Ooops – while working and testing for releasing the 3.5.0 we suddenly noticed some issues with our MapView-Tool. Somehow only the satellite view was accessible.
Mike and Mark reacted quickly and thus everything should work fine. However,m we will have a deeper look into this and heading now again for 3.5.0.
… slowly – with small steps – we are working our way through the thousands of lines of source code. It is always fascinating and admirable to see what Mark has created on his own.
Of course, we would have liked to be faster with the new version. But Google has also caused us additional trouble with updates to the development environment.
But no matter: with the new version 3.4.0, more interesting tools have been incorporated into the GC Wizard. For example
And of course other symbol tables and a lot of more …
As soon as 3.3.1 was online, we received two calls for help via the Playstore: the app could no longer be started. Baffled, we got in touch.
The first problem was quickly solved. Due to Google’s security requirements, we had to increase the minimum version of Android. As a result, older Android versions were no longer supported. We regret this, but security comes first.
The second error was reproducible, but surprising: when switching to Czech, the app could no longer be started. After an intensive search, we discovered a mismatch in the naming of the language files between our translation platform and the development environment.
Thanks to Ondrej for this sucessful bug hunt.
As expected, it took us some time to delve into the depths of GC Wizard – and we are still a long way from reaching our goal. But we have been successful, as the latest bugfix release shows. The team is growing together and Mike is getting to grips with the challenges with Google and Apple.
Light is slowly appearing at the end of the tunnel and the next version 3.4.0 is also gradually taking shape. We continue to receive not only suggestions, but also positive feedback.
At this point, a big thank you to everyone who continues to believe in us and support us.
… or “Lebbe geht weider”, as Dragoslav “Stepi” Stepanovic once said.
Of course, Mark’s decision was a fact that we had to digest. And of course it meant that we had to delve deeper into the mechanics of the GC Wizards. But your reactions encouraged and motivated us.
So, as expected, things progressed more slowly, but still with increasing steps. We’ve made a start and are looking forward to a new version of the GC Wizard at the beginning of the year with
A brief moment of silence at our GC Wizard Team Meeting – and Henrike’s eyes flashed. With a light laugh, she asked the group why we Germans would grill rabbits when caching?
Astonished faces – and Henrike broke the tension. When she read the word “Hasengrill” for the first time in a hint, she had to search a little bit longer before she knew what it was all about.
An entertaining discussion immediately ensued, with special terms and puzzling clues such as Biltema, Cacherautobahn, Meelhoppertje or olifantenpad.
And immediately an idea for a new tool was born: a lexicon with special terms or country-specific clues from a wide variety of countries.
But that won’t work without support. So let’s go – what special hint have you found that is worth spreading or that poses problems for non-native speakers? Send us your contributions with a picture and/or a short description.
Thank you Mark! Thank you for your dream, thank you for your commitment and your guidance! Thank you for your trust and the courage to let go and listen to your health.
Five years is a damn long time – and keeping the fire burning over this period takes strength. You didn’t let it show – and yet the last few releases have increasingly left you with the feeling that the lightness of the early years is over and the multitude of projects have left their mark.
I’m sure it wasn’t easy for you to talk to Mike and me at the team meeting. And I’m sure you’re finding it hard to let go. But as the incomparable Trude Herr sang, “You never leave completely, something of me stays here” – and a lot of you remains. Above all, the feeling that you are standing by us in the background remains.
And much more importantly – as the many great reactions show – there are still over 50,000 users who continue to drive and motivate us.
We are aware that the change will not be easy. The last four years have been instructive for Mike and me, we have learned a lot and yet there are still shoals that we need to plumb.First of all, we have to ensure that operations continue and provide stability.The innovations will therefore come a little more slowly. But on this solid basis, we can then look to the future.
In Olli, we have gained a reinforcement that can help us move forward, and not just with iOS. Olli has taken on board the experiences from the numerous workshops and has already developed initial ideas for the issue of complexity, how the user experience can be introduced and usability improved.
With Marcia, we have gained a second good soul who, with her experience with WordPress and human-machine interfaces, is an excellent addition to the team.
Basically, the first ideas for GC Wizard 4.0 are starting to emerge.
And in the spirit of you Mark, we will keep your fire alive and carry it in new directions.
Challenge accepted!
Five years is a damn long time. If someone had asked me back then where I would be then, I would hardly have been able to answer that I would have changed jobs twice in the meantime, published a book, obtained a doctorate and found myself in the aftermath of a global pandemic. But least of all could I have imagined being the creator and maintainer of a Geocaching app that would be used by at least 50,000 people across multiple platforms and countries.
What started out as a bit of fun in November 2019 developed into a really serious project within a few months. The will to develop an app for puzzles again, so soon after my several-year Geocaching break, became so strong that I even stopped working regularly for a few months for it (among other things!). 60 hours a week was the initial workload to bring the newborn #GCWizard to a level that allowed strangers to actively participate in the project. And Andy quickly volunteered as a tester and soon after Mike and Thomas joined as active developers. Symbol tables were initially shared by eager volunteers via the Geoclub forum and when Ludo finally breathed life into the internationalization with a complete French translation, this project was absolutely unstoppable in the rest of the world. Today, the team basically consists of nine lovely, great people who support and accompany the free open source app with high intensity and dedication. As developers, translators, symbol artists or simply as good souls as an interface to you out there – you many many thousands! Breathtaking, isn’t it?
Five years is a long time. A lot has changed. But the work on #GCWizard has only changed to a limited extent. Yes, the app has of course become more and more professional and bigger and bigger. But basically, the work on it and the app itself still looks the same as when I started it as a one-man project on a cold November night in my little chamber. But now it’s time to give the project the opportunity to break new ground, leave the well-known tracks, develop further and become even better with new ideas!
Five years is a long time. I myself have changed. A lot has happened, but a lot has also been left undone. The number of mysteries I have solved during this time is at most in the low double digits. Because I spent most of my time on my computer building an app for solving mysteries instead. But even away from the hobby, I’m noticing changes and the urge to reorganize my life. More time for my family – and above all, more time for my own health! That’s why I’ve decided to step back from some projects.
We met as a team over the last few days. It was only the second time ever in real-life. We had a great time together in the south of the Netherlands, where our faithful translator Henrike had once created a #GCWizard tribute round. And we talked for a long time. Together. And everyone had a deep understanding of my decision. I thank the whole team from the bottom of my heart.
But my decision is not the end of my involvement. I will just be less visible, no longer at the forefront of the fight, no longer involved in all decisions and no longer taking care of communication with Google and Apple. However, I will still be there as a point of contact for everyone, for the team and of course for you out there. And nobody will be able to take it away from me if I once again contribute some totally insane tool in a fit of childish joy.
Of course, it’s not the end of the project either. Because I had and have a great team behind me. And this team consulted and decided that there should be a successor in the role of project manager. In future, this role will be filled by two people to whom I can really entrust my baby with a clear conscience and who I am sure will lead it in the best possible way. These two are certainly no strangers to our loyal users and blog readers:
Mike will take over the technical management and lead development. He will be the master of the code, review the new features, publish the new versions and be the contact person for all other technical issues. He has in-depth knowledge of the internal structures, in large parts even more in-depth than my own.
Thomas will support him. He will primarily accompany all decisions that have something to do with the public: Manuals, texts, translations, presentations, blog, social media but also the moderation of internal team discussions. As a longtime developer and after giving countless talks he has a great feeling for how and where to tweak the app, how to use the app and of course how to add great new features.
The two of them will do an awesome job! They are two very different characters, but that is precisely why they will complement each other wonderfully. I would like to thank them both for taking on this very difficult task and wish them as much success as possible!
Last but not least, I would like to thank everyone for an exciting, instructive and incredibly intense time. To the great team, to all the people who have supported me up to this point, friends, Geocachers, my life partner and the cat. And you 50,000 users! What an engine! Thank you!
And now get ready for a new era!
– Mark ‘S-Man42’, October 2024
This version again contains a whole range of new features. But above all, this version is characterized by a plethora of bug fixes. We take this as a really good sign, because the fact that you find and report bugs means two things: Firstly, you’re also using the more unusual tools and advanced settings – so we haven’t programmed them pointlessly. And secondly, you care about the GC Wizard, otherwise you wouldn’t report the bugs. We are very grateful for this and it makes us proud! Keep up the good work!
There is someone else who cares about us. Olli also found his way to the GC Wizard and very quickly decided to support us as a developer. It certainly wasn’t easy for him to get started, but the breath of fresh air he brings to the team is really good for the project. He already has a lot of great ideas and I can say that we are delighted to be working with him. Welcome, Olli!
You know these puzzles: Jannes is smaller than Birgit and has a green car. Zacharias doesn’t drive the smallest car but likes lollipops. There are always these grids that you have to fill in and be very careful not to fill the wrong field with the wrong information. Mike has taken on this problem and programmed a tool that can help you with exactly this task.
The map has been given a slightly new look. Some functions have been moved to a menu. This makes the map look tidier and the menu structure means that all functions now have a label, so you no longer have to guess what each icon might mean.
A new, very exciting feature is the creation of a link, with which you can now directly share all points and lines that can be seen on the map (e.g. click)
In addition, some coordinate functions have been fundamentally revised. They now work more reliably, more precisely and faster. A few functions still work on the old system, but are planned to be changed as well.
[new] Logical Helper
[new] Ragbaby
[new] Judoon
[new] Porta
[new] Wedding Anniversaries
[new] DIN Formats
[new] Coord Format: GARS
[new] Coord Format: Bosch
[new] Coord Format: S2Cells (Hilbert)
[new]Replacement: Generate Random
[new] Postcode
[new] Image View: Background Color
[new] Bacon: Step 2
[new] Symbol Tables
[chg] Revised Coord Functions
[fix] Several bug fixes
Well, what can I say? We are in the software business and in the software business everything always takes longer than you originally thought. After the 3.0 release, I firmly believed that 3.1.0 would follow very quickly: The main features were actually already available and just needed to be polished and the plans were also rather small in other respects. And yet more than 4 months have already passed. Of course, the polishing took much longer and was more of a major clean-up and some small plans turned into completely crazy big features.
Nevertheless, we did a great job again this time, I believe – all of us together. Mike, Thomas and also – contrary to my original plans – even myself did a lot of programming again and our test department also did a great job of making us developers angry again and again, as it has to be.
We can’t complain about the translations either, with Marcia we have a great new addition to the Dutch team, which was previously handled heroically by Henrike alone. Marcia is currently concentrating extremely hard on translating our manual pages, which is a mammoth project in itself, as there are already much more than 1000 articles to translate. Welcome to the team! Thomas is tirelessly helping out on our site.
With the Nonogram Solver, Mike has now finally delved into the depths of logic puzzles. We believe that we have created a solid solution to automatically calculate the exciting pixel images. For the input, we decided to deviate from the usual and to try the experiment of not putting everything on one page, but to build a guided input across several masks (a “wizard”, so to speak) in order to create a better overview. Feedback is welcome.
Thomas tried his hand at all kinds of check digits, as he had already described in detail in the blog. My own highlight, the rhumb lines, were also worth their own article.
I put way too much time into the UIC number tool myself, but as a self-confessed railroad nerd, I had no choice, did I? I’d be really interested to know if anyone else besides me ever uses the thing. But if any of you ever find a Mystery with UIC numbers, I’d be very happy to hear about it. But I already have an idea… Muaharharhar!!!
[new] Nonogram Solver
[new] Map: Lines as Rhumb Lines
[new] Rhumb Lines: Waypoint Projection
[new] Rhumb Lines: Distance/Bearing
[new] Battleship Code
[new] Pollux Code
[new] Morbit Code
[new] Word Search/Letter Grid
[new] UIC Tools
[new] Coord System: MapCode
[new] Morse: Gerke, Steinheil
[new] Check Digits
[new] UPC-A
[new] Roman Units
[new] Atbash: Historic
[new] Milanesian Number System
[new] Hebrew Number System
[new] Formel Solver: Reference to Formula Names
[new] IEEE754 Float Numbers
[new] Stretch/Shrink Images
[new] Numeral Words: Danish
[new] QR: Expert Options
[new] Many Symbol Tables
[chg] Binary/Hexadecimal
[fix] Coord System: Waldmeister
[fix] Wherigo Analyzer (Thanks to all)
[fix] Some Symbol Tables
Wow, I have to say first of all: I am really glad that this milestone has (almost) reached its end. It’s not visible to the outside world, we’ve always tried to touch on the issue through (admittedly relatively infrequent) reports, but the truth is: It was an incredible mammoth task that was initially completely underestimated even by us who deal with software projects on a daily basis in our professional lives.
The last release, version 2.3.1, is now about 9 months ago. After that, first primarily I, later an upgrade of the internal programming language Dart, forced us to have an entire review and in order of that a renewal of the code base. It is simply necessary from time to time to take a critical look at one’s work and see which parts are still up to date, which are outdated and which have meanwhile grown so much that nobody understands them anymore. Wipe through, re-sort, renovate. And since the programming language Dart slowly grew up together with our project, it just so happened that it also got a make-over, which meant for us: even more restructuring.
We already talked about our refactoring goals here and here in January, so I’ll skip the explanatory details now. The important thing is the bottom line: We had gotten the plague on board. Even though we didn’t write it explicitly, there were rarely two days in a row where at least one of us didn’t work intensively on the code. I actually only had such an intensive workload during the first ten months when I launched this baby. Besides many private projects, family and Covid, this task here was really extremely stressful for us. And in contrast to the initial phase back then, the current one was really anything but nice, because it was thankless to the highest degree: In the best case, after days of programming, the tool “only” did what it did before, in the more likely case, something else broke.
We learned to structure ourselves, we involved the testers even more closely in the development process, and we also tried to integrate you, the users, directly by providing a separate test version (which unfortunately went rather meeeh, as we hardly ever got any external feedback). We massively revised, updated and expanded our internal testing so that we could catch our own bugs as early as possible. We thought we were at the finish line several times, but new bug reports from ourselves kept coming in over and over again. It drove us crazy. It was frustrating. Changing the code base was no fun, but I think we all learned along the way and the team matured within itself.
Of course, my thanks go to all the members of the team who have dedicated all their energy to this great goal! You all were incredible!
Besides the code refactoring, version 3.0 initially had very ambitious goals. However, since the refactoring itself kept us much busier than expected, some things have of course not yet been achieved as we would have liked. In the refactoring itself, the complete chapter around the Reflection thing is missing, where it’s still not clear anyway if it won’t lead to an extreme slowdown of the startup process. But I will definitely test it in the next weeks.
Also with the “Web API” we did not reach the final goal, which was to ask our server internally for the solution of a problem and to get an answer. Nevertheless, we have made a very big step here, because at least it is now possible not only to call individual tools by means of special URL, but even to fill the most common ones explicitly with inputs.
But why don’t we just wait longer? On the one hand, Google is again giving us an ultimatum, because they are currently threatening to throw all apps out of the Play Store that do not have a new minimum requirement, which we could not yet aim with the old versions. On the other hand, a line simply has to be drawn. Sure, there will always be things here and there that we need to work on, but ultimately we don’t want to keep users waiting, some of whom we promised a new feature months ago or who reported a bug in the existing version. Thanks for that by the way (I hope we didn’t forget any bug reporter for our tester list in all the chaos, otherwise feel free to contact us).
Enough of what we didn’t get done. I think it’s time to reveal what makes the new version not only internally entitled to a major version jump, but also visible to you users:
First of all, I would actually like to mention the Web Interface, which goes to Mike’s account. Because unlike before, all tools can now be accessed directly by calling them up in the address bar of the browser. The advantage of that is that you can now link directly to a tool instead of always saying, “Go to the web page for GCW, then click here, then click there.” It is even already possible for a number of common, simple tools to immediately include the input text and possibly some parameters directly in the link. This now opens up the possibility that external tools or browser plugins can be designed to take certain codes directly and use them to go directly to our website, where the solution is displayed immediately. (As said, the step of playing the solution directly back to the caller is already being worked on – without promising anything).
Besides the mammoth project of stabilizing and test-proofing the Wherigo tool, Thomas’ goal was to implement the scripting engine GCW Script. The older ones among you can surely remember the script function of Mopsos. This here is an attempt to create an analogue, and I think it looks pretty good already. GCW Script is basically based on a BASIC dialect. Some of GCW’s own functions are already directly integrated as function interfaces. I personally think that there is still a lot of maturing to do here, but this can only happen through concrete applications on your, the users’, part, which is why the BETA flag is applied on this.
The only right moment to include so-called Breaking Changes are major version changes? We took the chance to revise an earlier decision, which turned out to be impractical: The Formula Solver got the text functions some time ago, in order to be able to calculate the alphabet values directly, for example. This was simply done by av(C) = 3. But there was the problem, what if there was a variable C in parallel? We had a couple of algorithms that made sure that some consistent behavior was generated, but it was always not that lucky. When c:geo introduced its own formula engine, we thought it would be a good time to align ourselves: Texts will only be interpreted as texts if they are enclosed in quotes or quotation marks. bww("C") = 3, but av(C) would grumble if there was no variable C. With this, however, it is possible that your old formulas with text may now no longer work, which is what constitutes this breaking change.
(Separate posts for the Formula Solver and the Web API will follow)
Unlike usual, we will roll out the individual versions in stages – due to the size of the update:
Well, and since I’ve already talked too much again: Here is the obligatory, final changelog of the release, in which of course the thousands of bugfixes and small, partly well hidden tool improvements could not be listed individually:
[chg] New internal structure
[new] WebAPI, Deep Links
[new] GCW Script
[new] Number Pyramid
[new] Diplomat License Plate Codes
[new] Spelling Alphabets
[new] Stellar Images
[new] Base64: Detect Files
[new] Least Common Multiple
[new] Greatest Common Divisor
[new] Geohashing
[new] Ave Maria Code
[new] UFI Codes
[new] Unix/Excel Times
[new] Velocity/Acceleration
[new] Calendar Week
[new] Settings: Save/Restore
[new] Keyboards: Smartphone Layouts
[new] Segment Displays Types
[new] Open Map: Lock Points
[new] Units: Acceleration
[new] Coord Measurement: Map View
[new] Formula Solver: c:geo Export
[new] UpDownLeftRight: Diagonals
[new] Symbol Tables
[new] Gade: Export to Formula Solver
[new] Settings: DMM Default Precision
[chg] BREAKING: Formula Solver Texts
As described in detail in the last posts, we are working feverishly on the changeover of the software to version 3. Especially the internal update to the new version 3 of the programming language Dart turned out to be a very long and nasty process. There were a lot of code changes to be made. As expected, some mistakes were made and some things could no longer be translated directly as they were once thought or programmed.
As a result, a really large number of errors have crept in. Not only the changeover took much longer than we expected (when is that not the case? ), but also the fixes of the first errors yield this very late life signal from our side.
In the first tests, we found a lot of bugs ourselves. We believe that the most of the very ugly ones are gone. But before we can move on and restart adding the many great features that are piling up in our backlog and our heads, we want to be reasonably sure that the new version will work like the old one first.
To achieve this, we now ask you, dear users, for help! If you have time and desire to test the current status – and the hopefully more and more mature versions – you can do so now. The sooner all bugs are found, the sooner we can deliver new features! So: 1000 eyes see more than 10.
To avoid endangering your existing version and making the normal GC Wizard app unusable on your smartphone with a buggy update, we decided to temporarily release a kind of test app. This way you can continue to use the existing version 2.3 for the normal application while installing the test version in parallel. Once the test is done, the normal app will be updated as usual, don’t worry
Disclaimer: We know that since the last post, many iOS friends have also agreed to contribute. However, for the sake of simplicity, we have only made the Android version available for the moment. After all, it really is easier to populate the Google Playstore than also the Apple AppStore in parallel. When we can say that the stability is acceptable again from our point of view, we will also try to convince Apple to provide a separate test version, so that iPhone users can make the final touches, which may also be platform-specific.
How to do it?
There is an app in the Playstore called “GCW 3.0 Beta“. This can be reached via this link:
Simply open this link with your smartphone. You should then be able to install and use the app.
Please test as heavily as possible. Testing means: Enter things that actually can’t be entered. Click on every damn button, try every single option in even the strangest combinations. Try to break the app! I am sure you will succeed; bad for us, an achievement for you bug hunters!
We collect the bugs in the following Google Sheet:
If something seems strange, report it. If something looks different from the old version (which you can check in parallel for comparison), report it. Every seemingly small banality helps, it could be a small symptom of a bigger internal problem! Please describe the problem as detailed as possible. “Doesn’t work” is unfortunately not an error description programmers can work with.
In “reported by” you can enter the name you want to use to find yourself in the app under Main Menu (Logo) > About > Testers, because everyone who has reported a confirmed bug has always been honored with an entry in the Testers’ Fame List.
We thank from the bottom of our hearts everyone who supports us in this difficult task! You are the best!
