www.smartcaching.de

SmartGPX – Manual Smart Geocaching with Symbian OS Smartphones

Dimitri Brukakis ( info@smartcaching.de ) 13.12.2007

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CONTENT Overview ................................................................................................................................................................................ 3

What is Geocaching? .................................................................................................................................................... 3

How do I start with Geocaching .............................................................................................................................. 3

What next? ....................................................................................................................................................................... 3

What is paperless caching? ....................................................................................................................................... 5

What is SmartGPX? ....................................................................................................................................................... 5

Where can I get SmartGPX for my device? .......................................................................................................... 6

Getting started ..................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Installation ....................................................................................................................................................................... 7

Start SmartGPX ............................................................................................................................................................... 8

Using SmartGPX .................................................................................................................................................................. 8

Import GPX files ............................................................................................................................................................. 8

SmartGPX views ............................................................................................................................................................. 9

The Geocache list view ........................................................................................................................................... 9

Operations and options in the Geocache list view ................................................................................... 10

The Geocache detail view ................................................................................................................................... 11

Operations and options of the Geocache detail view .............................................................................. 12

Filters .............................................................................................................................................................................. 13

Filter types ............................................................................................................................................................... 13

Setting filters ........................................................................................................................................................... 14

Combining filters ................................................................................................................................................... 14

Resetting the filter................................................................................................................................................. 14

Filter results ............................................................................................................................................................ 14

Data files ............................................................................................................................................................................. 15

Questions? .......................................................................................................................................................................... 15

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OVERVIEW

WHAT IS GEOCACHING? Geocaching is an entertaining adventure game for GPS users. Participating in a cache hunt is a

good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a GPS unit. The basic idea

is to have individuals and organizations set up caches all over the world and share the locations

of these caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the

caches. Once found, a cache may provide the visitor with a wide variety of rewards. All the

visitor is asked to do is if they get something they should try to leave something for the cache.

The GPS Stash Hunt, Global Positioning Stash hunt is interchangeable. Geocaching has become

the standard for the game, however.

The word Geocaching broken out is GEO for geography, and CACHING for the process of hiding a

cache. A cache in computer terms is information usually stored in memory to make it faster to

retrieve, but the term is also used in hiking/camping as a hiding place for concealing and

preserving provisions.

HOW DO I START WITH GEOCACHING The first step is to create an account at the Geocaching.com website

(http://www.geocaching.com/) to get a free access to the thousands of caches that are hidden

worldwide. Be careful when choosing your nickname, you will need it for each cache you are

going to log ;-) The account can be created for free, but you need to be a Premium Member to get

all the cache information as GPX files, that can be imported into SmartGPX.

There are also other non commercial Geocaching web sites you can create an account at, e.g.

http://www.opencaching.de/ A free German Geocaching community

http://www.navicache.com/ A free US based Geocaching community.

SmartGPX currently supports only GPX files generated by geocaching.com. The support for other

GPX file formats will be added soon.

WHAT NEXT? After you have created an account you can start searching at geocaching.com for Geocaches near

your location (you can be sure, there will be lots of caches ).

Take a look at the following map of the city area of Hamburg to receive an impression how many

Geocaches are waiting to be found.

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Picture 1 Map of Hamburg city area

After you have selected or more Geocaches you would like to search for, print out the Geocaches

description, put the coordinates into you GPS receiver and start hunting.

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This is a typical treasure map:

Picture 2 Ghost village treasure map

After you have found the caches you wanted and entered your name and a message to the log

book, go back to geocaching.com and log your visit here to. After a while you will have lots and

lots of printed out paper sheets which is bad for the environment and you wallet. Thus there is a

way for paperless caching…

WHAT IS PAPERLESS CACHING? For paperless caching you need a PDA or Smartphone and a special program, that can display

Geocaches data exported as GPX files. The GPX data export – either of single caches or several

forms of Pocket Queries - is available for Premium Members at geocaching.com.

WHAT IS SMARTGPX? SmartGPX is a tool for paperless Geocaching running on Symbian OS Smartphones. There are

versions for the following platforms available:

Series 60 2nd edition (FP2 and FP3)

Nokia 6630, 6680/6681/6682, N70/N72, N90

S60 3rd edition

3250, 5500, N71, N73, N81, N91, N95, E60, E61/E61i, E70, E90 and many others, please check the Nokia website for newest models.

Series 80 DP2

Nokia Communicator 9500, 9300/9300i

UIQ3

Sony Ericsson P1i, P990i, M600i, Motorola RIZR Z8, Z10 and others. Not running on UIQ2.1 (P800i, P900i)

SmartGPX is not running on PocketPC and Windows Smartphone.

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SmartGPX is also not running on J2ME devices.

WHERE CAN I GET SMARTGPX FOR MY DEVICE? SmartGPX is available free of charge at http://www.smartcaching.de/download/

Really free of charge?

Yes, but: SmartGPX is CoinWare. If you like SmartGPX and find it useful for you daily cache hunt,

you can buy a Geo Coin, Travel Bug or other trackable item and send all information about it

including activation code to info@smartcaching.de. I will activate the trackable item as user

smartcaching.de at geocaching.com and give it the mission to travel to a smartcaching.de cache

in Hamburg, Germany. After the trackable item is activated, you can “Grab it from somewhere

else” and put it into a cache of your choice near your home location. Hopefully the trackable item

will reach its destination some time.

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GETTING STARTED

INSTALLATION After you have downloaded a version of SmartGPX that is usable for your device you have to

install it. Usually applications are installed by opening the received installation package in the

Messages In-box or by using the Nokia PC Suite or the equivalent tools of Sony Ericsson and

Motorola. After the successful installation you will see the SmartGPX program icon in the

Applicaton menu:

Picture 3 Application menu

A short note about the pictures included in this manual: All screenshots have been taken from

the UIQ3 version of SmartGPX but should be usable also if you use a S60 device. Only the Series

80 version is a little bit different because it has a different interaction model. But the

functionality is the same and you should be able to find all functions easily. That’s it

Sometimes it is not possible to install SmartGPX and you see an error message like: “The

Application cannot be installed due to security reasons” or something like that. Don’t panic. You

have to grant the permission to install “unsigned applications” on your device. Go to the

Application Manager (App.Mgr or Manager) and select OptionsSettingsSoftware Installation

and set the value to “All”. No try it again. This option is set to “Only signed” usually on Nokia E-

Series devices. Don’t worry, SmartGPX will not use any forbidden features of your phone and

hopefully not cause any damage. You can set this setting back to “Only Signed” after the

installation of SmartGPX is finished.

You will be asked if you want to install SmartGPX in phone memory or on memory card. It is

always a good idea to select phone memory, this is faster and causes less problems than

installations on memory card, especially on Symbian OS 9.x based devices (S60 3rd edition and

UIQ3). If you have enough space in phone memory, select this option. On S60 2nd edition devices

(6680/6681) it is a good idea to put SmartGPX on memory card, because this devices don’t have

much memory free on the device.

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SmartGPX itself is not very huge but it created a database to import Geocache data from GPX

files. This database can grow easily to several megabytes if you import one or more Pocket

Queries with 500 caches. The databases will always be created on the same drive as the

installation drive. I will change this limitation and allow the selection of a database drive in the

near future.

START SMARTGPX Now we are ready for the first start of SmartGPX. The first step is trying to find out where your

device has installed SmartGPX . Please take a look into the manual of your device or simply

start searching. This could be the first Geocache you have to find .

After you have found and started SmartGPX, you will see the following program view:

Picture 4 Empty view

USING SMARTGPX

IMPORT GPX FILES There are no Geocaches available after the installation and you have to import a GPX file with

one or more Geocaches. To import a GPX file it must be copied from the PC to your device. You

can use the Nokia PC Suite or the equivalent Sony Ericsson or Motorola tools. Sony Ericsson

device can also be connected as mass storage device to the PC via USB and you can simply drag

and drop queries to the drive using the Windows Explorer.

The import starts by selecting “Import GPX file” from the menu.

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Picture 5 Import GPX files

Depending on the device speed, the installation drive (phone memory vs. memory card) and the

number of Geocaches in the file this could take several minutes, so please be patient.

SMARTGPX VIEWS

THE GEOCACHE LIST VIEW After the import is finished you will see a list of Geocaches:

Picture 6 List view

The Geocache list items contain the following information:

- The type of the cache (Traditional, Multi, Mystery etc.). Each cache type has its own icon.

- Does the cache contain a trackable item? Caches with TBs or Coins have a small TB in the

left corner.

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- Did I find the cache? Found caches, either marked as found in the GPX file or set to found in

SmartGPX have a smiley in the right corner of the cache type icon.

- Is the cache disabled? Disabled caches are marked with a big red X in the icon.

- The name of the cache (or a part of): The name of the cache is displayed in the first line of

each list item.

- A note has been entered for the cache. Caches with notes have a * as first character in

before the cache name.

The information to be shown in the second line of each item can be chosen by selection “Show in

list” from the Options menu.

- The size, difficulty and terrain:

- The distance and direction from a set Location:

- The owner of the cache.

The context bar of the Geocache list contains the way point name (GCxxxxx) of the selected

cache. The overall number of caches in the database and the number of caches shown in the list

after running a filter on cache list.

OPERATIONS AND OPTIONS IN THE GEOCACHE LIST VIEW The first and most important functionality of the Geocache list view is to open a cache

description and show detailed information about it. This can be done by pressing the Ok key or

select “Select” from the on the screen (only UIQ3). The description of the Geocache detail view

will follow later.

The Options menu of the Geocache list view contains the following items:

Search Search for a all caches containing the a special search term in its name or the waypoint name (GCxxxxx). This will usually open a text dialog (UIQ3 and S80) or display a list containing only the cache names (S60). On UIQ3 and S60 you can type a search term and after pressing ok you will see only items containing the term. On S60 you will be able to type a term to show only some caches. Pressing the ok key will bring you back to the Geocache list view with the choosen cache selected. You can reset the filter by (UIQ3/S80) by entering an empty term or select “Filter Show all” from the Options menu.

Show nearest caches This menu item will re-order the Geocache list items by distance beginning from the selected cache. This option is useful if you want to know which Geocache is near the cache you have just found. The list can be re-ordered later by choosing a different order from “Options Sort Caches”

Delete It is possible to delete single items from the database. Select all items you would like to delete and select “DeleteDelete selected”. If you

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have deleted some caches accidentally you can import the GPX file again. GPX files will never be touched. All caches including the cache database can be deleted by selecting “Delete->Delete Geocache DB”. This is much faster than deleting all Geocaches one by one. If something is wrong with the imported data, e.g. because of a corrupted database, you can try to delete the Geocache DB and see if it works with new imported GPX data.

Sort geocaches The items displayed in the Geocache list can be displayed in several orders:

- By Name - By Waypoint name (GCxxxxx) - By Distance from the home location, a new entered location or

the location of the currently selected cache; starting from the nearest cache.

- By Difficulty starting from the easiest Difficulty/Terrain combination.

- By Date hidden starting from the newest cache - By Date last log starting from the latest found

Set filter There are several filters that can be set to reduce the number of items shown in the Geocache list. The types of filters and how to use them are displayed later. To reset the filter and show all caches you can select “OptionsFilterShow all” if there is an active filter.

Show in list The information displayed in the second line of each list item is variable and can be chosen here.

- Size/Difficulty/Terrain (default) - Distance/Direction from a set/home location - Owner

Import GPX file More GPX files can be imported into the database. If a Geocache in the GPX file is already present in the database it will be overwritten.

Set home location With this menu item you can enter a position with latitude and longitude that should be used initially when sorting the Geocache list by distance or setting a distance filter.

Info Shows information about Geocache database. This menu item is nearly useless. It is an artifact from the previous SmartGPX version which loads the data from GPX files everytime.

About Guess what

THE GEOCACHE DETAIL VIEW The detail view contains detailed information about a Geocache. You can open the detail view for

a Geocache by pressing the Ok-Key (S60 and UIQ on Moto), selecting “Select” or double click an

item in the list (UIQ3 on SE) or pressing the “Open” command button (Series 80).

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Picture 7 Detail views

The GeoChache detail view shows the following basic information about the cache:

- The type of the cache as icon

- The full name and owner

- The position as degree/decimal minutes and decimal degree

- The distance and direction from the set (home or sort) location

- The container size

- Difficulty and terrain

- The waypoint name (GCxxxxx)

- The hiding date of the cache and the country

- Travel bugs and coins seen in this cache

The following information could be different from cache to cache:

- A short description (italics)

- The complete description

- An encrypted hint, that can be decrypted if wanted

- A number of logs, usually the last 5 logs when the cache is part of a Pocket Query or

more, if all logs have been exported. Logs entries can have one of the following types:

Found it, didn’t find it, note, will attend, attended, needs maintenance, maintenance

completed.

If you have entered a note for a cache, this note is also displayed in the detail view.

OPERATIONS AND OPTIONS OF THE GEOCACHE DETAIL VIEW The Geocache detail view contains the following items in the Options menu:

Decrypt hint/encrypt hint

Decrypt or encrypt the additional hint.

Enter note Add an additional individual note to the cache, e.g. some information

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found within a cache that is useful to find a bonus cache etc. The note will be displayed before the logs in the cache description. Caches with notes are marked with a * before the name in the Geocache list view. Cache notes are stored in the local database that will not be removed when removing the Geocache DB. If you remove a cache with a note from the Geocache database the notes remain there and will be displayed again if a GPX file containing the same cache is loaded.

Found it! If you have found a Geocache you can use this option to set the “found” attribute for this cache. The icon for this cache in the Geocache list will contain the found smiley. You will also be asked if you want to add a found note to the device calendar. This is a cool feature that will be useful to remember all found Geocaches after a long caching weekend or holiday. The “Found it!” item is only selectable if the Geocache has not been found yet.

Remove local attributes

Use this menu item to remove the local attributes for a Geocache from the local database. Currently caches contain only “found” attribute. This option is only available if the local “found” attribute is set. If this attribute is already set in the GPX file this option is disabled.

About You know what…

FILTERS The Geocache list can contain hundreds or even thousands (Really? I didn’t try this yet ) of

Geocaches. If you want to reduce the number of items in the Geocache list, you can set a filter.

FILTER TYPES

The first step is to select which filter should be set, then each filter can be configures.

Picture 8 Filter type selection

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The following filter types are available:

- Filter by name: Only caches that contain the specified search term will be shown.

- Filter by container: Only caches with the selected container sizes will be added to the list.

- Filter by type: Only caches with the selected types are visible.

- Show/hide found: Either display only caches that have the “found” attribute or hide all

caches with the “found” attribute.

- Filter by distance: Only caches with a radius X around position Y will be shown.

- Filter by direction: Specify one or more directions

SETTING FILTERS Filter conditions must always be true. If you want to see only Traditional and Multi caches, you

have to enable the “Type” filter and select “Traditional” and “Multi-cache” in the “Type” filter

settings.

Picture 9 Filter settings pages

On UIQ3 and Series 80 there is a tab for each filter type. On S60 the settings page for a filter can

be opened with “OptionFilter setting”.

COMBINING FILTERS When combining filters, the conditions of all enabled filters must be true, e.g. you can set “Filter

by type” and “Filter by container”. In this case you have to set configure the filter settings for

“Type” and “Container”.

RESETTING THE FILTER If a filter is set and you want to show all caches, you can either switch off all filter types or select

“Filter geocachesShow all” which has the same effect.

FILTER RESULTS After running the filter (leaving the filter dialog with “Done”) the list contains either one or more

or no results. The number of Geocaches in the list is shown in the context pane ([70/600]).

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The empty view with the (official) Geocaching logo will be displayed if the filter result contains

no items.

DATA FILES SmartGPX contains some databases and a configuration file. All files are located in the SmartGPX

private directory:

C:\private\A0000C9B

or

E:\private\A0000C9B

You will only be able to browse this directory if it is located on the memory card or if you use a

file browser with the All files capability.

cache_1.db The Geocache database containing the data of all imported GPX files local_1.db The local database containing the Geocache notes and the local

attributes (“found”) SmartGPX.cfg The SmartGPX configuration file

All these files should not be touched but you can try to delete them if something went wrong and

SmartGPX is not running correctly.

QUESTIONS? If you have any questions about SmartGPX, bug reports, ideas or feature request or simply want

to tell me, that SmartGPX is useful for your daily caching life you can send an eMail to

info@smartcaching.de .

Additional information and the latest versions are available at http://www.smartcaching.de .

I hope that SmartGPX will be as useful for you as it is for me.

The development of SmartGPX is still in progress. The next versions will contain some of the

following new features:

- Some Geocache descriptions contain images with additional information. Sometimes the

cache cannot be found without them. SmartGPX will be able to download and display

additional images.

- Start the web browser and open the web or WAP page directly from the Geocache detail

view.

- More local attributes like “Favorite”, “Ignore”, “Could not find”

- Translations into more foreign languages. I will try to find some people who would like

to help me with the translations soon.