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Favorite Points and Pocket Queries


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Dear Groundspeak.

Geocaching for me isn't about the numbers. Rather it's about the memories, quality, and challenge of the cache. I live in an area that is saturated with numerous park and grabs which for me, makes geocaching in my area not interesting. I think the favorite pts. is an awesome addition to the game. My only request is that can you incorporate favorite points with building pocket queries??? My apologies if there is already a thread. Thanks! Have a totally awesome day! :laughing:

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Any news yet on when the favorites are finally added to Pocket Queries?

That feature would be very nice!!

 

We almost certainly would not have that information. It is very rare that Groundspeak shares that with the public. And even once it is in the pocket query, whatever tool you are using to work with the pocket query (GSAK, etc) would also have to make use of the new data.

 

You can sort by the favorite column when you display a list of caches on the website, however. Go to a cache and select the All Nearby Caches (or other similar link). In the list that is displayed, click on the column header for favorite points (the blue ribbon). Odds are good that the most favorite cache will be too far away from your center point (the radius is 50 miles), but if you add &dist=10 to the URL, the radius used will be 10 miles:

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?lat=44.941750&lng=-92.867433&sortdir=desc&sort=fav&dist=10

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Groundspeak would not share that information ... you mean with informatoin the date when it is available or the favorites information?
I'm pretty sure that knowschad meant that Groundspeak is unlikely to share the specific schedule for making this feature available.

 

Groundspeak has already said that they plan to make Favorites information available in PQ data.

 

My guess is that they're planning a big update to the GPX format, which will include several new features (the new "nano" size, Favorites data, etc.), and that they're also working with all their partners to make sure everyone's software will be able to handle the new GPX format without blowing up. I don't have any inside information though. I'm just guessing based on my experience with software development.

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I believe that the new version of GSAK (8.0) has a feature that allows you to do a cache search and one of the search fields is # of favorite points.

 

Actually not...as far as I can tell. :(

 

There are plans to include the favorites point data in the PQs at some future date, and currently GSAK can apply favorites points to caches you specify in a filter. I don't see any way to filter (in GSAK) on favorites points.

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I believe that the new version of GSAK (8.0) has a feature that allows you to do a cache search and one of the search fields is # of favorite points.

 

Actually not...as far as I can tell. :(

 

There are plans to include the favorites point data in the PQs at some future date, and currently GSAK can apply favorites points to caches you specify in a filter. I don't see any way to filter (in GSAK) on favorites points.

 

On the search pages, bottom of general tab. Search on favorites. :)

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You can sort by the favorite column when you display a list of caches on the website, then bookmark the results, and PQ that.

 

This is faster then pulling and compiling individual gpx from the search results, and if your list is public and shared, others can see it and PQ it.

 

You may find that such a list already exists in your area, though it may well have a search center that's not ideal for you.

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In the Netherlands we used to have (before the Favorites) a very good system. It is now not updated any more - a real pity. It showed also some statistics on (like) favorites/founds and some stuff on caches of cache owners.

 

We now have it back via the website Favorites statistics. It's experimental, but a good step. It helps to quickly find areas where there are a lot of valued geocaches.

Edited by tjm1706
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If you use the geocaching API on the new version of GSAK to retrieve cache data, you will get favorite points. You can even limit the caches returned with a threshold of 0-9999 favorite points.

 

It would still be nice to have the information in PQs. They had planned that for an earlier release but did not implement that feature.

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If you use the geocaching API on the new version of GSAK to retrieve cache data, you will get favorite points. You can even limit the caches returned with a threshold of 0-9999 favorite points.

 

It would still be nice to have the information in PQs. They had planned that for an earlier release but did not implement that feature.

 

Hmmm, so it does.

But, the 'feature' is still mostly useless if you have a database of 16000+ caches.

A maximum update of 6000 caches would make it take three days to accomplish.

I suppose if you really cared THAT MUCH about favorites points... <_<

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They are promising it after the first of the year. http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=286235 Woohoo!

 

I use the GSAK API for favorite points mostly for when I visit different areas so I'm not updating as large a DB as AZcachemeister. Also, if you limit it to caches with 5+ favorite points you actually might be able to get all 16,000 in one execution.

 

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I got on today just to see if this was possible. I too am way more interested in the quality of the caches I do over the number. I still don't see anything yet. In the Groundspeak forums it does not mention that you will be able to designate how many favorite points in the query. For me though if I can just put that it needs one favorite point and that I have not found it, that would probably sort through thousands of film canisters under a light post base.

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