InGodsHands

Another bad decision from Geocaching.com just like when they said the virtuals were finished - then they had to reverse themselves when they listened to their users. Many people have invested a lot of time in benchmarking and the USA is a large & favorite place for international geocachers/benchmarkers (from Canada and Europe). This seems to be another short-sighted, under-researched idea from the central systems group that struggles to make changes that improve functionality. They seem to be more interested in shrinking the scope of things they have to support (not that they have supported benchmarks very well at all in the past). Eventually, I'll let my Premium membership lapse because they keep providing less and less of what I value. I do not do Lab caches and GeoTours so all their work in these areas is lost on me. I do many benchmarks so this proposed change will affect me.

The new advanced search is good. It would be even better if the results-set could be downloaded as a pocket query.

The Geocaching search/filtering capability needs to be significantly improved. At a minimum you should be able to alpha search the cache title for a string ANYWHERE IN THE CACHE TITLE (not just starts with) AND also specify a state/country. For the compilation caches you are interested in finding all the "Welcome to" caches in the state of Florida or "Challenge" caches in Oregon. The GSAK application provides a good example of the ultimate in searching/filtering capability. The Geocaching search filter should allow the user to specify a COMPOSITE SEARCH/FILTER (i.e. several parameters at once): cache name contains, cache name starts with the letter, distance (less than, greater than, in between), difficulty (less than, greater than, in between, equal to), Terrain, available status (archived, disabled, active), owner name contains, favourite points (less than, greater than), placed date, cache type, container size, state contains, country contains, GC Code contains. By allowing the user to specify these parameters the SQL query could be dynamically built and the the results set returned to the screen. Also allow the results set to be stored as a Pocket Query for download.

The Geocaching search/filtering capability needs to be significantly improved. At a minimum you should be able to alpha search the cache title for a string and also specify a state/country. For the compilation caches you are interested in finding all the "Welcome to" caches in the state of Florida. Now you have to sift through the 227 pages looking for Florida caches. The GSAK application provides a good example of the ultimate in filtering capability. The search filter should allow the user to specify: cache name conatins, distance (less than, greater than, in between), difficulty (less than, greater than, in between, equal to), Terrain, available status (archived, disabled, active), owner name contains, favourite points (less than, greater than), placed date, cache type, container size, state contains, country contains, GC Code contains. By allowing the user to specify these parameters the SQL query could by dynamically built and the the results set returned to the screen. Also allow the results set to be stored as a Pocket Query for download.

It would be nice to have a line at the top of the Souvenir page showing the total number of souvenirs received: MrPirateCat has received 55 souvenirs

With the demise of "challenges" it's time to bring Virtuals back.

Having to re-jig the MrPirateCat Public Holiday Challenge plan to accommodate a trip to Las Vegas at Christmas. Was initially puzzled at how to do this but virtuals abound in LV so I think we're back on track. Happy holidays to y'all.

Lyn and I had a very traditional Thanksgiving albeit romping around Pennsylvania and New York picking off some oldies.

We'll be having a more "traditional" Labour Day

Aww shucks, so sorry to hear you will be out of town for the "Midnight Madness" event. Should anyone be crazy enough to show up - and who's to say anyone will - you'll be in everyone's shivering thoughts. I'm sure there will be several there. One of them would have been me too. I'll post my 12th to find on March 1st LOL.

Nicely on track for this challenge. Only one problem - we got no chance at FTF . We'll be doing a traditional in Hawaii on Family Day . At least we'll avoid the mob scene in the middle of the night. That should be funny. Take pics of all the FTF midnight maniacs. Fun challenge.............MPC