this isn't possible. Those downloaded maps are sandboxed inside of the Google Maps app and they don't allow them to be used anywhere else.

40 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

There is an icon to the right already. It's the right carat which implies moving a step forward, viewing more detail, drilling down - it's the same icon on both Bookmark Lists and PQs.  What if for the PQ list it was the download icon instead of the right carat? That's a UI style used pretty often, and would to me make more sense to indicate what the row tap does.

I agree. I think this would be a very useful fix. Thanks.

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

In this case I was more referring to this difference:
* Bookmarks: Tap a Row -> View on a Map/List, Options [Save to List, Export GPX]
* PQ: Tap a Row -> Auto-download to an Offline List

The PQ auto-download to a list seems quite sudden, and it can't be stopped, potentially using a lot of data. I like the flow of the Bookmarks listing.

These two are meant to be different. Users are used to the idea of PQs being downloaded and Bookmarks being viewed.

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Excellent. Just seems odd that you can't do anything by tapping a row when in Edit mode. Having the options show with that to me is very intuitive; same effect as tapping Options on the swipe. (and there are a number of other functions that can be accessed via different methods already; eg - swipe to tap Delete, or Edit+ (-) +Delete ... actually, I thought tapping the (-) would just delete, but it just does the same as the swipe action; meaning you can Edit-> (-) ->'Options' to get the flyup, but you can't Edit-> Row-tap to get the flyup)

Sorry, just commenting thoughts out loud (webapp developer here, UI/workflow is what I do all day long, heh)

Thanks. Will build this in my internal version and see what I think.

1 minute ago, thebruce0 said:

Ok so theoretically you can keep adding to it until you've reached 4000. That was more just a matter of curiosity Geosphere would have the same API limit to the search, it just adds the map boundary as a limit if you use the Map search option rather than the Current Location/Home/Target center point.

Yes, this is correct.

3 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

A big list of sort options would be overkill, but providing two options - last updated, and alpha - really shouldn't be that hard... right? /:)

Agreed. Working through some other majors features right now but will for sure add this to our feature list.

1 hour ago, Team DEMP said:

I would personally prefer the current sort order over alpha. It matches what I've been recently doing with those most recently used bookmarks at the top of the Cachly list.  Putting them in Alpha wouldn't kill me but it would be less productive for me in how many I have and how I work with them.  Just one person's opinion.

I will be leaving it for now, but I do appreciate insight from @thebruce0 as to how others might be using this feature.

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

If loading the ZIP file (importing to the local database), it doesn't load anything via the API, only takes whatever data the file provides.  If importing via the API then we have the option to load images and whatnot.

I presume Cachly only downloads the PQ via the API with the image download option?

Cachly uses the API to gather all cache data for the PQ. This includes favorites, corrected coordinates, etc that the .zip doesn't include. We used to use the .zip but users were confused when it didn't include certain info.

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

One reason I like the generated PQ file download import feature is that I know what is imported and how much data is being used (and the data is highly compressed), and it doesn't count towards the API limit.

Getting the PQ data from the API rather than the .zip doesn't take away from your daily API count.

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

I just tried merging, and found that merging a list with itself still deletes the list. I really don't think that should be possible; doesn't make sense, not intuitive. I just lost a list through merging it with itself...?  If you select a list to merge (via swipe & options) then the 'list of lists' shouldn't include that list you've already chosen. You could multi-select others, or choose one to merge it with.

This is a bug that we have on our list to fix in 2.1. It for sure wasn't intentional.

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Maybe tapping Edit could provide more row-specific options.  Tap Edit, and instead of just moving or deleting, then since tapping a row does nothing at this point, it could pop up the Options for that row. That would actually be a really quick and IMO intuitive function to bring the options within reach.   My thought process really is just this: "I've tapped edit to edit the lists. Now I can move and delete. I touched a row- wait, nothing happened? hmph." Edit+Touch Row = Fly up Row Options.

This is something to take into account. We have worked to follow iOS Human Interface Guidelines for most/all of Cachly. Swiping to show options and tapping to me is extremely intuitive since iOS uses this same UI feature in many other places. I think once you get used to it you will love it.

3 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Also, is there no ability to cancel a PQ or List download? Maybe there could be a confirmation popup on tapping a PQ to download it.  There's a bit of an inconsistency between Bookmark List view online, and the PQ list. BmkLists jumps to viewing the list on the Map, whereas PQ just immediately starts downloading it to an Offline List. The UI process is the same up until tapping the PQ/List to view. I don't think the PQ should just immediately start downloading to an Offline list...  =/

There isn't currently a way to cancel these.

The API handles bookmark lists and PQs much differently, so there isn't a way to make the interfaces work exactly the same.

2 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Just a few ideas here...

Geosphere combines a few variants of icon styles on the map that helps quickly identify most relevant properties that can overlap. The shapes are designed that they can visually overlapped and still easily discerned.

Active/Disabled/Archived: For disabled the red slashed circle appears, and it's black if archived.
DNF/Found: Yellow check mark, or blue X
Highlighted: Orange exterior outline (that's a geosphere specific flag though)
Corrected coordinate: triangular target icon in the center

Some element of each of those flags could all be applied to a pin on the map, and you can make them all out by the way they were visually designed. Very handy.  That took a lot of playtesting to hash out and finalize

Cachly does have all of these icon distinctions with the exception of a difference for archived or disabled.

Wow, a lot to digest here. First off, if interested we have a semi-public bug/feature tracker if you are interested in being a part of. It might be easier to discuss individual features there. Just contact me through the support option in Cachly so I can get your email.

That being said...

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

2. If loading from the map center and there's an overlap of already-loaded caches, does it re-load those and count towards the daily limit? (I presume so per the API method)

Cachly won't show those pins/caches twice, but there is no way in the API to exclude loading of specific GC codes. (This is only relevant with the Clear Map on Refresh option to off)

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

3. On changing a search option, the load runs again automatically; I didn't expect that as I was just modifying an option and was then going to change the location of the map to run the search there, not right where it was when I hit "Done". Can it not auto-run the search if it's just the search options that's changed?

I wouldn't change the default way this works since it has been like this since day 1. But I will for sure consider making it a Settings option.

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

4. Coming from Geosphere, we had loads of use cases of various search strategies we might use to populate an area we're caching in, usually affected by what we wanted to see, or wanted to avoid.  For example, if there's a powertrail in an area, a standard radius search would get flustered by such a high density of caches in one spot that we may want to ignore. Or we want to grab only the caches along the trail and not the whole region.  So we requested a few other search options than just map-center-radius.
...Without getting too complicated for now:
* Can we have a kind of limit to map dimensions toggle? For example, I might zoom in to a stretch of a trail and perform a search to get just the caches within the map I'm looking at; or, knowing there's a dense trail and I want the park a few blocks away I might center there and keep the map out of frame so that I'm not loading the 100 caches on the trail along with the sparser ones nearby that I do want.  The map limiter made it easier to load caches / pan map / load caches / pan map / etc... I recently did this for a major 4 day road trip, eventually importing 11000 caches into Geosphere along our driving route, highly customized (more flexible than the driving route PQ feature Groundspeak offers, though admittedly more time consuming).

This does sound like an interesting feature. Once you get signed up for the bug tracker it would be easier to flush out the details of this there so I can ask questions about this individual feature.

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

5. I do notice that the "..." apears in the load icon when the next search would expand from the same center point, and disappears when the map is panned indicating a new search. Is there a limit to the distance the search will progress? Not sure if that's an API thing. In Geosphere the option to load the next 20 or 100 caches at a time would continue until all caches are loaded that were within the map window when that search process began (even after panning, it wouldn't reset until you began a new search)'

When the ... shows in the refresh icon it is pulling 50 more caches from the previous search. For example, a search might actually return 4000 results but the API only allows 50 at a time to be retrieved from the server.

1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

8. Zoom options - having a Target cache makes this more relevant, but Geosphere allows you to quickly select a zoom region. * Your current location (pretty standard), the extent of map items (zoom out to see everything currently visible), the target cache (like current location but at the target pin), and current-location-with-target (easily see for navigation, and also allows to set the view so the zoom will auto-adjust while you move closer/farther from it - great for driving and hiking).

Cachly does have this option. When navigating to the cache there is a button with a target on it.

Bookmark lists are shown in the order that they come from the API, which I am not exactly sure what order that is. I think just having them in ABC order would be best, giving sort options for this might be an overkill.