Geocaching Australia

Have you spotted an area that looks like it would be good to hit on a cache raid but you despaired as to how to get around the area in the fastest time and least distance? No? Well then you're not a real cacher Oh, OK, you've changed your answer to yes? Excellent, then Geocaching Australia have a tool coming soon that is just for you. Actually, not just for you, for anyone, but it makes you feel better if I say it's just for you. Doesn't it?

The Cache Raider tool uses a My Query to generate a list of 25 caches by proximity to your defined starting point and will then create a map and driving directions to get to the caches in the fastest possible time in the least possible distance. You can see the driving directions and estimates times / distance by scrolling down the page when it's finished.

The cache raider is not the perfect optimal route, but I tell you what, it's pretty darn close. For the full disclosure of why 25 caches cannot be defined as an optimal route I'll let you do some reading here. Yes, that's where the code originated. It's called the Travelling Salesman Problem and the code from that site is available under a Common Public License version 1.0. Geocaching Australia have modified the code somewhat but it's pretty close, functionally, to the original.

For more information on the background, technical limitations and how to set one up, please visit the wiki:
http://wiki.geocaching.com.au/wiki/Cache_raid

We have a Canadian who wants to hide GCA caches (yay, go us ), especially with the upcoming winter Olympics and the large number of tourists who will be visiting.

As such we now have a Canadian skin.
You can select Canada as your skin from your my/setting page.
http://geocaching.com.au/my/settings/

This will present a Canadian leaderboard as well as a clickable map to each provinces leaderboard.

If you are hiding a cache in Canada, you can now select from any of the 13 provinces and territories listed in Canada in the same way you would for Australia or New Zealand.

I'm not entirely happy with the colors. The national colors of Canada are red and white, so I've tried to make the skin reddish and whitish without being blatantly RED. If you believe that you can create a better colour theme (and I would welcome anyone with graphical talent), then please provide the following images.

Header Background:
http://geocaching.com.au/pics/header_back_ca.png

Header Tab Background:
http://geocaching.com.au/pics/header_tab_ca.gif

Blog Header Background:
http://geocaching.com.au/pics/log_bg_red_horizontal.png

Block Content Background:
http://geocaching.com.au/pics/log_bg_gr ... zontal.png

Log Background:
http://geocaching.com.au/pics/log_bg_grey.png

In the meantime, please take some headache tablets and enjoy the Canadian skin.

caughtatwork wrote: As such we now have a Canadian skin.
You can select Canada as your skin from your my/setting page.
http://geocaching.com.au/my/settings/

.

Very nice, but why is there a Guam skin? Do we have that many cachers in Guam using GCA??

Yes, yes we do.
http://guamgeocachers.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

This is a cool feature that I saw on the Geocaching Australia Webpage and asked if they could provide the information for the Guam Geocachers. You'll need to register for free on their website to have access to the page. You can also click through the months to see who was the top cacher(only Guam finds)for each month. See how you ranked against other cachers!

We can provide this service to any country around the world, as long as they feed the faeries

tronador wrote:Very nice, but why is there a Guam skin? Do we have that many cachers in Guam using GCA??

They asked, we provided.

As c@w said, we'll do it for whoever asks.
There's a lot of people who want access to ladders and stats etc. These are services that are not provided by the self appointed 'official' site, and we are more than happy to supply that facility.

They feed the faeries, we give em stuff in return for free.

Bling* is now available on a geocachers profile pages to indicate that they are supports of Geocaching Australia in terms of hiding and finding caches.

e.g. http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/caughtatwork

* Bling levels for finds:
> 0
> 10
> 25
> 50
> 100
> 200
> 500

* Bling levels for hides:
> 0
> 5
> 10
> 20
> 30
> 50
> 100

We have had a number of requests to provide a GCA leaderboard in addition to the overall leaderboards that are currently displayed.

I am happy to announce that the GCA leaderboards are now in play and will appear above the overall leaderboards.

e.g.
http://geocaching.com.au/
http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/vic/
http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/tas/
etc.

You can now "compete" against your fellow GCA supporters for the top position on the various state / country leaderboards.

caughtatwork wrote:Bling* is now available on a geocachers profile pages to indicate that they are supports of Geocaching Australia in terms of hiding and finding caches.

e.g. http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/caughtatwork

Looks good!

Only suggestion I can make is that they are in a more obvious spot or to have a more obvious meaning on the page. To me they just appear to be a graphic on the page next to your name, and don't signify anything if you don't know what they are about.

Mouseover and they explain what they're for.
CraigRat suggested we not make them "in your face" so I was trying to be subtle.
Was I too subtle?

caughtatwork wrote:Mouseover and they explain what they're for.
CraigRat suggested we not make them "in your face" so I was trying to be subtle.
Was I too subtle?

Yep, I reckon you were too subtle! You could have a heading "Bling Status - Hides *** " (you know where the *** is the actual bling factor). Now that I've got 1 hide a a few finds, I'm happy for them to be a bit more "in your face"!

caughtatwork wrote:We have had a number of requests to provide a GCA leaderboard in addition to the overall leaderboards that are currently displayed.

I am happy to announce that the GCA leaderboards are now in play and will appear above the overall leaderboards.

e.g.
http://geocaching.com.au/
http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/vic/
http://geocaching.com.au/dashboard/au/tas/
etc.

You can now "compete" against your fellow GCA supporters for the top position on the various state / country leaderboards.

The GCA only leaderboards are great! I was thinking not long ago that all the Stats and Logs and Graphs etc would be really good if they all had an option of "GCA only" and "All". Is this possible?

Graphs should have that.
The rest, not yet, but it's a good idea.

Question about the sync between the Db and the dashboard.
Yesterday I was on the WA list of Top Finders for November with 4 Finds. Last night 6 new logs came through now I have 10, but I don't appear on the dashboard whilst finders with 7-9 do. Most of those were not on the list at all yesterday so I'm surmising their logs came through the same feed as mine. As in the words of a legendary tv professor,
Why is it so?

Sometimes the dashboard gets stuck. I've refreshed it now and you are now on it.

caughtatwork wrote:Sometimes the dashboard gets stuck. I've refreshed it now and you are now on it.

Claw or Ball pane?

New dashboard looks good but today will probably be the last day I'm on it too.