GL Memo Record Location Format

The Grid Locator program GL for the Palm can read lists of locations from special MemoPad memos.
This describes the format for these location Memo records.

The GL program will search all of the Memo Database for records in this format.
To help organize your Palm, all GL memos can all be put into a category, such as GL or HAM, but this is not required. Use standard MemoPad techniques to create, edit, sync, and categorize GL memos.

The memo must begin with the tag 'GL-' or 'gl-'
After this tag is a string which is the name for the whole list.
This name might be something like 'California' or 'Massachusetts' or 'Bay Area'.

The rest of the memo contains a series of location definitions. 
Each location definition begins with '$' and includes several parameters which are separated by the delimiter '/'.
It is recommended that the '$' symbol that starts a location definition be the first character of a new line.

Here is the general format for a location:

$place_name/[MHgrid]/[latitude]/[longitude][/]

The parameters enclosed in '[]' are options and may not all be required. The parameters must be recorded in the order shown.

When the GL program evaluates a location it finds the parameters between the '/' slash characters.
It first looks for a valid lat/lon pair. If it finds them it calculates a MH grid (ignoring and MHgrid in the definition).
If there is no valid lat/lon pair the MHgrid is evaluated.  If it is valid, lat/lon values are calculated for the center of the grid.

The program has lots of flexibility in how values can be entered.

Here are several equivalent ways to record the location for Heaps Peak:
$Heaps Peak/DM14KF/34.23533 N/117.139167 W/
$Heaps Peak//34.23533/-117.139167/
$Heaps Peak/dm14kf/34d 14.1198m n/117d 8.35002' w/
$Heaps Peak/DM14KF/34 14 7 N/117d 8' 21" W/
  (a less accurate location follows...)
$Heaps Peak/DM14KF///
  (and an even less accurate location...)
$Heaps Peak/DM14///

The last location will evaluate to the center of grid DM14MM which is the center of DM14.

The program will search for up to 16 GL- memos, and each memo can hold up to 32 locations.

Here is an example of a GL- memo:

GL- Calif Mountains
$Diablo, Mt/CM97AV/37 52.99' N/121 55.19' W/  
$Frazier, Mt/DM04MS/34 46.5' N/118 58.08' W/  
$Heaps Peak /DM14KF/3
4 14 7' N/117 08.1'  W/  
$Loma Prieta/CM97BC/37 6.66' N/121 50.62' W/  
$Loma, Point/DM12JQ/32 40.6' N/117 19.6'  W/  
$Vaca, Mt /CM88WJ/38 24.0'  N/122 06.1'  W/  
  
As seen in the Heaps Peak entry in the memo above, location entries are not bothered if there is a newline in the middle somewhere.


