Maps - What do you want?

[Laighside Legends]

kml icons don't pinpoint the cache. They are the wrong shape.
gmap icons show the point right at the cache site.
We have tried other icons to make the gmaps point the cache site, but prettier, and they all failed rather hideously.
If you can design some icons we can try them out.

I don't want to have that argument again... I was just suggesting the user options had the option to use the kml icons... (if that makes sense )

More to the point are other map sources possible? Google shows basically no country back roads and while OSM is better they still only have about half and they are missing the odd main road

[nutwood]

I think it's pretty "by our lady" good as it is. The only hitch I've found is the same as samwalkers. Pan away from the original area and you can have an absolutely clear map, no caches shown at all. This only appears to happen if the original view showed the full 250. If it only showed 200, it'll keep refreshing as you move which is fine by me.
Personally, I'd leave well alone and go and have a beer (or should that be, "go and find a cache"? Etiquette, sigh!). It's so much better than the alternative!

[caughtatwork]

There is an API, and yes it can be used:http://www.nearmap.com/documentation/br ... 0Guide.pdf

Well, nothing like being different for the sake of it.
It seems to work, but will need some clever coding so it doesn't conflict with the GMAP icons.
The NearMap API and the GoogleMaps API have some of the same function names, so this is going to be particularly tricky.
But putting that aside, they should be able to work together.

[caughtatwork]

I think it's pretty "by our lady" good as it is. The only hitch I've found is the same as samwalkers. Pan away from the original area and you can have an absolutely clear map, no caches shown at all. This only appears to happen if the original view showed the full 250. If it only showed 200, it'll keep refreshing as you move which is fine by me.
Personally, I'd leave well alone and go and have a beer (or should that be, "go and find a cache"? Etiquette, sigh!). It's so much better than the alternative!

What browser and version are you using? This is not something I can replicate, so something is astray, but what I can't be sure.

[SamWalkers]

It depends on how far you move the map. Short distances currently do not refresh as it's likely that the caches on the map matcvh your currenmt zoom level / location/
What happens if you move the map to a greater distance away? Say 50km from your start point.
Does it refresh?
What browser are you using?

For your pleasure - Safari on Mac.
I was zooming out till the 250 selected were all visible then panning till the left the screen then zooming in on the far edge of the screen. I then allowed 5 minutes loading time but nothing.

Just tested on Firefox and it came up but I had to click away three error messages before the caches loaded.

[caughtatwork]

Well, that sucks.
The safari browser on Win7 and my iPod do the panning and refreshing.
I'm at a loss.

[SamWalkers]

Well, that sucks.
The safari browser on Win7 and my iPod do the panning and refreshing.
I'm at a loss.

I just tried my iBook and the new caches load but I get a message < Slow script. A script on page "Geocaching Australia" (http://...) is making Safari unresponsive. Do you want to continue running the script, or stop it. >


I went back to trying the G5 again.

It worked and lightning fast!

[caughtatwork]

I hate that sort of stuff.

Part of why we want to rewrite this stuff is to stop building javascript arrays and do JSON or AJAX calls to the DB to get the data according to what you want to see on the screen.
With less data being manipulated at your end, this should stop the slow script problems.

But hey, it seems to be working now, but keep the ideas coming and we'll see what we can do to make it all better.

[nutwood]

What browser and version are you using? This is not something I can replicate, so something is astray, but what I can't be sure.[/quote]

Firefox 4.0.1
Interestingly, I just tried a test run and it's now working fine. Refreshes perfectly. Have you tweaked something?

[caughtatwork]

I swear, by the fury of a thousands burning suns, no. Good to hear it's working for you.

[SamWalkers]

And we thought you were just miraculously fast at fixing the issue!

[nutwood]

And we thought you were just miraculously fast at fixing the issue!

Modesty expresses itself in strange ways.

[nutwood]

OK, I believe you now as it's still doing it.
I was logging a couple of recent caches in Tassie. I logged one in the North, then zoomed out and panned south to pick up another. After a while I simply ran out of caches. Left it sit in case the connection was dragging it's heels but after five minutes or so there was no improvement. My screen view was of the north of Hobart and, if you believed the map, there were only a couple of caches up around Cambridge.
I panned further south and had a nice map with no caches at all. Again I left it five minutes but nothing changed.

[CraigRat]

The map works in slightly interesting ways when you pan around with it zoomed out out then zoom in.

best thing to do is move the map over where you want, then zoom the screen out a bit then back to the zoom you want.

This moves the 'bounds' of the returned data and refreshes the caches. (The map only returns the first 250 or so caches within a rectangle and until you move out of that rectangle it doesn't update)

[nutwood]

Thanks for that Craig. I'll experiment a bit, with your description in mind, and see how I go.