You can now add totally custom data points to your trips by using the new custom fields feature.

Do you want to track a specific type of cave identifier, or how many bolts you've placed, or quite literally anything else? Simply set up your custom field labels via the account page and the fields you have defined will be available to add to any trip, and displayed just like the existing data fields.

Do be aware — once you've set a custom field up and started adding data to it, you won't be able to rename or delete it without removing the data from all trips that reference it first — so make sure there aren't any typos!

I've fleshed out the help page with some explanations of how trip privacy works, as well as some information about exactly where you can expect your data to show up — will it appear in search engines, for example?

I realise that confidentiality of information is a huge issue in the caving community, and it has always been my ambition to ensure that all data submitted to caves.app is totally private until the user specifies otherwise. It goes without saying that it is unlikely that anyone would want to use a website where they have concerns about the privacy of their data, or are confused about who their data is visible to.

Everything on caves.app is totally private, by default. It will always remain that way, even when new features are added. All profiles are, by default, visible only to the user they belong to. Trips, by default, inherit the privacy settings of the user profile — so they are private too. If a user does choose to make their profile visible, either to their friends or the general public, they will have to opt-in (via their account settings) to have their trip notes displayed to other users. I don't want anyone to be displaying any data to the world by accident.

For further information about exactly how the privacy system works, have a look at the new items on the help page.

I've reached the stage where I am now happy enough with the backend of the project to publish the source code. You can view a copy on on the GitHub repo.

If you come across any bugs, or wish to request any features, feel free to open an issue on GitHub - contributions are also welcome!

I'd just like to take a few moments to thank the people that are using the site - it's lovely to see that it is useful to cavers around the world.

In a major update, you can now interact with other users much more than was possible before.

You can add add friends and view their trips in your timeline, as well as like and comment on both your own and other user's trips.

There are some additional options present in the account section to manage who can add you as a friend and whether or not people can comment on your posts.

All of your privacy options are unchanged and nothing is visible to other users that you do not explicitly make public.

If you have any questions, feedback, or come across any inevitable bugs, please let me know by emailing admin@caves.app or joining the new Discord server.

Thanks for using caves.app and I hope you enjoy the new features!