Thursday, February 16, 2006

How to use the Additional Waypoints feature

One of my fellow reviewers, gpsfun, posted this "cheat sheet" about how to use the new Additional Waypoints feature of the geocaching.com website.
-------
For those who cannot seem to master the entry of additional waypoints, here's a cheat sheet I created. It has been sent to one geocacher so far as a test.

Feel free to use it as-is or modified to meet your personal style. I will appreciate suggestions, clarifications, or corrections.

Recording Additional Waypoints

1. Sign in to your account on Geocaching dot Com
2. Display your cache page
3. There is a Navigation section at the top right of the cache page where a "waypoints" link will be seen; click on that link.

4. First, you may choose a waypoint type - Final Location, Parking Area, Question to Answer, Stages of a Multicache, and Trailhead.
4a. For a complex cache, you could have entries for the parking area, trailhead, questions to answer, stages of a multicache, as well as the final location.
4b. For a traditional cache, you might want to enter the parking area and/or the trailhead.
4c. For a puzzle/mystery cache or a multicache, it will be necessary to make an entry for each stage and for the final cache location.

5. After choosing a waypoint type, you may enter a name for it. This can simply be parking, stage one, stage two, final, or whatever you choose.

6. Next is an entry field for a waypoint lookup code. As it says on the Waypoint Collection page, STAGE1 or FINAL are good names for the lookup code. You may use anything you want, but each entry must be unique - you cannot have two waypoints with STAGE1 as the lookup code.

7. After that there is an entry field for a prefix code. Unless you have something special in mind, you can just use AA for the first waypoint entry, AB for the second one, etc.

8. Next are the entry fields for the waypoint coordinates, which are completed in the same manner as the coordinate entries on the edit cache page.

9. Finally, there are three choices for how the waypoint should be displayed.
9a. Show all information for this waypoint, including coordinates - this should be chosen for parking waypoints, trailheads, and in those cases where the geocacher is being sent to a location to gather information or to answer a question that may be required to determine the final cache location.

9b. Show the details of this waypoint but hide the coordinates - I do not have a good example for this choice.

9c. Hide this waypoint from view except by the owner or administrator - this should be chosen for intermediate stages of a multicache or a mystery/puzzle cache, as well as for the final cache location.

Hope this helps.

4 comments:

welch said...

minor question, can reviewers see additional waymarks even after they are 'archived'?

IowaAdmin said...

Yes, reviewers can see additional waypoints after they are archived, at least as I understand how it works. I haven't actually seen any caches in reviewer mode that are archived and that have additional waypoints listed.

welch said...

My fault I should have explained it better. What I mean is, if I post an additional waypoint, and then delete that additional waypoint, can the reviewer still see the waypoint? (like they can still see reviewer notes... they can see reviewer notes right??)

IowaAdmin said...

Welch, after you posted your question, I've been experimenting to try to find the answer. So far I haven't been able to see additional waypoints on my test page after I archive them.