Geocaching Premium members get sneak peek at new Advanced Search

[+CanadianRockies]

I used to be able to go the the basic search page, click on the link to map the nearest caches to my home, see every cache in the Calgary area, and hide the ones I had found. I could move the map to the right, and the screen would be repopulated with unfound caches from the mountains west of Calgary. Then I could find a good hiking route for the day.

 

To find a route now, I must center the search around a place in the mountains. If I don't see any interesting hiking routes among the 1,000 displayed unfound caches on that map, then I have to find another location to center on. That isn't nearly as convenient as the dynamic map from the "good ol' days."

I have found some workarounds for this issue. The quickest way to access the dynamic map might be to bring up a cache page, then click on the "View Larger Map" link above the medium-sized map near the bottom of that page. It's more awkward than the old search page's link to the dynamic map, but it's more convenient than feeding multiple locations into the new search page.

[Keystone]

I used to be able to go the the basic search page, click on the link to map the nearest caches to my home, see every cache in the Calgary area, and hide the ones I had found. I could move the map to the right, and the screen would be repopulated with unfound caches from the mountains west of Calgary. Then I could find a good hiking route for the day.

Go to your profile page and click the map icon in the right-hand column, under "search options."

[+CanadianRockies]

I used to be able to go the the basic search page, click on the link to map the nearest caches to my home, see every cache in the Calgary area, and hide the ones I had found. I could move the map to the right, and the screen would be repopulated with unfound caches from the mountains west of Calgary. Then I could find a good hiking route for the day.

Go to your profile page and click the map icon in the right-hand column, under "search options."

That does the job. Thanks.

[+thebruce0]

Or bookmark http://coord.info/map

[+NYPaddleCacher]

Or bookmark http://coord.info/map

 

Or select "View Geocache Map" on the Play menu from your profile page.

 

 

 

[+-CJ-]

The painful new search really took away much functionality from basic members and I've already started to get complaints about this from my compatriots.

 

Again, I'm not going to debate the cost of a premium account or the obvious fact that a large website needs to get some support to continue running. Instead, I'd like to focus on the local context.

 

Basic member (a geocaching newbie) in Chicago may easily start with his home coordinates, a simple 50km radius and a cache type filter (the only one left for basic members, actually). It's possible because of the fact that there are tons of caches in Chicago and any newbie will easily get many variants to choose from as his/her starting point(s). The radius covers the whole territory of the city and more. On the other hand, in (say) Komi Republic, one of Russian regions, there might be yet no caches at all (or very few of them) and the 50km radius gives nothing to one who's interested in new caches in Komi because the territory of the region is so large. The search tool becomes quite disappointing.

 

It seems to me that the new search system was introduced without such territories (and geocachers) in mind.

 

Back to the money issue: to get someone subscribed to some feature you need to get this person interested in this feature. You should not expect people to be happy to pay for something that provides no visual/practical results. Moreover, these changes make the life of us geocaching enthusiasts in Russia harder because we have to somehow explain newcomers why the website search (which they've successfully used before) suddenly almost stopped working for them.

[+De Schaffel]

I do like the feature to search advanced by favo-points. I only wonder why this is not possible when we create a query or is the only reason that one ignores the "lesser" caches? Sorry if this question was already posted