- Okay, so I wrote a little app called BerryCacher and I need some people to test it out. Basically it is a GeoCaching application for the BlackBerry Storm. Sorry, but it only works for the Storm. I may expand it later for other blackberries, but for now, it is just for the Storm. I am going to start off by saying that my intention was to keep this app fairly simple. Let me explain how it works.
Above you can see the main screen. Not much can be done here really. You can press the menu button and click "about" if you want to know who made the app... me First thing you will usually want to do is click the "Caches" button.
Here is where your list of caches is stored. It is persisted when you are not running the program so you can program all the geocaches at home, then go out into the world to locate them. Hooray! Your screen will obviously start empty. You can hit the menu button any time to add/edit/delete caches.
As of right now you can only give a cache a name, latitude, longitude, and some notes to yourself. The notes are good for hints and such. One thing to note, is when you are creating a cache you can also click the menu button on your blackberry and select "Use My Location". This is good for when you are setting up a new cache and need to take the coordinates of where you are standing. it will automatically fill the latitude/longitude fields with your current position.
Once you save a few caches your list will begin to grow. Now before moving on to go find a cache, you will need to set a cache as "Active". Only one cache can be active at a time. This is the cache you are actively trying to seek. You can click any cache, then select "Set Active". The blue orb will then turn green telling you it is active. Now hit your back button to drop back to the main screen. Next you will click on the Compass button to go find your cache.
Here you will see a compass that will point to true north (when it has a GPS signal). Also, if you have an active cache set, a red arrow will point in the direction of the cache. At the bottom of the screen (if you have a GPS signal) it will tell you the name of the active cache and how far you are from it in meters.
Now unless the cache is in your front yard, you will generally need to travel to where the cache is. The compass arrow is really only good once you are in the general vicinity. It can then guide you to the exact spot. But, to get you to that general vicinity you can click the menu button, then "View On Map". If you have Blackberry Maps installed, it will bring up this application, and place a pin on the map for the cache. At this point, just press the menu button, and select "Get Directions". It can then give you directions from where you currently are to the final destination (The cache).
That is pretty much all there is to it. As I stated above, my intention was to keep the application pretty simple for right now. It currently does not tie into geocaching.com and such. My intention right now is to get people to use it and report back any ideas they have as far as tweaks (new menu items maybe?), bugs they find, etc. You can either report it on here or send an email to the address in the "About" screen which can be accessed within the app. I rather not post the link right on here as I don't need any robots crawling through my personal server so just send me a message with your email (make sure to tell me you want to try the beta or I will get confused) and I will email you the link. The compiled version I am giving you will only work until the end of July so you have until then to try it out.
Thanks for reading all this and I look forward to the feedback.
.:EDIT:. When reporting a bug please be sure to tell me your OS version.Last edited by CNUFijiBluSi; 07-08-09 at 08:45 PM.
07-08-09 05:33 PMLike 0 -
- Links sent. Thanks!
Hmm, hopefully the description will make more sense when you play with the program. There really isn't too much to it. Just a lot to type I guess heh If you find any of the controls or what-have-you to be confusing when working with the program, let me know. Feedback is what I'm looking for here
.:edit:. fixed the images above. Maybe that will help with the description hahaLast edited by CNUFijiBluSi; 07-08-09 at 05:53 PM.
07-08-09 05:42 PMLike 0 -
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- More emails/pms/light signals sent! Thanks everybody!!
If anyone else wants to test it out, just let me know.07-08-09 07:09 PMLike 0 -
- sent ya an email, dunno if ya got it, ill just post it on here:
does the "view on map" work? doesnt seem to work for me (unless if ya have to be outside, lol)07-08-09 08:15 PMLike 0 -
* Please make sure you have BlackBerry Maps installed. I will look in to having it support Google Maps as well as I personally prefer google maps
Just out of curiosity, did it throw an error at you when you tried it? Maybe I should test for it before trying to instantiate it. Then I can pop a message to the user telling them they need to install it. I'll make a note of that.07-08-09 08:31 PMLike 0 - Okay, more emails sent out. Looks like I'm up to about 10 people now. cool FYI, one good recommendation I had is the ability to load .loc files from geocaching.com so you dont necessarily have to type it all in. I will definitely look into this.07-08-09 08:37 PMLike 0
- I know we already talked over email, but I'll post this here to make sure everyone is aware:
* Please make sure you have BlackBerry Maps installed. I will look in to having it support Google Maps as well as I personally prefer google maps
Just out of curiosity, did it throw an error at you when you tried it? Maybe I should test for it before trying to instantiate it. Then I can pop a message to the user telling them they need to install it. I'll make a note of that.07-08-09 08:39 PMLike 0 - If you find a bug, please be sure to let me know what OS you are running. I know that in .75 there was a bug in the API that would not allow you to instantiate the BBMaps app (my simulator is running .75 and has this problem). I am running .148 on my Storm and this is no longer an issue. I have no idea at what point this was fixed though haha07-08-09 08:40 PMLike 0
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- If you find a bug, please be sure to let me know what OS you are running. I know that in .75 there was a bug in the API that would not allow you to instantiate the BBMaps app (my simulator is running .75 and has this problem). I am running .148 on my Storm and this is no longer an issue. I have no idea at what point this was fixed though haha
im running official 14807-08-09 08:41 PMLike 0 -
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Thanks to everyone for helping me out!07-08-09 08:46 PMLike 0 - Okay I shot out more emails. Response is good so far. I guess tomorrow people will really be able to go out and try it out. One thing I am interested in is how people feel about the compass. One fallback of the Storm is that the compass is GPS based. Basically you have to be moving for it to know what direction you are pointing in. Wish this thing had a magnetic compass sensor built in07-08-09 08:55 PMLike 0
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New App: BerryCacher (Public BETA)
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