Give them just over 2 tenths a mile and they expect the whole thing 🤣

Give us 2 tenths of a mile and we'll take a parsec. 👽

If it's only 1024 characters, can we at least use emoji's? Or just those boring unsecure English characters?

Theoretically, yes. I haven't actually tried them as a password, though. If you do and get locked out, let me know. =)


You should definitely be able to use foreign characters as well. =)

Truly a spectacularly difficult password for someone to guess if you start adding emojis and non-English characters!

-- Ryan

Ok, so I went to an event, I didn't run home and log everything from that event.........as I am doing it today, it doesn't allow me to put in the actual date the exchange happened like you can on boxes. So, this really isn't helping with tracking when I really did the exchange or where.

being able to log an exchange much like a hitchhiker would be great.
bummed
condo

That is correct. It never did that, and I never said that's how it worked.

This was a quick and easy hack that I thought was better than nothing, but if you want the exchange dates to be accurate, I'd suggest logging them ASAP after the exchange.

At least until I have the time to make a major update to how exchanges work. The feature you are asking for is a lot of extra work, and I have a lot of things I'm working on nowadays! It's just not a high priority for me. Sorry. =(

-- Ryan

So... I decided there was one thing I could do which was relatively easy on my part, which is to allow people the ability to edit their exchanges. So you'll now see edit button on the exchanges in your logbook. In your logbook! That's the only place you'll see the edit button.

You can edit the "list date" (i.e. the date the entry was first added to the database), the "last exchange date" (i.e. the last time you tried to add this person to the database), and a "note" (i.e. kind of an extra field that I've never used before that lets you leave notes about an exchange).

Now... if you want to, you can go back and edit every single freaking exchange you've ever done and put in the correct date so instead of being a "list" date, you can use it as an actual "first exchange date".

I do NOT recommend this. It's incredibly time consuming--especially if someone has a lot of finds. It requires constant maintenance if you don't manage to record exchanges the day they actually happened.

If you go down this path, it may drive you insane. You've been warned. I'd just go with the default.... AQ will record the date you first recorded an exchange with someone and the last date that you tried to record an exchange with someone and leave it at that. It's easy, it's fast, it's actually accurate and requires no maintenance. If you enter exchanges in the order you actually exchanged, it will be in the correct order.

I do not consider this an upgrade--yes, you have more control over how things show up in your logbook--but seriously, it's not worth the effort. Just be happy that AQ at least records when you record finds--which is actually a genuine improvement over how things used to be. And if you make a habit of recording exchanges the same day you did the exchange, it'll automatically be accurate there as well. Win-win!

-- Ryan

thank you Ryan. I was tired and surprised by what it did and didn't do. Being that this was done through an event page, I guess it would have used that date.

I appreciate what you do here.

condo

You Rock!!!!!!!!

not sure about it for all, but the handful this last weekend, yes

No, AQ records the date the exchange was first entered into the database, not the date of an event. It's called the "list date" for a reason, and not the "exchange date."

Exchanges are meant to be trivial easy to enter. Requiring everyone to include a date adds all sorts of complications. What if an event spans multiple days...? What if someone records an exchange more than once? What if someone wants to track what order they did the exchanges in?

These are all sorts of complications that--for people just wanting to keep track of who they exchanged with (which is really the thing that matters most)--are unnecessary distractions. It doesn't feel right for me to force people into adding such unnecessary information, and it doesn't seem right to make assumptions about when an exchange was made because people will invariably complain when it makes an incorrect assumption.

AQ does know precisely when an exchange was entered, however--and it's actually recorded in the database down to the second. (Although editing the entries only saves the date--not the time--since pretty much nobody records a time when an exchange was made.) Recording the date (and time) an exchange was entered is highly accurate, precise, easy and automatic, so that's what AQ will track.

And trying to use it for something else entirely--like exchange dates--I suspect will feel like pulling teeth. It's not designed for that purpose, and in the long run, does the precise date that I exchanged with someone more or less ten years ago? Not really!

For those really wanting to track all sorts of data about exchanges, I'd suggest setting up your own personal spreadsheet which includes all the data you could ever think up. =)

-- Ryan

Thanks for the additional options for tracking exchanges! But please consider upgrading the exchange tracking to be like recording a find on a hitchhiker. Including an optional field for entering location, and a way to edit the find date if desired. This will not force anyone to enter extra data unless desired.

I have great faith that you can do this! Simply reuse the code for logging hitchhikers, and somehow avoid breaking backward compatibility. No hurry, please just keep this request on the back burner.

Give us 2 astronomical units and we’ll take a light-year!

I think the optional note field would work well for entering a location for the exchange(s). I’ve been able to edit the find dates on mine, but if you have more than two (first and last exchange dates), you could probably put those in the notes section as well.

You can do that with the note.


I'd first have to create a way to add a find date before you'd be able to edit it, but you can edit the "list date" already.


Mission accomplished, then. =)

-- Ryan

WOW?! All of this is amazing!! Many thanks as always, Ryan!

As most of you very quickly figured out, the whole AmeriQuest theme was this year's April Fool's Day joke. I just took some of the more ridiculous (but sadly, real life) news and applied it to AQ from people's obsession with pronouns to the "savings" that the so-called Department of Government Efficiency has been posting (including double-counting items and wildly inflating the real amount of money saved) and renaming things that nobody asked for or wanted just to sound more American.

But this was clearly just a spoof. AQ does not get government grants to run, but given the recent chaos in the grant process, it seemed like a good hook to blame all these changes on.

If you really liked the theme, it is still available through your Theme Preferences, and the About page where the changes were announced is still available to enjoy. =)

Wassa suggested renaming the Billboard widget to the "Signal Secure Messaging" app, which I did halfway through the day, but as far as I can tell, nobody ever noticed that and I suspect he's deeply disappointed in you all. Feel free to apologize him and perhaps consider reinstating his $2.13/year salary. That idea alone was worth at least $2.13. ;o)

-- Ryan

Sooooo Happyyyy to see
“ATLAS”Quest and Marjorie back !!!

You are so witty- thoroughly enjoyed this one!

From one satirist to another, you nailed it!

Good one GT, funny and timely! The banter surrounding it also added to the fun. I even learned a lesson: Being blonde is not for me and I will just be satisfied with my silver hair. After all, I earned every one of them.

It was certainly an “interesting” look for you, Silver Eagle! 🤣

Whew, I'm glad I didn't go through with changing my trail name to Trekkie Person!

TG

In my humble opinion it was the best April fools prank yet.

It was really funny, but I don’t think anything can top the year GT showed us how to melt down and reuse our scraps of pink stuff…

oooo! when was that one? I don't remember it, but it does sound interesting. I really did enjoy this one however ;-)

That one fooled me! I was so disappointed when it turned out to be a prank!

That was 2013, and you can find it online at Baking Your Own Carving Blocks.

It's the only April Fools joke that I felt there's a good chance I could have fallen for if I wasn't the one making it! =)

-- Ryan

That was brilliant!!! :-D

I would have been thoroughly fooled, but that isn't saying much ;-) Thanks for showing me your brilliance!

I reached out to Speedball company a while back and asked them if I could melt down my scraps to reuse them: I got a very legally worded and firm 'NO - don't do it, bad chemicals would kill everyone message' back. I was bummed that I had saved a huge bucket of shavings with no hope to reuse them. Still kinda want to try it one day (in a very well ventilated space and someone else's kitchen appliances).

I look forward to AQ's April 1st updates every year! Thanks for the smiles!

Google has recently changed how they charge for the use of Google Maps and related products, and what used to be free for AQ to use is now costing actual money--so, I've turned it into a premium member perk.

Sorry for those who aren't premium members. It's not you--it's Google! They charged based on how much use it gets, so the fewer mapping requests they get from AQ, the less it costs! Since premium members are paying for it, I'll keep letting them use the maps despite the costs.

Note that this only affects the maps that are actually embedded into AQ such as when you run a search for boxes then have them all displayed on a map. The map buttons for an individual box that link to Google's website still work for everyone. It's just a link to a separate website (e.g. Google's!), and that they don't charge for. So you can still look up locations for individual boxes... but only one at a time. It's the maps where it looks like you're still on AQ's website and using a Google Map that won't work anymore.

Sorry for the inconvenience!

-- Ryan