Geocaching Map Enhancements

This script aims to improve your experience of Geocaching Maps by adding and improving lots of features.

It enhances the main map page by giving a choice of map and aerial photography sources, adding a tool to show helpful information about the area, enabling drag-n-drop support, improving the search function and letting you label the caches on the map. There are also improvements to the "hide & seek a cache" page, the trackables maps, and the maps on the individual cache listings. Check out the documentation - the full feature list is too long for this page!

To take advantage of GME, make sure that you have set your Geocaching Map preferences to use Leaflet Maps rather than Google. If you're new to Userscripts, check out this getting started guide.

Feedback

GME discussion in the Groundspeak Forums
Issues log on Github

If you like using GME, please log in to this site and up-rate the script using the box at the top right of this page. If you would like to do something more to say thanks, you can buy me a coffee (or a beer, or something more) by using the Donate button below. Alternatively, if you really like GME, why not top up my Geocaching.com subscription?

Documentation

• Full documentation and installation instructions for different browsers: geo.inge.org.uk/gme.htm
• List of custom map examples
• Custom map configuration details
• Troubleshooting tips
• Github repo (Development information for geeks!)

Known issues

No OS Maps. GME used to provide UK Ordnance Survey maps via Bing. Bing have now started requiring use of a key for access to the maps, so that they can track usage and charge people who over-use their system. OS maps have therefore been removed from GME's default selection of maps, but there are instructions on how to get your own key and re-enable them.

In the long term, I hope to be able to use free OS maps directly from the Ordnance Survey. Unfortunately, this is technically challenging, and I haven't got time at the moment (the problem is that the world isn't flat and rectangular in the way Google Maps would have you believe). However, fixing this would also let GME provide access to maps from other national mapping agencies which aren't available in the same projection as the Geocaching maps.

Changelog

v0.8.0

Removed the user survey link (finally!) and added a new tool for hiding and displaying cache icons. Fixed lots of other bugs and made compatible with Greasemonkey v4.

v0.7.4

Removed the Panoramio photo feature (the service has shut down), and adds a link to a GME User Survey. If you have time, please give me some feedback!

v0.7.3.3

Another bugfix. Makes GME more robust to problems with the GC.com servers getting overloaded.

v0.7.3.2

Bugfix. Re-enables GME on main maps page after MapQuest service was withdrawn.

v0.7.3.1

Bugfix update. Mainly fixes issues caused by GC.com changes that stopped the script detecting a logged-in user.

• FIX: GME works on cache pages again.
• FIX: Search by GC-code on the main map no longer complains you're not logged in.
• FIX: GME's icons hidden by sidebar when first installed.
• FIX: Several other minor bugs.

v0.7.3

Bugfix update. NB OS map source is currently broken. A fix may take a few weeks to sort out.

• FIX: Make GPX export compatible with Garmin Basecamp.
• FIX: Make search by GC code work again from the Maps page.
• FIX: Replace link to GME configuration page on profile menu at top of page.
• ISSUE: OS map source broken - removed from list.

v0.7.2

• NEW: Postcode lookup from the 'i' menu (UK addresses only).
• IMPROVED: Optional labels for marker circles.
• IMPROVED: Added radius to Plot function to allow plotting circles at specific coordinates, rather than just points (e.g. type plot r0.2 N51.477 W0 in the search box on the Map page.
• IMPROVED: More effective keyword search at http://geocaching.com/seek
• FIX: Searching by pressing enter in search box on the Map page or Hide & Seek page fixed for more browsers.
• FIX: GPX files exported from GME should now work when imported into Geocaching.com's "caches along a route" feature.
• FIX: Hill Shading map source fixed (due to server change)
• NEW: Freemap.SK map sources added.
• FIX: Better handling of caches with special international characters in their names or waypoints (multi-byte Unicode). These should now work properly for clicking-though to display on the big map, or dragging and dropping. Obscure side-effect: when cache information is dragged to another app as a data: URI, the data has to be URI-decoded after base64 decoding.

Seeing the new map sources requires GME's configuration to be reset to Defaults. Export any custom maps first, or make sure you have a copy of the JSON codes to reload them.

v0.7.1

• NEW: GME-enabled all the planning maps used during the cache-hiding process.
• IMPROVED: Default maps, button images, etc. load using HTTPS, to avoid mixed (insecure) content on secure pages (will require reset to default settings to reload the new map URLs - take note of any custom mapsource codes first!).
• FIX: Bug that disabled GME in Chrome v38 on the Mac.
• FIX: Minor bugfixes and tidying.

v0.7.0.2

• FIX: Adapted to new update URL from OpenUserJS.org

v0.7.0.1

• FIX: Search by GC-code fixed (but only works in browsers that support GM_xmlhttpRequest)
• FIX: Enhanced placename search (works in more browsers, adapted to change in Geonames webservice)
• IMPROVED: Click-through from cache pages to display waypoints and corrected coordinates on the map page now works with more waypoints.

v0.7.0

• FIX: Improved security for features that use external webservices (Geonames enhanced search and spot height, Panoramio and Geograph photos). Now uses Greasemonkey API (if available) to get JSON data without the need for cross-site scripting.
• FIX: Clicking through from a cache listing to the main map to display corrected coordinates and additional waypoints. Now passes information via the map URL rather than browser localStorage.