Geocaching Australia Development List

This page lists the development ideas for Geocaching Australia. If you want something added to this list, please post your request in the forum.

For changes to the Wiki, see the Wiki Development List.

Roadmap

• Get collaborative development process going
• Move to mysql
• Single sign-on for gallery, forum, wiki, gca (upgrade all packages)
• Images, swaggies

Work in Progress

Ideology

• finalising the development and release processes

Mind Socket

• Tidy up and merge the small tweaks in your dev area, you slacker! :p

caughtatwork

Under Development for next release

• (Completed) Add scale to Google Maps

Previously released

• (Completed) Cache graphs to be moved from caughtatwork.net to GCA. Will display "top 50" style graphs for caches.
• (Completed) Cache ratings.
• (Completed awaiting deployment) Cache plots for Watching, Planned and FTF.
• (Completed) Allow logs from other sites to automate some functionality. eg: *Recommended*] in a found / DNF log from another site would set the Recommended flag. *Overall Experience: 1*, etc, would set the applicable ratings. *FTF* would set the First to Find flag. The asterisks differentiate *FTF* as an input from just the plain test, like "wasn't FTF today".
• (Completed) Hiders choice: From GIN51E's post: My idea evolves around the Recommended Caches idea although instead it gives the option of a Hider to be able to highlight or nominate one of there own caches as being there best hide yet and most recommended for other cachers to find.
• (Completed) Add GCA icon to the cache name for any list of caches where the cache is a GCA cache.
• (Completed) Add "finds column for a cache" to Live Network Cache Feed in Google Earth.
• (Completed) Every moving cache now has a "stats" image showing how many stops and the distance travelled.
• (Completed) Every cache now has a "stats" image showing how many finds and DNF's.
• (Completed) After a cacher has entered co-ordinates (say for a moving cache) on the subsequent page, insert a link to Google Maps so they can check the accuracy of their entered co-ordinates and adjust if necessary.
• (Completed) After a cache has been logged, display closest 10 unfound / not owned caches so the user can move directly on to the next log. (Requirement: Show nearby unfound caches after logging - improves workflow).
• (Completed) After a cache has been logged, display the formatted cache log so the user can verify what they thought they entered.
• (Completed) Add a search for a Geocaching Guru (voluntary from a cachers MY page) which allows the unititiated to contact a Geocaching Guru within 65km of their provided postcode or surburb.
• (Completed) Include a "stats" image on every GCA cache showing the number of finds and DNF.
• (Completed) Google Maps will now show 4 different icons representing unfound (standard red), found (Green F), owned (Blue O), DNF (Brown D) from the caches page.
• (Completed) From a My Query, all caches regardless of originating site will be shown on GoogleMaps and GoogleEarth, but will not be available in downloaded GPX files.

Bug Fixes

• On cache page - Nearby Standard will now work, Also Found is deprecated and will be removed, Also Recommended only shows up on Recommended caches. http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=6788
• My Import - Include new Archive Log type (as opposed to Archive (Show) or other variations). http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=6788
• On cache page - If cache in ANZ region, then ANZ map otherwise World map. http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=6773
• On cache page - Correct link to GPX file if user has already clicked on hints. http://forum.geocaching.com.au/viewtopic.php?t=6770
• On search functions - Format all returned details as per standard formatting.
• On caches pages only put out watchers icon for watched caches.
• For hints allow ' and " by addslashes.
• For hints allow & to be displayed ROT13 rather than & amp;.
• Set co-ordinates to 0.0 rather than NULL if no co-ordinates are entered on a cache page. Addresss issue with distance sorting.
• Remove 'Status' as a sortable column on caches page as it does not sort according to the intuitive means of Found By or Owned.
• Fix bug in cachers own found logs by adding applicable GROUP BY statements.
• Fix to remove logs on draft or future caches from any stats.

Riblit

• more GPX options, eg unfound caches, etc
• look into fixing postcode database
  • new postcode data has been uploaded - states can check the accuracy

still some concerns - some locations are not listed

CraigRat

Completed

• Pagination of logs page to prevent resource drain on server
• Fixed bug where cache images were reporting on prod even if they only existed in dev or beta gallery
• Tag search - Made types/regions selectable

Stuff in progress

• Website preferences, move away from using phpBB for this
• Swaggies:
  • Allow an Icon to be attached to a swaggie and provide a summary of 'found' GCA swaggies (plus icons) on cacher's page
• Auto-text in GCA logs to allow embedding of gallery items in a nice pretty way
• Format the tags / view page (eg. http://geocaching.com.au/tags/view/all/playground/) like the caches page (eg. http://geocaching.com.au/caches/gca/au/). Then I could sort by the appropriate distance or direction. Another request would be to have the Country / Region capability in there so I could also filter by ones is my own state.
• Tag search - Make it similar/integrate it into to the query generator to allow crazy mad flexibility
• Improve Tag and Gallery visualisation
• Administrative Pages for Tags and Gallery, plus some stat generation
• Upload of MP3 files for podcaches
• Caches along a path
• Cache Raid Planner
• Locationless caches: Alert User if co-ords match those placed by another cacher if the owner decides they should be unique finds...
• Place restrictions on number of finds if selected by user
• Add a notification bar to the header to allow notification of save/edit/addition rather than a blank page with a 'return to what you were doing' link

Dreams in my head:

• Integrate phpbb into the site in a better manner
• Real Time online chat?
• Actually go find a cache or two

Fix Bugs/Basic Functionality

• Get swaggies working (import, listing and logs)
• Bed down importing utility: protect against smart waypoint names
• Get cache updates working properly for GCA caches which have a delay between drafting and publishing
• Add locationless to gpx and anchors
• Add links to profiles and website on cacher pages
• auto-populate state field (or at least default to something reasonable)
• Fix character encoding bug
• Fix apostrophe bug in cacher name admin panel
• Fix COPA page - part of bbs update
• Tag virtual caches
• Improve auto-archiving: unarchive a cache when a find is imported through the wizard

Search

Better Search options, searching all items (logs/gallery/tags/cachers/caches etc etc as requested in obscene detail by the one known only as "The Ginger Loon")

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Additional functionality

• Something that Loon wanted about making the footer text into links to recommended caches, etc
• GeoLists
• Postcode editor
• combinations of "planned" lists, possibly based on mates (caches my mates are also planning)
• What do my mates recommend?
• User-friendly layout control of cache pages / logs (use BBCode?)
• Site map
• Automatic winners' page for finders
• international caches
• When logging a cache, allow a non-published note to the owner (sends PM?)

Bonus Sharing

• Moveable cache trails
• iCal feed for upcoming events/caches

Gallery

• Cacher specific galleries in new gallery system

Stats

• Cache(r) half life, plot decline in find frequency
• Cache(r) find frequency. Straight, and vs diff/terr
• team v location: where different teams are putting their caches. colours represent teams
• terrain v difficulty: correlated as most people don't understand the difference?
• terrain v location: urban are are easy terrain, the ones away are harder?
• difficulty v location: opposite to above
• team cache style profiles: terrain v location, coloured blob represents team. colour gets brighter/blob larger as teams plant more caches of that style.
• hit/miss ratio v terrain, difficulty
• time to first find v location, time: hypothesis is that ttff is small in sydney but large further out. other hypothsis is that average ttff has decreased significantly over the past 12 months
• team territorial analysis - thematic plot of where each team is usually active. for each team, assign (say) 5 points for a cache that they have laid, 2 points for a first find and 1 point for a normal find. then start shading areas based on the pointscore and see what you get. should be able to see odlid dave sitting down there in jannali, dogs up in hornsby, etc

Mapping

• Area warnings, eg Lane Cove National Park
• User correctable maps to improve quality
• Integrate GPSBabel to support zillions of formats

Hosted sites

• Database-driven blogger which makes it easy to make websites
• Aggregate comments to one page to make a community
• Links into geodashing, confluence points, etc, not just secondary site
• Autotext in comments, eg replace i! with i!, team names with links
• Auto cross-links between stories (perhaps as part of autotext, prompting bloggers to comment on each other's stories)
• Summarise comments across sites
• Auto-populate comment username