Report GCA Site issues here [closed]

[CraigRat]

I guessed that would have been the case

Looks like we have duelling faeries both trying to be first to fix the problem

The last to fix a problem usually gets a beating.

[Richary]

I guessed that would have been the case

Looks like we have duelling faeries both trying to be first to fix the problem

The last to fix a problem usually gets a beating.

It works for me as a user who can't offer coding skills, can't complain about the service and the price is even better

[mark_rattigan]

G'day

Minor issue here, just tried to import a find of mine from June for GC20ETR (Colossal Head 4) in Washington DC. This is an earthcache, however when imported into GCA it appears to have lost its name. Anyone able to have a quick look?
Cheers

Mark

[caughtatwork]

Nothing you did.
That cache was missing its name from a previous import.
All fixed now.

[mark_rattigan]

Thanks - quick as always.

[Yurt]

When you copy coords directly in the Google Earth format the appear with the 'S' and 'E' after the numbers instead of in front of them. If you use coords in this format, say for a locationless, they get converted to some weird northern hemisphere coords that look nothing like what you entered. I've only noticed it when I've gone to add the photo and spotted a map of France where the locationless should have been.
Of course I know better and have changed them to the proper format but I've noticed this on some other locationless logs by other cachers where there's a map of the ocean where they found it. It seems rather odd.
I don't know why Google Earth uses this format for its placemarks.

[caughtatwork]

Hang on, you're suggesting that because someone has entered an invalid set of co-ordinates (i.e. not in the format required by the site) that there is a GCA site issue?

Sorry, we can't catch that type of user input error.

[Yurt]

Nah I was just wondering why it gave any location at all instead of a "that does not compute" style message. It's easy to just proceed with the log if the map doesn't catch your eye with all its ocean or French names or whatever.
I'll see if I can find an example for you.

Not important, just thought this was the spot for putting this sort of thing.


I'll just go and get back to work...

[mark_rattigan]

I also noticed this the other day, while attempting to log a locationless.

"-35.34556, 149.1037" (copied directly from Google Maps Lat/Long Marker), ended up being S35° 20.730' E6° 0.000'

The Southing converted correctly however the Easting was destroyed in translation.

Is this normal behaviour CaW?

[caughtatwork]

I also noticed this the other day, while attempting to log a locationless.

"-35.34556, 149.1037" (copied directly from Google Maps Lat/Long Marker), ended up being S35° 20.730' E6° 0.000'

The Southing converted correctly however the Easting was destroyed in translation.

Is this normal behaviour CaW?

Define normal.
Is that what the code says to do, yes.
Is that what you expected, no.
The latlon parser did not expect a comma in the co-ords.
I've made a change to the latlon parser to allow for a comma in the co-ords so that string you entered now converts to S35° 20.734' E149° 6.222'

The latlon parser accepts the following:
// Check format S99 99.999 E999 99.999 (with out without decimals)
// Check format S99.999 E999.999
// Check format -99.999 -999.999

What I'm interested in is why we have people entering co-ords in a format OTHER than what I would expect to see from a waypoint marked on a GPS.

If you have visited the location, then I would have expected that you would have marked a waypoint in your GPS. To be using Google Earth to gain co-ords doesn't make sense to me so naturally we have never catered for it.

Why do we have co-ords being cut and pasted from Google Earth?

[caughtatwork]

Nah I was just wondering why it gave any location at all instead of a "that does not compute" style message. It's easy to just proceed with the log if the map doesn't catch your eye with all its ocean or French names or whatever.
I'll see if I can find an example for you.

Not important, just thought this was the spot for putting this sort of thing.


I'll just go and get back to work...

But the site doesn't know that you cocked up the co-ords. We have people all over the world logging locationless caches so we can't assume they are in the southern hemisphere. Nor can we assume that something in the ocean isn't valid. We have no idea if you are logging a locationless item you found in France or Germany or down the road. At some point the finder needs to make sure that what they are entering is valid. The same way as if you logged the wrong cache. We assume you know what you're doing.

[Big Matt and Shell]

ass-u-me

[mark_rattigan]

Mine was a case of the waypoint memory on GPSr being full, and photograph of GPSr was on fiance's camera (with coords unreadable on LCD (meaning I couldn't transcribe until loading onto PC). Temporary placeholder note log with coordinates as close as I could get from Google Maps until the camera came home for me to download photo and read actual coords.
Fair enough that it was programmed with no expectation of coords in that format - is actually one of my bugbears with GSAK that it requires coords in different formats for different purposes (including with a comma).

Cheers for the quick assistance as always.

Out of curiosity, how did it get E6° 0.000', due to an unexpected comma?

[caughtatwork]

Mine was a case of the waypoint memory on GPSr being full, and photograph of GPSr was on fiance's camera (with coords unreadable on LCD (meaning I couldn't transcribe until loading onto PC). Temporary placeholder note log with coordinates as close as I could get from Google Maps until the camera came home for me to download photo and read actual coords.
Fair enough that it was programmed with no expectation of coords in that format - is actually one of my bugbears with GSAK that it requires coords in different formats for different purposes (including with a comma).

Cheers for the quick assistance as always.

Out of curiosity, how did it get E6° 0.000', due to an unexpected comma?

Ahhh. I see.
The parser chopped up the two values into two arrays based on the comma so the lat was fine in the first array, but the second array ended up wonky with the last character of the lat i.e. 6 as the degrees.
It would be nice to cater for every possible combination, but I don't have the skill or time to looks for everything that could be entered.
The suggested format is provided as an example e.g: S41 23.425 E147 16.234 so we expected that people would enter it in this format rather than other strings.

[caughtatwork]

ass-u-me

Indeed