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gotta run 16 years ago.
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Ok, I’ve scoured the forums, looked at the handy Oregon wiki (http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Geocaching), and queried some other Oregon users but I can’t get this question answered.
We have a gpx file of a whole bunch of caches on the Oregon. Now, we go out and find a few and change them to “found it” using the Oregon menus, which changes them to the open box icon. Get back to the PC, upload the field notes, log the finds. So far so good.
Now I’m looking for a way to “clean up” the GPX file itself to remove the caches we found. Obviously I can pull the file back into GSAK, but the caches don’t show up as found in the GPX file, so clearly the Oregon is just “remembering” those caches are found and not doing anything with the GPX file itself.
The only workarounds I’ve come up with are to either manually go through and tick off each cache I remember finding, then delete the waypoints and recreate the GPX file, or re-run the query from groundspeak because the new query will come with the updated information.
So again the short version of this question is can we, and how, easily identify found caches on the GPX file that we download from the Oregon into GSAK?
On the Left Side of the Road...Plug the Oregon to your computer and go into the garmin folders. In one of the two that show up should be a file called Garmingeocaching_visits.txt . Delete and the found caches are gone.
Here is the link on the Oregon Wiki.
http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/Geocaching#toc11
It will be under GC 11
No, I had looked at that before when I read the whole wiki. Deleting the .txt file just clears out your field notes. It doesn’t say anything about clearing finds by deleting the file.
The gpx file is unchanged, and the little open boxes are still there cluttering up my nice screen.
On the Left Side of the Road...Hmm, I don’t know then. I did not know the boxes stayed there.
I have always just cleaned out the files manually (deleted the GPX and found files on the Garmin) then reloaded a new GPX file which doesn’t contain those files. Not using GSAK I just pop the new file right on the unit…I agree the way the caches are not editable / deletable is a pain.
I don’t have a handheld GPS. I use a windows mobile pocket pc and bluetooth GPSr and Smache software for caching.
I simply just delete my database and create a new one using GSAK anytime I go out caching. I always filter out my found caches on GSAK before exporting to my pocket pc. No biggie.
And I’ll probably do the same if I had an actual GPS. Not a big deal to do that.
@lostby7 wrote:
I agree the way the caches are not editable / deletable is a pain.
well I can keep hoping i just missed the feature somehow!
On the Left Side of the Road...The Oregon does not have any way to “edit” the GPX file. It eliminates them from the unfound caches by comparing the found file to the unfound one. I think Garmin’s original intent was to load each and every cache individually as a seperate file then you can just delete the ones you found with using your computer. However, with a PQ or GSAK we are loading multiple caches in one file. Your only course of action is to re-run your query, delete your old GPX file and load a new one. I dont know if you use GSAK or not, but I keep loading the same file over the top of the old one, so that it always has all the unfound on it. It seems like a draw back not to be able to edit the file, but its really just learning a new way to do things.
Yep, we are learning a new way of doing things and I can see the advantage of re-doing the GPX file. This way you have fresh data and it also forces you to more actively managed your files.
@sammyclaws wrote:
I dont know if you use GSAK or not, but I keep loading the same file over the top of the old one, so that it always has all the unfound on it.
All right, this is my last sticking point on this procedure. And we’re using GSAK.
I would like to keep a main database of “unfoundcaches.gpx.” This basically represents the results of a PQ for unfound caches within X miles of our home coordinates.
Additionally, I would like to load new PQs over the top of this gpx file so that the logs continue to accumulate. That was another discussion in another thread–how to get more than 5 logs in a PQ. There is no way to do that in a single PQ, but it was suggested that by continually updating a gpx file over time you can build up the number of logs it contains.
However, if you use the same gpx file and simply update it with a new PQ, there is no way to easily see what caches you have found since you last updated the file. You have to go through, tick off the files, and delete them.
It seems the only foolproof way to get a completely clean gpx file (i.e., not containing found caches) is to create a completely new file from a new PQ. Otherwise you have to do manual data manipulation.
Am I missing something here? How do other GSAK users manage their “main database?”
On the Left Side of the Road...@gotta run wrote:
Yep, we are learning a new way of doing things and I can see the advantage of re-doing the GPX file. This way you have fresh data and it also forces you to more actively managed your files.
@sammyclaws wrote:
I dont know if you use GSAK or not, but I keep loading the same file over the top of the old one, so that it always has all the unfound on it.
I would like to keep a main database of “unfoundcaches.gpx.” This basically represents the results of a PQ for unfound caches within X miles of our home coordinates.
Additionally, I would like to load new PQs over the top of this gpx file so that the logs continue to accumulate. That was another discussion in another thread–how to get more than 5 logs in a PQ. There is no way to do that in a single PQ, but it was suggested that by continually updating a gpx file over time you can build up the number of logs it contains.
However, if you use the same gpx file and simply update it with a new PQ, there is no way to easily see what caches you have found since you last updated the file. You have to go through, tick off the files, and delete them.
It seems the only foolproof way to get a completely clean gpx file (i.e., not containing found caches) is to create a completely new file from a new PQ. Otherwise you have to do manual data manipulation.
Am I missing something here? How do other GSAK users manage their “main database?”
Ok, I’ll take a stab at this, hopefully I read your question correctly and am not telling you how to do something you already know how to do.
If you want to see what caches you have found in your latest gpx download when you load it to a pre-existing database you would click on “Search” and then select “Filter” from the drop down. In the dialog that opens, just uncheck the check box next to “Unfound” and click “go” at the bottom. This will show you all of the caches that you have found in your database. To delete the caches you have found you would then right click and select “delete waypoint”. You would then select “All Waypoints in Filter” and click “ok”.
There may be a better way to do it, but this is how I do it and it isn’t too difficult to figure out.
One more thing you will have to do if you are maintaining a database that will build over time. Caches that get archived will not automatically delete from your gsak database, you will have to delete them yourself. What happens is when a cache gets archived it will no longer be included in the gpx file from geocaching.com, but it will still be in your database. An easy way to find the caches that have been archived is to (in gsak) click “Search” and select “filter” from the drop down menu. In the filter dialog click on the “Dates” tab at the top. For “Last Updated gpx”, change the “not applicable” to “on or before”. When you do this a date dialog will appear to the right of the drop down. You will need to select a date for this that falls between the two days that you received your newest gpx file and the last time you received the gpx file before that. So if your last two gpx downloads were on 7/14/09 and 7/18/09, you would want to select 7/17/09. After selecting the date click “go”. This will show you all the caches that were not updated in your newest gpx download and were probably archived (I say probably because if you select the 500 closest to home and more new caches get published than were archived it will cause some of the caches the farthest from you center point to not get downloaded as well).
Hopefully this all helps and makes sense, since I am watching a baseball game while typing this. Feel free to send me a message if you have any questions. Good luck!
@Team B Squared wrote:
If you want to see what caches you have found in your latest gpx download when you load it to a pre-existing database you would click on “Search” and then select “Filter” from the drop down. In the dialog that opens, just uncheck the check box next to “Unfound” and click “go” at the bottom. This will show you all of the caches that you have found in your database. To delete the caches you have found you would then right click and select “delete waypoint”. You would then select “All Waypoints in Filter” and click “ok”.
I’ll try that and let you know. Usually the caches that we have found show up highlighted yellow, and since they didn’t, I assumed GSAK didn’t know they were found. Maybe it knows it somehow but it isn’t showing it, in which case the filtering will work and we know how to do that.
Someone should write a book on all this stuff…!!!
On the Left Side of the Road...There is a way to use the file off your Oregon to update your GSAK database and mark the caches found. But since we write our found logs in GSAK already, we manually update them. When we are done, we delete all the found caches.
And Team B method for keeping your database clean is spot on. Since I completely load my database with a series of PQs, I just delete the ones that have an old GPX date on them. You will find this method does delete some caches you want to keep, but that is because they land on the fringes of your PQ radius and newer caches are pushing them off your list.
My queries run twice each week, Monday and Friday, that way I pick up all the logs from the weekend and any changes to caches over the week. Its also my way around the 5 log limitation. In fact, I have just begun deleting logs that are over a year and a half old from GSAK.
Hope this helps
@Team B Squared wrote:
If you want to see what caches you have found in your latest gpx download when you load it to a pre-existing database you would click on “Search” and then select “Filter” from the drop down. In the dialog that opens, just uncheck the check box next to “Unfound” and click “go” at the bottom. This will show you all of the caches that you have found in your database. To delete the caches you have found you would then right click and select “delete waypoint”. You would then select “All Waypoints in Filter” and click “ok”.
There may be a better way to do it, but this is how I do it and it isn’t too difficult to figure out.
Ok, still on this topic.
When you create a PQ, are you leaving caches that you have found in the PQ?
Our weekly PQ basically specifies “Caches within a 30 mile radius of our home coordinates that we do not own and have not found.”
Therefore, we do not receive “found” caches in the PQ.
Therefore, when we update the “Unfound caches” database in GSAK, it is not updating the caches in the existing database as found, because no new information comes through on those caches.
The only way I can see to let GSAK know what you have found is to load found caches in it, but loading ALL the caches in a 30-mile radius exceeds the number limit of the query.
Make sense?
On the Left Side of the Road...@sammyclaws wrote:
There is a way to use the file off your Oregon to update your GSAK database and mark the caches found.
Not that I’ve found. Oregon doesn’t make any changes to the GPX file and doesn’t seem to pass any “found” information back to GSAK either way, unless I am just missing it.
On the Left Side of the Road...@gotta run wrote:
Ok, still on this topic.
When you create a PQ, are you leaving caches that you have found in the PQ?
Our weekly PQ basically specifies “Caches within a 30 mile radius of our home coordinates that we do not own and have not found.”
Therefore, we do not receive “found” caches in the PQ.
Therefore, when we update the “Unfound caches” database in GSAK, it is not updating the caches in the existing database as found, because no new information comes through on those caches.
The only way I can see to let GSAK know what you have found is to load found caches in it, but loading ALL the caches in a 30-mile radius exceeds the number limit of the query.
Make sense?
Just run a “My Finds” PQ if you want your finds updated. It can only be ran once a week though,
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