'Live' updating maps.

[SurfaBoy]

I do love the Cachly app but one thing I think it needs (and is available on other third party apps) is LIVE updating maps, I want to be able to get in my car at the start of my journey and as I pass caches on my route they update and appear live onto my map without me pressing or doing anything. There is a LIVE button on the maps in Looking For Cache app which is the exact feature, it loads as I move- this would be a killer feature and bean I can delete L4C. If this feature is available, I can't find it :-)

[Nic Hubbard]

This is a feature that we worked on and tested, but in the end if was a poor user experience because of the limitations of the geocaching.com API. The API limits 30 network requests per 60 seconds. It also limits 50 caches at a time per request. Which means, some users might have no issues, but some users might want to pan around the map looking for caches, and would end up reaching that 30 network requests (some of which likely would already be used up by other API calls). At this point they would have to wait until that 60 seconds is up to load more caches.

In our testing of this, it just was not the experience that we wanted. Apps like the official app are able to load 500 caches at a time and put them on the map (even ProjectGC has special APIs to do this). With the API limitations that would take Cachly 100 network requests.

Sadly the API just isn't setup to do a live map. I realize that Looking4Cache has this, but I think the user experience when using the live map isn't that great.

[SurfaBoy]

1 minute ago, Nic Hubbard said:

I realize that Looking4Cache has this, but I think the user experience when using the live map isn't that great.

Thank you for the reply, I will just use the official app for this scenario but your app for everything else. I do love the simplicity of Cachly and L4C has become far too complicated- I completely agree with the quoted comment above, L4C user experience has gone down hill over the last couple of years and Cachly had improved in this time. Keep the good work up. 

[Nic Hubbard]

1 minute ago, SurfaBoy said:

I will just use the official app for this scenario but your app for everything else.

I have talked with Groundspeak about the possibility of an API that can handle a live map, but at this time they weren't interesting in doing that.

[SurfaBoy]

Probably too drive support to their poor official app :-D

[Nic Hubbard]

3 minutes ago, SurfaBoy said:

Probably too drive support to their poor official app :-D

I hold no issues with Groundspeak. I think they get a bad wrap a lot of the time.

I do think there is room for improvement with how they did the transition to only having the new app.

[SurfaBoy]

I agree, I think the new app is poor but the way it was handled was just as bad, restricting developers is not fair- but that's business. Keep up the good work though- looking forward to the push notifications. 

[ChrisDen]

A different angle on the same issue. Is it possible for the distance to a cache in an offline list to be updated and sorted on the fly. 

We do a pocket query of the caches on our route when we drive somewhere. This is saved to an offline list. I like to have the list open so I can see the distance to the next cache so it would be great if that could be updated and resorts as we drive. 

 

[SurfaBoy]

I think merging two offline lists would solve this if I understand the query correctly. 

[ChrisDen]

That is not the issue. I have  a full offline list of the caches which might be a merge of twofor more lists.

I have the list view (not map) when I drive. The distances to the next cache is not uupdated as you get closer of move further away. 

[SurfaBoy]

Ah I see. That would be a good idea.

[rragan]

I am used to seeing the distance to caches in an offline list update as I drive or hike including list reordering if I am sorted by distance. Very handy in the case of twisty trails as the nearest cache may be 500 feet down a cliff but as I do the switchbacks  other caches become closest and become of interest n

[Nic Hubbard]

8 hours ago, ChrisDen said:

A different angle on the same issue. Is it possible for the distance to a cache in an offline list to be updated and sorted on the fly.

Yes, this is for sure something I will do. Just need to do it in a way to retain performance. Sorting a list of 20,000 caches every 10 seconds could take up a lot of processor...will work on this.

[ChrisDen]

Phew - do people have that many caches downloaded. I downloaded 10 000 (all the active caches in my country) and the performance was such that I deleted them and stick to the pocket query idea where I just download the ones in the town we are spending the night in or 2 miles either side of our rute. Normally about 500 with a max of 1 000 on a long trip.

As is normal when it comes to performance - a toggle to turn on and off with default off could be the answer.

Any news on release dates for 2.1 and/or 3.0? The improvements in the pipeline are awesome.There is already a noticeable take up of cachly in our area, even though it is small in number of users.

[Nic Hubbard]

1 minute ago, ChrisDen said:

Phew - do people have that many caches downloaded. I downloaded 10 000 (all the active caches in my country) and the performance was such that I deleted them and stick to the pocket query idea where I just download the ones in the town we are spending the night in or 2 miles either side of our rute. Normally about 500 with a max of 1 000 on a long trip.

Yes, people do. Performance will be completely different in 3.0. We have tested an offline list with over 50k caches with decent performance.

2 minutes ago, ChrisDen said:

Any news on release dates for 2.1 and/or 3.0? The improvements in the pipeline are awesome.There is already a noticeable take up of cachly in our area, even though it is small in number of users.

I can't really give a release date for 3.0 as I would just be making it up.  It is a process. Hoping to have it done this month.

[ChrisDen]

"This month" is good enough for me. That would be awesome.

[SurfaBoy]

So excited for 3.0. Hoping those notifications are in there too. 

[Nic Hubbard]

9 minutes ago, SurfaBoy said:

So excited for 3.0. Hoping those notifications are in there too. 

Which notifications?