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Geocaching Premium members get sneak peek at new Advanced Search


Rock Chalk

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Also why do searches for US caches have to be limited by State? If I want to search for all Webcam caches in the US, I can't do that in one search. Same for being able to search for all caches in the US that were placed in 2000. It would be really nice to be able to do a search that covers all of the US.

Just in case you aren't already aware...

 

You can do these types of searches using PQ. Just select multiple states/provinces in the "Within" box. There currently are 153 webcams in the U.S. (including D.C.) and 92 caches placed in 2000.

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You can do these types of searches using PQ. Just select multiple states/provinces in the "Within" box. There currently are 153 webcams in the U.S. (including D.C.) and 92 caches placed in 2000.

 

In fact, almost everything you can do with this 'Advanced' Search can be done using pocket queries. New look, little more functionality (+ limited in distance).

I was hoping to list my DNFs with this new feature, but guess I'll have to keep using a bookmark list. Only Groundspeak knows how many geocachers have a bookmark list called 'DNF'...

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Huge agreement with the person who said we need to be able to download a GPX of the results - I'd hate to hone in on a set of caches and then have no way to export the data. Being able to add them to a bookmark list would also be awesome (or an alternative, since you can run a PQ on a bookmark list).

 

Thanks, Groundspeak!

 

Yes! I was a little surprised that when I clicked on "Map These Results", there wasn't an option to create a PQ. Perhaps that is going to be included down the road. Bookmarking the results would achieve the same thing. Whichever way is fine with me.

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The search looks good to me, but I found a bug with the location marker. When I hit the little arrow to centre the search on my location it fills in my location as "N 51° 00.337′ W ° 55.802′", and then fails to find anything regardless of the filter options I choose, however if I then edit the location it filled in to "N 51° 00.337′ W000 ° 55.802′" the search works properly. Both Google Chrome and Firefox return the location without the zeros. Note I am very close to the Greenwich meridian so this is going to be an edge case only affecting cachers in parts of the UK, France, Spain, and some North African countries, but it would be nice if this could be fixed before it goes live.

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I got nuttin' when trying to search with one word of cache name

 

Works for me.... did you specify enough of a search radius to get the cache(s) you were expecting?

 

I can not enter anything into search radius, which may be the problem. (Windows 7, IE 11)I'll wait...

 

If you don't enter an origin location in the main search box, you won't be able to set a distance.

 

That wasn't real obvious to me. I went straight to the "filters" page. Once I updated the filters and went back and entered in the location I saw that I could enter a distance value. However, it would only let me enter a value less than 30 miles.

 

It looks like there is a lot of goodness there. The first thing I tried was a search for caches with corrected coordinates. I was hoping that I would get a list of *all* caches for which I had used the corrected coordinates, but it would only return a list of caches within 30 miles of the location I entered. I've solved well over a 100 puzzles for caches that I have not yet found and they're in locations all over the world. It hasn't been mentioned, but if the same search interface and backend code is going to be used for pocket queries i it would be nice if a proximity limit was not enforced.

 

NYPC, re the 30 mile limit you're seeing, try searching without a location. When I filtered by "corrected coordinates" I got one of them returned from the Gobi desert, clear around the globe. I'd inadvertently set E instead of W for longitude. Answered the question as to why it never showed up on the GPS when I was in the right area.

 

On the request list, it'd be nice to be able to export the results, either to file or to a PQ.

 

Yes, I am aware that one can filter by region or regions or other non-locationBased criteria. You should see the map I get when I only filter by corrected coordinates. The issue, to me, is that when searching without a location the results are not ordered nor sortable. I can see lots of caches beyond a 30mi radius but I have no idea where they actually are without clicking on the title for each listing, or showing them on a map (which, I suppose isn't a bad workaround).

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I am probably really reaching with this one but search engines based on Lucene or Solr (and Google search syntax does this too) allow one to apply filters in the search query.

 

For example, I might able to enter something like: Ithaca, NY cachetype:unknown size:small and it would return a list of small, unknown caches near Ithaca, NY. Basically, every filter has a field name, and using fieldname:value in the search string allows you to apply the filter in the search string without going to a separate page to set the filter.

 

The value strings also support the notion of wild cards and ranges. For example:

 

title:"Head Alien #??" would use the ? as a single character match and return caches named Head Alien #01, Head Alien #02, etc.

title:Head* would use the * to match 1 or more characters and return a list of caches for which the title starts with Head

 

For expressing ranges one could type something like

 

difficulty:{3 TO 5} AND terrain:{1 TO 2} and you'll get caches with difficulty of 3 and higher that also have a terrain of 2 or less

 

Unless, this sort of query syntax as built in from the start, implementing something like this would be difficult, but if a search engine is based on Lucene or Solr you basically get this sort of query parseing out of the box.

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I see there's a Distance column, altho no data in it, so sure hope that will be in the release (and that you can do an entire state, not just 30 miles).

Again this is because there's no origin location, if you searched for caches in a state.

Only way around this was the suggestion to default the centerpoint to your home coordinates if you've provided them, if no other origin is defined, so that there's still a distance value.

 

If you don't see distance, it means you didn't provide a search location (which is not the same as 'search within')

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I see there's a Distance column, altho no data in it, so sure hope that will be in the release (and that you can do an entire state, not just 30 miles).

Again this is because there's no origin location, if you searched for caches in a state.

Only way around this was the suggestion to default the centerpoint to your home coordinates if you've provided them, if no other origin is defined, so that there's still a distance value.

 

If you don't see distance, it means you didn't provide a search location (which is not the same as 'search within')

 

Yep, providing a search location resolves to a set of lat/long coordinates (returned from a geocoding service). Providing a value for "Search Within" would basically resolve to a location code (e.g. Alabama is state_id=60), thus the results would be caches which have a state_id=60. While a region (state, country) could have bounding coordinates, GS would probably have to calculate a center point for that region (what's the center point for California?)

 

The suggestion that I made was that when a location was not provided, they could iterate of the result of the query, add a distance value based on the lat/long of each cache and ones homes coordinate, the render the results sorted by distance. It would be an extra step required before sending the results to the viewing layer, but most of the searches are going to be location based and already have a distances value. If GS is concerned about performance they could impose a limit on the number of results returned in a locationless based search.

 

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The ability to filter by "minimum number of favorite points" is nice, since it's a little more convenient than using the PQ to do the same thing. What would be really great, however, is the ability to filter by both the "minimum number of favorite points" and the "minimum favorite points percentage." That way, I could search for all the caches in an area that have, say, at least 5 FPs and at least 25% favorited. Sort the results by FP%, and I've got myself a really useful list.

 

Yes,,, i filter now for favorite points but doing this can cause me to miss newer or seldom visited caches. Would be nice if we could filter for a ratio of favorite points to total finds. There's a good chance that a cache with 10 finds and 8 favorite points is going to be a good one but it would not show up when i filter for caches with say, a minimum of 10 favorite points.

 

For now, just being able to quickly filter for favs is a nice improvment,,, Thanks Groundspeak! B)

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The ability to filter by "minimum number of favorite points" is nice, since it's a little more convenient than using the PQ to do the same thing. What would be really great, however, is the ability to filter by both the "minimum number of favorite points" and the "minimum favorite points percentage." That way, I could search for all the caches in an area that have, say, at least 5 FPs and at least 25% favorited. Sort the results by FP%, and I've got myself a really useful list.

Yes,,, i filter now for favorite points but doing this can cause me to miss newer or seldom visited caches. Would be nice if we could filter for a ratio of favorite points to total finds. There's a good chance that a cache with 10 finds and 8 favorite points is going to be a good one but it would not show up when i filter for caches with say, a minimum of 10 favorite points.

I'd also be happy with the existing FP filter if the results displayed a sortable column displaying the FP%. That way, I could filter for caches with 5+ FPs, then sort the results by FP%.

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You can do these types of searches using PQ. Just select multiple states/provinces in the "Within" box. There currently are 153 webcams in the U.S. (including D.C.) and 92 caches placed in 2000.

 

In fact, almost everything you can do with this 'Advanced' Search can be done using pocket queries. New look, little more functionality (+ limited in distance).

I was hoping to list my DNFs with this new feature, but guess I'll have to keep using a bookmark list. Only Groundspeak knows how many geocachers have a bookmark list called 'DNF'...

 

The key word there is "almost" -- you can't search by cache name with pocket queries. It would be nice to be able to do a nationwide search by cache name.

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I have to say that I like it. But I only liked it after I figured out what they were trying to do with the search.

 

I really wish the search page was clearer about what to enter to get started. I thought I could just enter...well, anything to get started. It wasn't really clear that it was something along the lines of, "to get started, please enter a location for your search area..." I plugged in "Payback" to search for a series I'm trying to complete, and it came back with an error. That's when I realized that I needed a location to get started.

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The key word there is "almost" -- you can't search by cache name with pocket queries. It would be nice to be able to do a nationwide search by cache name.

 

project-gc can do it and according to what I deduce from what is written in this thread and elsewhere is much nicer to use for someone who likes to type in data base quere like search commands and a use a colourful click-click thing which appeals to a completely different audience. I preferred a system of the type sketched in some posts of NYPaddleCacher. That would really be nice.

Edited by cezanne
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I know most everyone realizes this, but just to reiterate, the page isn't 100% complete yet. Some things may change before the official release.

 

We can't respond to each and every suggestion in this thread. But please know they're all being read. Also, a survey will be sent to Geocaching Premium members in the upcoming weeks asking for feedback about Advanced Search.

 

The team here has been working really hard on this and the player in me is very excited about the tools. I've got a couple weekend trips coming up, and being able to easily search for "challenge" or specific D/T ratings is really nice.

 

Would it be possible for each section to have a checkbox allowing the user to save the settings of that particular group and use them as defaults on the next search? For example, I would almost never want to search for disabled caches, or caches that I own, or caches that I have found. I would love to have my defaults saved for the next time I go there.

 

Otherwise, looks awesome! Thanks for listening to our needs! You've added some good stuff there.

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so far my searches have returned the expected results. I love being able to select 'not found by'!

 

One thing for the wish list... the ability to convert the search results to a PQ or .gpx file so I can load them in my GPSr.

 

Absolutely on this one !!! We need a .gpx or convert to a PQ. This is a great start. It will be very helpful in the time consuming research qualifying for certain challenge caches. B)

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I guess I don't understand how to search from my home coordinates. When I click the "use my location" arrow, it picks up my ISP location. My ISP is based in Detroit, MI and I'm outside Columbus, OH...that does me no good. I mean I guess I could go into my profile and copy/paste, or memorize my home coords and type them in. Hopefully this is part of the "not 100% complete".

Edited by Mr. 0
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I have to say that I like it. But I only liked it after I figured out what they were trying to do with the search.

 

I really wish the search page was clearer about what to enter to get started. I thought I could just enter...well, anything to get started. It wasn't really clear that it was something along the lines of, "to get started, please enter a location for your search area..." I plugged in "Payback" to search for a series I'm trying to complete, and it came back with an error. That's when I realized that I needed a location to get started.

 

I did not put in a location and upon adding filters it says "Searching without Location" I queried caches I found with the name railroad in the cache name and it found them country wide! I like that... :)

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I have to say that I like it. But I only liked it after I figured out what they were trying to do with the search.

 

I really wish the search page was clearer about what to enter to get started. I thought I could just enter...well, anything to get started. It wasn't really clear that it was something along the lines of, "to get started, please enter a location for your search area..." I plugged in "Payback" to search for a series I'm trying to complete, and it came back with an error. That's when I realized that I needed a location to get started.

 

I did not put in a location and upon adding filters it says "Searching without Location" I queried caches I found with the name railroad in the cache name and it found them country wide! I like that... :)

 

Hmmm, try as I might I have not been able to do what you did. I can get it for one state but not the whole US. More power to'ya.

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I have to say that I like it. But I only liked it after I figured out what they were trying to do with the search.

 

I really wish the search page was clearer about what to enter to get started. I thought I could just enter...well, anything to get started. It wasn't really clear that it was something along the lines of, "to get started, please enter a location for your search area..." I plugged in "Payback" to search for a series I'm trying to complete, and it came back with an error. That's when I realized that I needed a location to get started.

 

I did not put in a location and upon adding filters it says "Searching without Location" I queried caches I found with the name railroad in the cache name and it found them country wide! I like that... :)

 

Hmmm, try as I might I have not been able to do what you did. I can get it for one state but not the whole US. More power to'ya.

 

I, too, have been unable to get anything other than the "DNF" message without entering a location on the main page or entering something in the "Search Only In" filter box. My most recent attempt was to enter nothing on the first page and on the filter page entering "Legends" in the "Geocache Name Contains" filter box. I left everything else the same and got "DNF".

 

Edit to say that the DNF message itself is confusing:

 

Oh no, a DNF! We couldn't find any geocaches that matched your search. Here are a few things to try:

•Clear individual filters by clicking the 'X' next to the filters listed above

•Adjust your filters and search again

 

There were no "filters listed above" as suggested in the first bullet point.

Edited by Car54
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The cache search seems to be like me when I first started....NOTHING BUT DNF.

 

I skip the location and try to locate caches with the word micro in the title, with no other items checked. DNF

If I put in a location, I am limited to a 30 mile radius. NO GOOD for my semi-rural area. Why not a 500 mile radius, like in a PQ?

 

How do I search for ALL the caches with a certain term in the title, without the 30 mile radius?

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It would be great if the search function would just expand the radius until it reached a set limit of caches, say 1000, or reached a set radius limit, say 250 miles. As it is, I can't seem to make it work for me.

 

I skipped the location, added my home state and got some results, finally! Problem is, I can't sort them relative to my location. I have no need for those located 500 miles away, but in my state.

 

I want caches with a certain word in their title that are within a couple of hundred miles of my home. I live within 120 miles of three other states. If as someone posted above, the results are not sortable by distance from my home location, they are basically useless.

 

I realize this is a work in process, but maybe some thought could be given to searching from a central point, with more than a 30 mile limit.

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I seem to have encountered a bug.

 

For search location, I use "Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada"

 

For non-default filters:

Within 50 kilometers of search location

Geocache Name Contains...: "Jigsaw #1"

I haven't found

I don't own

Enabled

 

The search returns the correct results, sorted by ascending distance. Fine so far.

 

But if I click on any of the Favorites, Size, or Last Found column headers to sort by that column, the new Advanced Search eliminates all the filters except for the 50 kilometers radius and the "Geocache Name Contains...", which it changes to simply "Jigsaw", then sorts the new results by ascending distance. The new results include caches I have previously found (and presumably would include caches I own and disabled caches).

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I guess I don't understand how to search from my home coordinates. When I click the "use my location" arrow, it picks up my ISP location. My ISP is based in Detroit, MI and I'm outside Columbus, OH...that does me no good. I mean I guess I could go into my profile and copy/paste, or memorize my home coords and type them in. Hopefully this is part of the "not 100% complete".

 

My Location is really only useful on mobile, not desktop. To search from home, for now you can enter "Home" as the search location

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Seems to work good for me.

 

One suggestion: It looks like you can sort the results by everything but the name of the cache. It would be nice to have that ability.

 

Also, there's a lot of white space when the list comes back. Seems like you could 'compress' that a bit to fit more results on the screen.

 

I could live without sorting by name if the proximity limit is removed. A 30 mile distance limitation is very constraining.

 

I'd like to know if the advanced search form and additional search criteria will be included for pocket query searches. If so, once you've got your results they'r easily sortable by a waypoint manager such as GSAK.

I agree. At least they could give us 100 miles.

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I have to say that I like it. But I only liked it after I figured out what they were trying to do with the search.

 

I really wish the search page was clearer about what to enter to get started. I thought I could just enter...well, anything to get started. It wasn't really clear that it was something along the lines of, "to get started, please enter a location for your search area..." I plugged in "Payback" to search for a series I'm trying to complete, and it came back with an error. That's when I realized that I needed a location to get started.

 

I did not put in a location and upon adding filters it says "Searching without Location" I queried caches I found with the name railroad in the cache name and it found them country wide! I like that... :)

 

Being be search without a location and search for a string any where in the cache title is nice, but without a location, you can't tell how far away each cache is from the search results. If I'm looking for a cache with railroad in the title, I'm probably would to find the one that is closest to me, and if I enter a location, and the closest cache with railroad in the title is more than 30 miles from me I'm not going to see it. Maybe the 30mi radius works in cache rich areas like Dallas, San Diego or Seattle, but for anyone that lives in an area which doesn't have a gazillion caches (which is most of the world) a 30mi radius is very constraining.

 

I appreciate the fact that Moun10bike has been answering a lot of questions about the new Advanced Search but I don't recall seeing anything about why the 30mi proximity limit was chosen and if it's going to stay that way.

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I appreciate the fact that Moun10bike has been answering a lot of questions about the new Advanced Search but I don't recall seeing anything about why the 30mi proximity limit was chosen and if it's going to stay that way.

 

I'm not sure why 30 miles was chosen (possibly because 30 miles ≈ 50 km, so roundish numbers in both systems), but when I asked about future plans, Moun10Bike responded with:

 

Is it hoped that this limitation can be overcome in the not-too-distant future?

Definitely. We need to overhaul the data service, though, and get rid of the performance bottleneck that we currently have with the database.

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Have you tried clearing cookies and cache just in case you have something in your browser that is messing things up for you?

I just encountered another issue with results from a prior search coming up in subsequent searches, this time with keyword results ("challenge") being shown in the results of other searches (I Own, Has Personal Geocache Note, etc.). It doesn't seem very robust or tolerant of cached data. I'm not sure if this is just the browser setup here at work (IE 11) causing the problem or not, but it would be pretty annoying to have to clear the cache every few searches. I'll take some time to play with it in Firefox at home this weekend to see if I can replicate it.

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Another bug (I cleared my cache this time to make sure! :lol: ):

When I do a search for "I Own" (with all other filters at defaults), I get some incorrect results mixed in with the correct ones. The incorrect ones are all archived caches where the "Placed by" field contains the string "The A-Team". The actual name of the owners of these caches is something different, confirmed by bringing up the caches and clicking on the "Placed by" name. Some of the ones that incorrectly come up:

GC8107 - Owner: MR Andersen

GC679 - Owner: A-Team

GC521A - Owner: sprint24

GC28Z3N - Owner: nirakmit

GC2KEZW - Owner: John Hannibal Smith

 

All are archived and all have the "Placed by" field set to "The A-Team". I would have expected the search to query using the GUID or member ID of my account, but it seems to be doing a simple string search (at least for archived caches).

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I would have expected the search to query using the GUID or member ID of my account, but it seems to be doing a simple string search (at least for archived caches).

Yeah if the username selection is based on choosing from a dropdown list of valid matches, one would expect it to use that user's id, not just the text match (of which there may be many, many)

However Placed By isn't the same as Owned By (as most already know). Placed By doesn't have a userid and is free text; Owner is the proper field for precise user matching

.

"Hidden By" is new wording in this search that doesn't match with Owner or Placed By, and is confusing. It really should be one or the other, or explained what exactly "Hidden By" searches...

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I would have expected the search to query using the GUID or member ID of my account, but it seems to be doing a simple string search (at least for archived caches).

Yeah if the username selection is based on choosing from a dropdown list of valid matches, one would expect it to use that user's id, not just the text match (of which there may be many, many)

 

You probably know this but a dropdown (select list) displays text strings which are associated with a value that is sent to the server when that text string is selected. For example, when selecting from a list of countries in the Search by Country form on the Hide and Seek a cache page, selecting "China" doesn't send "China" as a string. It sends a country_id equal to 47. Similarly, selecting "The A-Team" from a list of user names *should* send the GUID or member ID for "The A-Team" to the server.

 

 

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Didn't notice this mentioned, but it would also be nice if there was also a Keyword Search filter that included the cache description as well. For instance, if you're looking for cemetery caches, sometimes the cache name doesn't denote cemetery, but the description might.

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Yeah if the username selection is based on choosing from a dropdown list of valid matches, one would expect it to use that user's id, not just the text match (of which there may be many, many)

You probably know this but...

Yes, yes I do. What I was saying was that one would expect that selecting an item from a dropdown list of matching items from the database (each of which is associated with an id), the search would perform a match using the id as the parameter, not just using the text value as a different search parameter. ie, one would expect a search for the username to pull a match of only that username (that is, 'owned by') and not all caches with a username that matches that username text in some manner (more applicable for a 'placed by' search, which is free text entry).

Additionally, "Hidden By" doesn't intuitively mean either Owned By nor Placed By. So the fact that the dropdown uses unique usernames is what implies that the Hidden By search is searching for OwnerID matches, not a keyword search on the Placed By value (or even worse, a keyword search on the cross-referenced cache owner's Username, which could end up unintentionally matching multiple owner usernames).

 

The current common terminology is Owned By and Placed By - the search field should at least be one of those two. Free-text username search? Search 'Placed By'. Selecting from username dropdown list of matches? Search 'Owned By' (by OwnerID of the selected user)

 

*babble*babble*babble* :laughing:

Edited by thebruce0
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We're super excited to be unveiling to Geocaching Premium members a first-look at the new and improved Advanced Search, a tool that's been requested by the geocaching community. It's been completely retooled, revamped and streamlined based on geocaching community feedback. Here are a few of the features we've been working on:

 

  • Search by Geocache Name – Look for any geocache with a certain keyword in its name, anywhere in the name, not just at the beginning.
  • Search by Minimum Favorite Points – Only like finding the best of the best? This will make it easier.
  • Filters – Narrow your search with ease using filters like geocache type, D/T and more.

Keep in mind this page isn't 100% complete yet, so some things may change before the official release.

 

Just curious about how to make this search function work for me in this situation.

I want a list of caches within a useable distance from my home location (say 150 miles) that have a certain word in their title. This radius will encompass a portion of 4 states. I've managed to do a search for each state, but it is not very useful because almost all the results are well beyond my desired area and I find no way to hone the results.

 

When I use my home location for this search, I retrieve one listing (which I own). If the radius could be expanded to a larger number or even expand the radius outward until x number of results are listed.

 

Am I expecting too much?

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I'm pretty pleased with Advanced search so far. Most of what I have tried worked. One addition I would like to see is the ability to search on Attributes for caches within an area. Related to that I would like caches that are recognized as geocache of the week to get a special attribute. Presently I am planning a trip to Norway. I remember there was a geocache of the week there quite a while ago that I would like to get. I am presently digging through the blog to find it. I want an easier way to find those extra special cool caches.

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I got nuttin' when trying to search with one word of cache name

 

Works for me.... did you specify enough of a search radius to get the cache(s) you were expecting?

 

I can not enter anything into search radius, which may be the problem. (Windows 7, IE 11)I'll wait...

 

If you don't enter an origin location in the main search box, you won't be able to set a distance.

 

That was it. thanks

I think a larger search radius would be more desirable. With a maximum of 30 miles, that doesn't give us any help in areas we frequently travel that are over 30 miles away.

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I checked it out a few days ago and like it, I admit I haven't read all the posts but what I'd like to see added (maybe its already possible) is unlimited distance so if I want to search for all the caches with a certain word I can and the ability to make a PQ out of the results. I like the feature of finding caches 2 or more cachers each have not found, makes for an easy day planning what to find with friends so it would be nice to turn that into a PQ.

Edited by Roman!
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