What's new on Geocaching Australia

[Damo.]

ooh bugger, Cameron corner is in a protected area... oh well ,save an ammo can,, do a virtual
save me some weight on the trip too!

Just NSW. Stick it in Qld or SA!

[Richary]

I would say from that map that the Qld side is protected as well. But plenty of room in SA (and keeps the final location away from my multi that starts in Qld, goes to SA, then finishes in NSW (before the ban - whoops). About a 500 metre walk for a 3 state multi.

[homedg]

Rules for the sake of Rules, I say.

[McPhan]

Great to get a nice surprise in the mail today - from the site I don't pay for their service.

Thanks very much GCA for the pathtag, it's a pearler.

[caughtatwork]

You're welcome. Happy to hear it go to you safe and sound.
You support the site by hiding and finding caches and that's what we like.

[pwags]

Woo-hoo! Just received my 100-GCA-find pathtag in the mail today. Very nice!

Thank you to everyone involved in keeping GCA the coolest place to hide and find caches!

[caughtatwork]

Work in progress

We are moving the database and the codebase to support international character sets. This means all special characters like ĄąĘęÓóĆ棳ŃńŚśŹźŻż, smart quotes like this ‘ ’, double smart quotes “” and things like emdashes — and endashes –.

We still have a few things to tidy up, but tonight we updated the GPX file generator to output UTF-8 characters.

We have run tests against the new code and both the Garmin GPS "send to" functions as well as GSAK imports seem to run fine.

If you find some weirdness in your GPX file from tonight, please start a new thread and bring it to our attention. We test well, but we can't comprehensively test everything.

We hope that moving to the new database and codebase for supporting UTF-8 characters will support people who wish to list in their own language sets as well as provide compatibility to all existing toolsets for any character you wish to enter into your cache description.

[McPhan]

Sorry to post here but I can't find anywhere else that fits (kinda like the way I cache).

I use a greasemonkey script on GC to insert found numbers in my logs.

It is possible for GCA to include this option in logs for GCA caches? That is that for the next GCA cache I log it could have the option to insert 106. I know it's being lazy and there may not be much use for it but worth asking. Of course you'll have to excuse my ignorance - - - - and also my lack of knowledge about this sort of stuff as well

[caughtatwork]

Not exactly what I think you want, but how is this?
http://geocaching.com.au/my/log/new/ga2091

Under your name at the top, you will see your current and next find counts.
Simple double click, copy and then paste into the log text.

I am loathe to add it directly to the log text as a default as many people won't like it and if you are not making a find log, then you'll need to delete it.

At least this way it's only a couple of click or a simple look and type.

[Gowza]

Under your name at the top, you will see your current and next find counts.

I like that... simple and effective! Good job

[McPhan]

That's fantastic and as usual - exceptional service.

Gotta love and support a site with this sort of customer service!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[caughtatwork]

Smilies for Logs

When you log a GCA cache, you can now add smilies to your log.
The list of smilies is to the left.
Simply click and it will be added to your log.
It will appears as a BBCode which when your logs is viewed should automatically turn into a smilie.
Editing your log you will see the BBCode.
The smilies are the same as the forum smilies.
The smilies are transformed into images in GSAK, but any log or watchlist emails you get they will still show the BBCode.
Enjoy, but use judiciously.

There is an occasional glitch that I cannot find where the smilies don't turn on in your log. If this happens please post in a new thread with the cache information and I'll see if I can track down what is going astray. I think it's this guy but I can't consistently replicate the bug, so when it doubt, let the users help

[homedg]

Are there any secret smilies?

[caughtatwork]

The backend code for the swaggies has been updated to make dropping of swaggies easier.
We also introduced a new log type for swaggies called "Spotted" *

Now if you spot a swaggie in the wild, but didn't want to collect it, as long as you have the swaggie code and password, you can log a "spotted" against that swaggie. It will stay in the current location, but you can now say that you've seen it. Yes, it's the GCA version of the "discovered" log for trackables.

Dropping a swaggie is now also (I hope) simpler.
You can drop a swaggie into a cache from the cache page (select Drop a Swaggie from the navigation menu on the right hand side).
You can drop a swaggie into a cache from the swaggie page (select Drop this swaggie into an unlisted cache). This is mainly for swaggies that are moved around overseas. If you pick a GCA cache (either GA or TP) and the waypoint code you use is not in the database, it will be rejected. All GC codes should be valid.

You can also use the standard smilies in your swaggie logs.

The code is quite complex and there may be some things I've not validated properly, despite 2 weeks of testing, so please let me know if there is anything that goes astray with your grabbing, dropping and spotting of swaggies.

You can now also see a list of the swaggies you have grabbed or dropped.
Go to your cacher page. From the navigation tabs, My then Cacher Page.
On the sub tabs, Details, Swaggies
e.g.
http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/caughtatwork/swaggies

From the same section you can also see the logs you have made on swaggies.
Go to your cacher page. From the navigation tabs, My then Cacher Page.
On the sub tabs, Details, Swaggie Logs
e.g.
http://geocaching.com.au/cacher/caughta ... ggies/logs

* Yes, there is something in the works that this will end up quite useful for, but it's a secret.