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Release Notes (Website: Markdown conversion tool) - February 9, 2016


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Read previous Release Notes

 

Release Notes - February 9, 2016

 

Do you need help converting old HTML or UBB log formatting to Markdown formatting? We have introduced a conversion tool that can help.

 

Pull up a log containing old HTML or UBB formatting to see the yellow conversion bar. Click the "Convert" button to see your reformatted log. If you don't like what you see, you can click "Undo." Once you submit the change by clicking "Submit Log Entry" at the bottom of the page, it is a permanent update.

 

(If you don't see the converter right away, you may need to close and re-open your web browser. You may also perform a hard reset of your browser's cache by pressing Ctrl+F5 (PC) or Apple+R or Command+R (Mac).)

 

The conversion tool will convert the following content:


  •  

  • UBB: line breaks, bold, italics, code, links, lists (ordered and unordered)
  • HTML: line breaks, bold, italics, links, headers (H1, H2, H3), lists (ordered and unordered)

The tool will also remove unsupported tags (such as color and font tags) from logs.

 

Read more (and see screenshots) in this Geocaching Help Center article.

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The conversion tool does not appear for all unconverted logs, for example:

http://coord.info/GLDR2334

Hi niraD - I don't see anything in the log that would need to be converted. Is there a particular part of the log that you would expect to be converted?
The log is supposed to be plain text, with a footnote at the end.

 

The markdown system treats the footnote as a bullet item. That isn't the same thing.

 

Again, interpreting non-markdown logs as markdown is a bad idea.

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The new conversion tool does not work for fixing my logs on listings that are locked, like all locationless caches and all the caches of a hider in my area whose listings were locked when he was banned from the website. That's unfortunate, since my logs were fine for many many years but now I cannot fix them.

 

On the bright side, I've been having a blast this evening browsing through my old logs - like a trip down memory lane - and launching the ones which require conversion. The conversion process is super easy and fun.

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Thank you for listening to us, Groundspeak! :)

 

Just a few more things now, and at least I'll be happy :)

 

My wishlist:

  • Stop treating old logs as Markdown, as they may be wrongly formatted (though this has gotten a lot better with the newest changes)
  • Let us run the new conversion tool in batch, I have 900+ logs from this summer with BBCode-links in them, plus a few thousand from the years before

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Let me ask again: What is going to happen to all the links that just have been pasted into logs old and new after the change alike)?

 

They are not any longer hyperlinked (in contrast what has been announced before).

The number of affected logs is certainly higher than 3.5% and the conversion tool does not apply to them (apart from the fact that it is not pratical to apply that tool manually to hundreds or even thousands of logs).

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The conversion tool does not appear for all unconverted logs, for example:

http://coord.info/GLDR2334

 

Hi niraD - I don't see anything in the log that would need to be converted. Is there a particular part of the log that you would expect to be converted?

 

I'm not niraD but I guess it's the second star (starts the appendix) that should be altered manually to

\*

.

 

Hans

Edited by HHL
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The conversion tool does not appear for all unconverted logs, for example:

http://coord.info/GLDR2334

 

Hi niraD - I don't see anything in the log that would need to be converted. Is there a particular part of the log that you would expect to be converted?

 

I'm not niraD but I guess it's the second star (starts the appendix) that should be altered manually to

\*

.

 

Hans

As EngPhil has said any system that requires you to take special precautions with plain text is just plain bonked. Why should you have to escape plain text to make it appear as plain text? Make no sense.

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Again, interpreting non-markdown logs as markdown is a bad idea.

Indeed it is. Again, the website should not attempt to render any logs last edited before 02-February as Markdown.

Can't agree more and furthermore in my view all logs should be treated as plain text unless specifically configured to be Markdown.

Edited by lodgebarn
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As far as I know, I haven't used any html/bbcode in any of my old logs, so I won't be going back to check them.

 

But it would be nice if there was some way for the system to notify me if any of my old logs have unintentional markdown syntax, just so that I could go back and verify/fix them when needed. Or better yet just have the flag requested so that old logs are rendered as plain text.

 

But I won't be losing any sleep over any old logs that might have wonky unintended formatting.

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As far as I know, I haven't used any html/bbcode in any of my old logs, so I won't be going back to check them.

 

...

 

I won't be losing any sleep over any old logs that might have wonky unintended formatting.

 

Ditto. I find all this uproar about Markdown mildly interesting but far from compelling.

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Ditto. I find all this uproar about Markdown mildly interesting but far from compelling.

 

To be honest I'm quite frustrated about how logs like these

https://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=49168322-46b9-4a4c-9230-9f73d8143dc6

https://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?LUID=7b67c5a8-aea6-4b66-b7cd-d14425b6cc5f

now look like since the links are not hyperlinked any longer.

 

The cache is archived, but there exists a newer and still active cache in the area and the background history

concerns the area and so still applies. It took quite a while to write this up and post it (cachers had asked for more information).

 

It was completely unforseeable that GS switches off this feature that has been offered for years and also in the first days of Markdown.

It decreases my motivation to ever again invest effort in writing up such stuff for a geocaching log.

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Release Notes - February 9, 2016

 

Do you need help converting old HTML or UBB log formatting to Markdown formatting? We have introduced a conversion tool that can help.

Before the change to Markdown, URLs that weren't indicated by HTML or BBCode showed up as "(visit link)" and were clickable. Can you please modify the conversion tool so that it changes such URLs to the appropriate Markdown?

Edited by Nylimb
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Read previous Release Notes

 

Release Notes - February 9, 2016

 

Do you need help converting old HTML or UBB log formatting to Markdown formatting? We have introduced a conversion tool that can help.

 

Although I can see any reason why You render old logs with a new algorithm, I would appreciate this tool! I would, if it would work fine. But it does not!

Example: I used to log with GSAK. GSAK has a button for attributes like italics. Until feb 02 GSAK formated a word I marked italics so:

[i]rosch44 [/i]

Note the blank after the last letter of the word. This looked fine all the time, since a italic blank looks like a normal blank.

Your tool converts this to

*rosch44 *

which isn't shown in italic letters.

 

Can you in this case please switch the blank and the * in the generated text? Would look like:

*rosch44* 

 

Thanks!

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Tool ? Good thing.

But it is very difficult to use !!! When I processing logs from fieldnotes, i must click to many of buttons - and at end of conversion the tool not return to field notes processing !!! Such tool should work automatically without harassment of user !

Edited by Arne1
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Tool ? Good thing.

But it is very difficult to use !!! When I processing logs from fieldnotes, i must click to many of buttons - and at end of conversion the tool not return to field notes processing !!! Such tool should work automatically without harassment of user !

Does the tool even work while creating a log from a field note? I thought it only operated on existing logs. Also, why would you enter BBCode or HTML in a new log and then use the tool to convert it rather than just using Markdown directly?

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Continuing with the conversion process for my old logs, I came across another issue. I think that the converter should follow the exact same logic as the customized markdown implementation on Geocaching.com. In other words, don't convert something into markdown if the resulting code won't be rendered in markdown due to a customization made by Geocaching.com.

 

The specific examples were a series of my logs where I used UBB to boldface only the first letter of several consecutive words, in order to spell out an acronym from the boldfaced letters.

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Tool ? Good thing.

But it is very difficult to use !!! When I processing logs from fieldnotes, i must click to many of buttons - and at end of conversion the tool not return to field notes processing !!! Such tool should work automatically without harassment of user !

Does the tool even work while creating a log from a field note? I thought it only operated on existing logs. Also, why would you enter BBCode or HTML in a new log and then use the tool to convert it rather than just using Markdown directly?

Yes, the tool also started when processing fieldnotes. But it is quite bothersome steps to convert more logs. (sorry for google translate)

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On locked caches it also says in vivid yellow: "It looks like your log contains HTML or UBB formatting. We now use Markdown formatting because it works on both web and mobile. Would you like to convert your log?" but pressing "Convert" still leads to "The listing has been locked and is not accepting new log entries."

 

Will there be a way to remove UBB from logs at locked caches? While it seems reasonable not allowing new entries on locked caches, especially locationless and virtuals and not allowing change logtype or change date, what is the reason for not allowing removing html or ubb formatting from logs?

 

Other question (related to html/ubb 2 Markdown only because converting is not possible for locked caches): Why is it even necessary to lock an archived traditional like Saint Stephen? The owner(=reviewer) could have deleted any additional NAs and notes containing unwanted critique anyway.

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Minor converter bug: non-italics within italics. (Or more accurately, multiple italic-flips within a line.) It produced:

*Well *I'm* not going over there. My name's already in the book.*

where (incorrectly) the second word was italicized like the rest of the sentence.

 

I had to manually move the asterisks away from the word:

*Well* I'm *not going over there. My name's already in the book.*

for it to work properly.

 

These rules are really getting hard to fathom. It's like learning a programming language fer crying out loud.

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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All these rules remind me of learning C. If I can learn C, I can learn this.

The thing is, C is a standardized language for which there's lots of additional resources you can use to help you learn it. Markdown has no defined standard, so there are countless different "dialects". The only resources we can get for the Groundspeak dialect of Markdown have to come from Groundspeak, because they're the ones creating this new language. It seems like they haven't even settled on a final version of it yet, though, so they can't very well provide definitive documentation to help us.

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All these rules remind me of learning C. If I can learn C, I can learn this.

The thing is, C is a standardized language for which there's lots of additional resources you can use to help you learn it. Markdown has no defined standard, so there are countless different "dialects". The only resources we can get for the Groundspeak dialect of Markdown have to come from Groundspeak, because they're the ones creating this new language. It seems like they haven't even settled on a final version of it yet, though, so they can't very well provide definitive documentation to help us.

Your description of Markdown describes the state of C when I learned it. Everything evolves.

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All these rules remind me of learning C. If I can learn C, I can learn this.

The thing is, C is a standardized language for which there's lots of additional resources you can use to help you learn it. Markdown has no defined standard, so there are countless different "dialects". The only resources we can get for the Groundspeak dialect of Markdown have to come from Groundspeak, because they're the ones creating this new language. It seems like they haven't even settled on a final version of it yet, though, so they can't very well provide definitive documentation to help us.

Your description of Markdown describes the state of C when I learned it. Everything evolves.

Yes, the standard for C has evolved. Markdown was released 10 years ago and still has no standard and has not evolved as a standard, everyone has their own.

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Yes, the standard for C has evolved. Markdown was released 10 years ago and still has no standard and has not evolved as a standard, everyone has their own.

And how long was there no real C standard, just K&R C? It's the same sort of thing. What's the standard for GPX? It's just an open standard and there's no push for an official one either. Markdown is the same sort of deal.

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I see spaces are like periods (mentioned above). Apparently they count as "whitespace" (or some similar rule), and I suppose that since it would be pointless to italicize them, it's not allowed to italicize them. Or anything next to them.

 

This sentence does [i]not [/i]convert properly to Markdown because of the space.
Or rather, it converts to Markdown that isn't interpreted as such because of the space.

I didn't add those colors.

 

Whew, I think I may be ready for my Markdown 101 exam. Where's the study guide for the fancy stuff - beyond italics - so I can prep for Markdown 201?

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I see spaces are like periods (mentioned above). Apparently they count as "whitespace" (or some similar rule), and I suppose that since it would be pointless to italicize them, it's not allowed to italicize them. Or anything next to them.

 

This sentence does [i]not [/i]convert properly to Markdown because of the space.
Or rather, it converts to Markdown that isn't interpreted as such because of the space.

 

 

Until now you have to move the resulting * after conversion manually to the left before the blank as the current implementation only interpretes 'whole words' like *text* and also *cachername text cachername* (regardless of whether the * is part of the name or not) as italics/emphasis.

 

And before the starting * there has to be a blank or beginning of line and the * has to be followed by a character (other than blank).

 

And after last character the * has to follow without blank before, and after * something of blank ? ! , ; : . or line break is necessary.

 

Really easy, isn't it? :cool: Or did I miss something?

 

But this way also 'lone' * as in C = A * B + D * E with A=12, B=20, D=2, E=5 are save and also C = A*B + D*E.

 

So geocachers calculate C = 12*20 + 2*5 otherwise potentially mutilated to C = AB + DE, omitting the arithmetic operator and geocachers might interpret it (as necessary for some other geocaches) as C = AB + DE which gives C= 1220 + 25. The actual behavior seems fortunate to me (the description part of a listing doesn't use markdown) as sometimes update logs or helpful logs from other geoachers contain formulas.

 

So not supporting all 'normal' Markdown for italics is not only for them who want to see {*FTF*} and S*M*A*R*T etc. :cool:

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The moral of the story: proofread everything.

 

Yes. At least if there is anything in your logs that doesn't fit exactly to the logic of the converter.

 

And if you are somewhat choosey/picky (I don't know a more neutral word) or slightly (in german "monkisch") 'Monk-ish' like Adrian Monk better do all conversion yourself.

 

Then you are in control of what happens to your logs, especially what get's simply removed by the converter - unexpected like strike through or what gets mutilated like <> or all Markdown issues that pop up when another is (partly) resolved like the handling of * for italics, dates/ordinals in certain languages vs. numbered lists (first all, now only starting with 1.) etc.

Edited by AnnaMoritz
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