What's new on Geocaching Australia

Discussion about the Geocaching Australia web site
Geocaching Australia
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MyQuery Zone now allows for archived geocaches

Post by Geocaching Australia » 28 May 19 12:48 pm

A long standing request:

For My Queries when you use a ZONE ID to restrict the caches archived caches are excluded due to the function that gets caches from the zone. Include archived caches if they are wanted.

The MyQuery "Is Available", "Is Unavailable" or "Is Archived" checkbox will now exclude them based on the users selection.

Geocaching Australia
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Joined: 17 September 09 6:44 pm
Location: Home of the cache

Archived Geocaches Map by Lat and Lon

Post by Geocaching Australia » 29 May 19 9:05 am

The request:
Create map of archived caches by lat and lon search.

The result:
By entering the lat and lon of a location, you can now see archived geocaches on a map. 1,000 geocaches will be returned to the map and will not increase even though you may pan the map. Copy and paste the URL / Internet Address for sharing between friends and to show locations of archived geocaches.

How to:
https://geocaching.com.au/find/geocache
Scroll down to Search for a Geocache Archived Caches
Enter a lat and lon.
Press Map Now.
To share simply copy the URL and post to your friends and they will see the geocaches as well.

Geocaching Australia
Posts: 222
Joined: 17 September 09 6:44 pm
Location: Home of the cache

Allow MyQuery to exclude tags

Post by Geocaching Australia » 30 May 19 9:35 am

The request:
Add ability for "NOT=Tag" in My Query function so as to ignore things like cache race entrants.


The result:
You may now select the Excludes Geocache With Tags on your MyQuery to exclude all geocaches that have one or more of the supplied tags. Note that using wildcard searches is slow and your MyQuery may run slow if you use too many tag combinations.

How to:
https://geocaching.com.au/my/query/new
In the tags section, by default geocaches will be returned in they match the tag. Select Exclude Geocaches With Tags to select only geocaches that DO NOT have this tag set.

Laighside Legends
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Re: Allow MyQuery to exclude tags

Post by Laighside Legends » 30 May 19 1:58 pm

Geocaching Australia wrote:The request:
Add ability for "NOT=Tag" in My Query function so as to ignore things like cache race entrants.


The result:
You may now select the Excludes Geocache With Tags on your MyQuery to exclude all geocaches that have one or more of the supplied tags. Note that using wildcard searches is slow and your MyQuery may run slow if you use too many tag combinations.

How to:
https://geocaching.com.au/my/query/new
In the tags section, by default geocaches will be returned in they match the tag. Select Exclude Geocaches With Tags to select only geocaches that DO NOT have this tag set.
Something is not right here. I have a query (number 3485) that uses a polygon to get my unfound caches in the Adelaide area. Usually it's about 1000 caches. There is a powertrail of about 40 caches in there that are tagged with "on this day series". If I try to exclude these from the query, it returns only 134 caches (which appear to be randomly chosen from the 1000 that should be there) and includes one cache that is tagged with "on this day series". It should return over 900 caches without any tagged with "on this day series".

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caughtatwork
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Re: Allow MyQuery to exclude tags

Post by caughtatwork » 30 May 19 4:13 pm

Laighside Legends wrote:
Geocaching Australia wrote:The request:
Add ability for "NOT=Tag" in My Query function so as to ignore things like cache race entrants.


The result:
You may now select the Excludes Geocache With Tags on your MyQuery to exclude all geocaches that have one or more of the supplied tags. Note that using wildcard searches is slow and your MyQuery may run slow if you use too many tag combinations.

How to:
https://geocaching.com.au/my/query/new
In the tags section, by default geocaches will be returned in they match the tag. Select Exclude Geocaches With Tags to select only geocaches that DO NOT have this tag set.
Something is not right here. I have a query (number 3485) that uses a polygon to get my unfound caches in the Adelaide area. Usually it's about 1000 caches. There is a powertrail of about 40 caches in there that are tagged with "on this day series". If I try to exclude these from the query, it returns only 134 caches (which appear to be randomly chosen from the 1000 that should be there) and includes one cache that is tagged with "on this day series". It should return over 900 caches without any tagged with "on this day series".
Thanks for the report. I now get:
1,034 with the tag EXCLUDED.
34 with the tag INCLUDED.
1,068 with NO tag.

Please have a look and let me know if there is still an issue.

Laighside Legends
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Re: What's new on Geocaching Australia

Post by Laighside Legends » 30 May 19 5:51 pm

It seems to work now. And it's relatively quick as well. This idea first came up almost 10 years ago and was dismissed due to been too slow, what changed to make it feasible now?

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CraigRat
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Re: What's new on Geocaching Australia

Post by CraigRat » 31 May 19 1:08 pm

10 years ago the old server has all of 4gb and 4 processor cores. It struggled to to even the day-to-day things.

The server we run now has 128gb, and 32 processor cores.

Geocaching Australia
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Location: Home of the cache

Warning Zone Checker

Post by Geocaching Australia » 19 June 19 11:38 am

The "Find a Geocache Zone" page has "Warning Zone Checker" where you put in GPS co-ordinates and click 'Check'. Awesome! Simple request: can you add this "Warning Zone Checker" onto the page used to create new cache, please?
A new standalone zone check page has been created and linked from the zone finder and the page where you start to create a new geocache. The page opens in a new tab so you don't lose your place and you can check as many locations as you like. If a warning zone is detected there will be a dropdown that will take you to the zone on a map and a marker to show exactly where the geocache is positioned. This gives you an indication as to whether the zone boundary is accurate or whether your geocache would be best moved a little distance to be outside the zone.

e.g.
https://geocaching.com.au/my/cache/new
https://geocaching.com.au/zone/

Both go to
https://geocaching.com.au/zone/check

Geocaching Australia
Posts: 222
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Centroid Over Time

Post by Geocaching Australia » 20 June 19 3:11 pm

Based on this request, a new maps section has been created on your cacher page that will lead to this (and in the future more) map based statistics based on a geocachers find and other log and geocache information. If you are logged in, then on the top right, click your username, then click on the "Maps" tab and select "Time Centroid".

This map will display the "centre point" or centroid of all of your geocache find and Did Not Finds on a monthly accumulation basis. i.e. Each months finds or DNF's will be added to your collection of locations and the centroid of all of those positions will be provided as the centroid for the month.

This enables you to visualise how you move about when you go geocaching. Note that locationless and moveable geocaches are excluded as those locations are no valid for this purpose.

e.g. If you start near your home co-ordinates then suddenly shoot far to the North, then most likley you found a bunch of geocaches up North in that month "moving" your centroid closer to where you cached. If you then move East, you will most likley have done some geocaching east of your centroid dragging the centroid torwards that cluster of geocaches. If you travelled to NZ or the USA or Eurpoe you will likely find a huge leap and then the centroid moves back towards where you would notmally geocache.

There is no data presented that can be used to identify your home location and all of the data is from your own logs which are publicly available along with the lat / lon, so this data is merely presented here today to visualise your movement as you go geocaching.

We hope that you this moment of entertainment and while it may not hold interest for long I'm sure if you check back in a year or so you can see just how your centroid continues to move over time.

2y'stassies
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Re: What's new on Geocaching Australia

Post by 2y'stassies » 21 June 19 1:08 pm

interesting to see where our centroid travelled over the last 10 years. Thanks developers for this little addition. Just noted that our present end point is labelled July 2019 not June.

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caughtatwork
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Re: What's new on Geocaching Australia

Post by caughtatwork » 21 June 19 2:11 pm

2y'stassies wrote:
21 June 19 1:08 pm
interesting to see where our centroid travelled over the last 10 years. Thanks developers for this little addition. Just noted that our present end point is labelled July 2019 not June.
You time traveller you :-)

Geocaching Australia
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Use your MyQuery to map your DNFs

Post by Geocaching Australia » 24 June 19 11:03 am

A facebook request was made to be able to create a list of geocaches which the user has logged a DNF so they can plot them on a map and "retry".

In the MyQuery form there is now a selection for "I have logged a DNF", "I have not logged a DNF" or leave the radio button unchecked to ignore any DNF flags. If the user selects "I have logged a DNF" then the selection will be restricted to those geocaches that have a DNF logged. Combined with "I have found" or "I have not found" the user can then identify those which have been subsequently found by them or have not yet been found and a ripe for a "retry". The output can be any of the standard MyQuery outputs including a Google Map. Remember to check 3rd party geocaches if you want the ones from GC includes as well.

https://geocaching.com.au/my/query

Geocaching Australia
Posts: 222
Joined: 17 September 09 6:44 pm
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Heatmap of Geocacher Finds

Post by Geocaching Australia » 03 July 19 2:36 pm

New to Geocaching Australia - Geocacher Heatmap of Finds

A new map has been created to view a heatmap of all of a geocachers finds. A heat map (or heatmap) is a graphical representation of data where the individual values contained in a matrix are represented as colors. Hotter, more densely found areas are colored more red with blue being those areas which are colder or fewer finds in density and a gradient used in between to reflect the density of finds in an area.

The 4 photos attached reflect the heatmap for your principal developer zooming in from a world view to the local caching area.

You can find your own Heatmap by logging in to Geocaching Australia, clicking on your name at the top right, then selecting the maps tab followed by the Heatmap link. Depending on the number of geocaches you have found this might take a moment or two.

Geocaching Australia can only map what we know about, so if you believe that you have geocache finds that are not included in your heatmap, then you might want to try and import your My Finds query from geocaching . com to complete your dataset. You can import them here if you are logged in: https://geocaching.com.au/my/import

Geocaching Australia is a free site run by volunteers and is not affiliated with any other web site. If you would like to support us to keep the site running, please visit our online shop https://geocaching.com.au/shop/

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Laighside Legends
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Re: What's new on Geocaching Australia

Post by Laighside Legends » 04 July 19 7:29 pm

Looks good!

Geocaching Australia
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Old API

Post by Geocaching Australia » 09 July 19 10:45 am

The vestiges of the old API have been removed. There is still one remaining which is the GSAK call to get your list of queries. This will remain until the macro is updated to use the new API and the apikey. This significantly cleans the code base and reduces the number of branches in common logic reducing the ongoing need to maintain multiple branches depending on the API being called. There is no obvious user impact as it's all behind the scenes however if there are any strange results please raise a bug for analysis.

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