Optionally, parse search results without fetching cache descriptions

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Wishlist request: Have another option to skip the fetchGeocaches step.

Rationale: To quickly build lists from searches (own found caches; recently 
published caches close to your homezone, etc.) it may make sense to completely 
skip retrieval of actual cache descriptions.

Caveats: Of course, this will limit the number of available attributes (cache 
name, owner, type, dates, status flags; perhaps D/T/size) and therefore require 
another output format. One would also expect some filters to fail.

Original issue reported on code.google.com by Steve8x8 on 22 Jul 2011 at 9:35

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Looking deeper into this idea:

With properly crafted output templates, and a few code modifications, it's 
basically possible to get a quick overview of the target region. 
When running a centered search, the "distance/direction" image code contains 
the distance and the azimuth angle to a rather high precision: while the 
distance is rounded to the next 0.1km/mi, the angle comes with 3 decimal digits!
To get close coordinates (within 50-80m!), one only needs a projection tool:
- Great Circle Calculator (http://williams.best.vwh.net/gccalc.htm), or
- geo-project from Rick Richardson's geo-* utilities (http://geo.rkkda.com)
You may then feed this into a map - to help you decide where to look more 
closely.

If you only have to translate WIDs to GUIDs, fetching all the cache description 
is overkill as well.

I have some patches ready (which work with the "wp2guid" template, and an 
additional "qlist" one which has been derived from "list"), but I'm still 
hesitant to commit them to the branch. (Any volunteers?)
Issue status left unchanged...

Original comment by Steve8x8 on 20 Jan 2012 at 1:04

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Patches are in my personal patch set.

Currently it's not intended to make them "official", but there's some advantage 
(to get a quick overview about cache location density distributions for 
example) to have this feature. I'm using it when planning trips to yet unknown 
areas, to define some geocaching "focuses".

If there's some feedback I'll revisit the issue, and perhaps make the patches 
ready for release...

Original comment by Steve8x8 on 25 Feb 2012 at 1:24

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Status change

Original comment by Steve8x8 on 2 May 2012 at 1:16

• Changed state: Started

[GoogleCodeExporter]

This feature has been merged a while ago, and partially became obsolete again 
due to an interface change at GS. The -Y option has survived though, but 
without some precise azimuth and distance it's almost useless... Anyway, there 
it is, also included in 3.16.7 now. Use it or ignore it.

Original comment by Steve8x8 on 13 May 2013 at 10:22

• Changed state: FixAvail

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Closing.

Original comment by Steve8x8 on 27 May 2013 at 8:28

• Changed state: Fixed