Background changes - no visible change

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caughtatwork
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Background changes - no visible change

Post by caughtatwork » 18 June 19 9:39 am

A number of changes have been made in the background.

1. We have simplified the call to decide which geocaches to get for a number of different scenarios. e.g. List of caches, map of caches, searches of caches, etc. This was a nasty sprawling mess of global variables, set, then "hoped to be valid" when the function was executed. This is now a slighly less nasty, sprawling mess by having the call to the selection wrapped up in a new class to ensure that wayward variables are not accidentally included. This also means parameters need to be explicitly set so there is a possibility that I have forgotten to set a parameter in the 50 or so calls that have been updated. If you notice this, please add to the bugs thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19288 and provide information about "what may be missing" rather than just "hey this list is wrong". As much information as you can provide would be appreciated.

2. The MyQuery functionality has been simplied behind the scenes. We have three places we use the MyQuery capability. The normal MyQuery you can run interactively, a mailer than runs overnight and emails you your GPX or ZIP file and via the GCA API to provide the same query results to any app that calls it. When the API was written we created a new function to extract your specific MyQuery parameters and construct a query that would be used to identify the geocaches to be selected. That has now been applied to the interactive MyQuery generator and the overnight mailer removing duplicate "cut and paste" style code and consolidating it into one. This means future MyQuery capability only needs to be updated in one location saving time and reducing the chance of bugs due to a mistype of code.

3. The Route lists wasn't working. I guess no-one uses this :-( It's now been fixed.

4. A set of new code to be able to draw a polygon (zone) on a map and save that to create a Zone of Interest has been pushed live and I'll be looking for a Beta Tester or two in the not too distant future. This allows you to draw a polygon on the map, grabbing and moving "handles" rather than having to construct a KML file and upload that for to create the zone. So if you were looking for a set of geocaches that were near to you, but "on this side of the river" you could draw a polygon, create a new zone with the boundary running up the middle of the river and then add that to a MyQuery to get just the caches with attributes you want AND only on the right side of the river.

5. The old API code has been mostly removed. We wrote a new API some years ago and we have waited for everyone to be on the new code before removing the old. If your favourite app stops working, then please contact the app develeoper as they will need to move to the new API. GACacher and Geocube both use the new API so there should be no issues.

6. The old "mobile" site (geocaching.com.au/mobile) has been decomissioned as the site is now responsive and the two apps take care of 100% of the mobile needs. If you still use the old mobile site, then, sorry, but you'll need to move to the other solutions in place.

Remember please add to the bugs thread. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=19288 and provide information about "what may be missing" rather than just "hey this is wrong". As much information as you can provide would be appreciated.

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