What's new?

Hi everybody, You may now add license information to your photographs. There are a range of Creative Commons licenses available along with an "All rights reserved" option. You can also set your default license by clicking the "Manage your licenses" link on your profile screen. In future you will be ...

You may now "like" a track or other object, and then see it on your Facebook profile. You may use this feature without having an NZ Tramper account but you do need a Facebook account. Future Facebook integration is likely to include having the option to log in via Facebook, without ...

Hi everybody, I've made events more prominent. I'm not sure how useful they will be -- it's up to you! Fixed up a few issues and rearranged menus a little. Also worked on performance (squished up the JavaScript and CSS files) and built myself a tool to have better control over ...

Hi everybody, * You may have noticed some downtime earlier last week. That related to ongoing problems with geographical datatypes. I have removed geographic datatypes for now, in the interests of stability. You shouldn't notice any difference. * The forum layout was a little broken. Should be happier now. * There ...

Hi Matthew, whats up with the site mail service? I keep getting a server error notice. Is anyone else having this problem? Cheers lostone.

Hi everybody, Map and coordinate handling has been improved. You can now paste coordinates (e.g. WGS84 -43.596503, 170.142603) into the NZ Map search box and see the location. Coordinate parsing is improved -- it will now handle degree symbols and so forth. You can also enter degrees and decimal minutes, including ...

Hi everybody, I have just upgraded the location picker you use when adding information. You can now choose points off a map as well as search. Let me know what you think. Matthew

Hi everybody, I plan to roll out a large update tomorrow that has been in development since June. Key elements are: * A new look -- modernised. * wider 3-column layout -- designed to 1024 pixels width instead of 800. * Better layout for information pages -- these pages have had a lot of ...

Hi everybody, I have just added support for the new Topo50 maps. All points should now show coordinates in both the new and old maps. LINZ have made the new maps available for download free of charge. I have included links for these, but note they are very large files. I ...

Hi everybody, As you may know I have been working on a major update since June. This work is nearing conclusion. I have completely replaced the layout engine (the new one will be more flexible but you probably won't notice that). I have refreshed the look and feel. I have optimised the ...

Hi, There are currently serious problems with the geographical data handling in the database server. I have had to disable some features while the server issue is addressed. Hopefully this will be sorted out today. Matthew

Hi everybody, As you may be aware I have been attending to other matters with the recent death of my father. However, I am now able to find time to work regularly on the application again, and I am making progress on a large project. There will be no updates ...

Hi everybody, My father died suddenly last week. Work here will be held up for a little while. Please bear with me. Thank you, Matthew.

I have updated the forum layout, making it wider. Long forum threads are now split into multiple pages rather than being dumped out on one long page. I hope you like the forum changes. Let me know if you have any thoughts on them. You can now also find out who ...

Hi everybody, This month I have been exploring the concept of "interestingness." I can look at something and decide easily if it's interesting, but how does a computer do it? Perhaps it can watch the humans. If something is getting more and more attention, it is interesting. If something new is ...

New this month is an email newsletter. This is generated automatically, and is intended to be a summary of what's new on the side. Any suggestions welcome. You will not receive the newsletter automatically. Edit your profile if you would like to receive it. I have also tidied up the ...

Does anyone know what is up with Macpac. I have noticed that it is now being sold via the 'fairydown' stores... and it looks like it would become a exclusive through that chain. Has Jan Cameron now brought Macpac? Have heard nothing in the media about it, although it was a simalar situation ...

This month I have added YouTube video support. At present you need to upload your video to YouTube first. However, I will look at integrating the entire process. The advanced search form has been substantially improved, and now allows you to also search forums. Forums have been modified slightly to ...

The home page is redesigned. Goals were: * create a better looking page, * dispense with the "local / international" split. * don't sacrifice information A splash image now dominates the top of the window. Beneath this are: * the most popular tracks (if you are not logged in), * newly added information and entries ...

Well this is clearly becoming a problem. At present, there is nobody here to remove these posts if I leave town (I'm heading to Dunedin today) or leave the country (I was in Australia last week). I am in favour of having a "flag abuse" button which would remove the post ...

Three changes this month to make things a little simpler and nicer to look at: A new look to the photo galleries. The feature photo and user galleries have been redesigned. Comments boxes are tucked away unless you want to use them. Object point information has been shifted onto a separate page. Only ...

You will see a new "gallery" view which shows off photograph search results nicely. There have also been some performance improvements, with more to come.

Hi, I have added charting of tracks and waypoints on GPX files. So now you may download the GPX file or simply view it online. I am looking at improving the way points are associated with objects too. I think it makes sense to do the following: 1) read GPS coordinates directly ...

A bug in the forums meant that new threads were not being shown. Sorry about that! I have made some changes to the way images are stored and handled. This has caused some problems over the past week, but should be resolved now. The changes improve the system's flexibility, making it ...

Hi guys, I have reduced the number of forums, created one or two new ones, and moved the threads around. There were quite a few forums that just weren't getting use. If any of the present ones get really busy, they can always be split up. Hopefully, the forums will be easier ...

I really like the NZ Maps (beta). For the first time this allows you to view all the objects in the database in an area all together. However I can't work out the colour codes and also it seems that some objects come in at different zoom levels than others. How does ...

Hi. You may see we have switched over to the new Google Maps "terrain" view for plotting maps, which is more similar to the appearance of a topographical map. What do you think? A lot of work is being done behind the scenes, switching from the Cartesian New Zealand Map Grid ...

Hi, A few small changes have been rolled out. Let me know if I have broken anything. 1) support for the geo and rel-tag microformats (more about microformats here: http://microformats.­org/). 2) Changes to the page URLs so that paths are virtual, and don't represent actual files. This helps me keep the ...