As already announced in the previous release, this time it went – at least in programming – much faster. The version 1.3.0 was more or less a small “emergency” operation to release the correction of two bugs as soon as possible.

But in the background, the feature list for the actually planned update was much more extensive. Many things were already prepared in the background and almost finished. So we could finish the new things parallel to the release of the previous version.

I am excited about now available version. The 1.2.0 was at that time the equality with the GCC, so the re-development of all its features was completed then. But still, for me personally, some wishes remained, things that I always wanted to see in such a Geocaching multi-tool. I am happy to say: 1.4.0 gives me the feeling of being done for the very first time. This doesn’t mean that we don’t continue to tinker, but it does mean that GCWizard now really includes everything I was always dreaming of.

Of course, I want to thank the whole team for that, the two developers Mike and Thomas, the documenter and picture painter Andreas and Andy, who is doing a great PR job in the background. 🙂

The highlights of 1.4.0

Open Map: Until now it was only possible to display the results of the coordinate calculations statically on a map. With this new tool, arbitrary points, circles and lines (geographically more correct: geodesics) can be placed and positioned. The lines are also well suited as a measuring tool for the length of certain paths. The results of coordinate calculations can now be merged in one place and visualized on this map as the result of complex calculations with several steps.

Vigenère Code Breaker: In 1.2.0 Mike already added the “Substitutions Code Breaker” (at that time called “Universal Code Breaker”). The basis for this was the OpenSource code of the “Substitution Breaker” from guballa.de. He also helped Mike with the Vigenère Breaker, so that the GCWizard can now also crack Vigenère codes with a certain probability without the need to know a password. A huge THANKS to guballa.de!

Malbolge/Chef: Thomas loves to integrate certain esoteric programming languages. Now codes disguised as cooking recipes can be decoded as well as the completely obscure appearance of a Malbolge code, my personally favorite esoteric programming language 🙂

Progress Indicator: A small detail that usually no-one ever notices when it’s there. But when it’s missing, it can yield a lot of frustration. And in development, too, as we – and Mike in particular – have experienced. Long calculating functions (like some coordinate calculations or the Hash Search which was introduced in 1.3.0) used to completely block the phone until the calculation was finished. It was difficult for the user to tell whether the device was just busy or completely dead. For such a indicator view, a lot of research and development has been done internally (especially regarding parallel computing/threading in Dart). We are very proud of the result!

Maya/Cistercian: Two tools that can actually be done with a simple symbol table. And yet, these two are something special. A simple symbol can have several meanings. With Z., one single symbol can represent 10000 numerical values, way too much for a simple symbol table. And with Maya, you may have to do some very special math with two symbols to get the actual number value represented (base 20 number system, Vigesimal system). Thomas came up with the great idea to use the graphical engine for the segment displays for this kind of graphical coding to make some symbol tables even more interactive.

Periodic table of elements: Until now, the tool was just a simple collection of data and tables. Finally, an interactive table view, as you would imagine a Periodic table to be, could be integrated.

A small preview

When I wrote something about “finished” above, this of course only referred to my very personal, current requirements. I can already say that Mike and Thomas are already working on many things internally. However, this should not be the focus of the upcoming version 1.5.0. Thomas and Andreas have been working for weeks to finally provide a documentation for the GCWizard. Already several hundred (!) articles are written. Therefore the main focus of the next version will be less on new features, but on editing, translation and integration of the articles into an online database and, of course, the app itself. Stay tuned!

Changelog

[new] Open Map
[new] Vigenère Code Breaker (Thanks, Mike, guballa.de)
[new] Malbolge (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Progress View (Thanks, Mike)
[new] Chef (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Number Sequences (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Periodic Table: Table View
[new] Coordinate Measurement
[new] Coordinates: Segment Lines/Bearings
[new] Cistercian (Thanks, Thomas)
[new] Maya
[new] Coord. Format: GeoHex
[new] Coord. Format: XYZ
[new] Ellipsoids: Sun, Moon, Planets
[new] Var. Coordinate: Own location as input
[new] Cipher Disk/Mexican Army Cipher Disk
[new] Vigenère: Alphabet values as key
[new] Symbol Table: D’ni (Numbers) (Thanks, Andreas)
[chg] Periodic Table: Elements in lists clickable