Monkey Magic

Ammotin now has a web browser, allowing you to interact with geocaching websites. Here’s a screenshot of it in action (click for full size)

Just as minor digression, you can see the way the user interface is going – there will be several different “panels” like the map and browser, and you’ll be free to arrange these to suit the task at hand, and save your preferred layouts too. For example, you can arrange panels into tabs:

If you’ve got a multi-monitor desktop, you’ll also appreciate how you can tear off a panel into its own window too…

Back to the browser. It’s based on WebKit, the same engine at the heart of the Safari web browser. I’ve added to this an extension mechanism modelled on Greasemonkey. As far as possible, I’ll make it capable of using existing Greasemonkey scripts targeted at Firefox. However, I’m providing additional features that will allow myself and script authors to talk to Ammotin.

To whet your appetite, here’s a few ideas for things you can do with it

• a “send to ammotin” button on a cache listing to update the Ammotin database with cache details
• a “show in ammotin” button to snap the map to the cache location
• when logging, the cache page can auto-populate your log with notes you’ve made offline in the Ammotin database

I’ve still got to finesse the browser, it needs an address bar, back/forward/stop/reload buttons. It also accepts all cookies thrown at it, I need to make it configurable so the user can control which cookies it uses.

Once I’ve done that, I’ll be turning my attention to the cache listing and editing features. I have some great ideas for filtering caches which I hope will appeal to the novice without turning off the power user.

Continue watching this space!