Jump to content

Release Notes (Website: New Search) - March 11, 2015


Recommended Posts

I realized today that there is no way to pull up a cache page for an archived cache. I needed to look at one when I was researching my qualifications for a challenge cache. The results it spits out are the closest active caches even when I search by the GC code. Archived caches are supposed to be available for viewing purposes but I see no way to get to them.

 

If you know who hid the cache, you can find the archived cache using their profile. You could try Googling the GC code. If you know someone who found the archived cache, you could go through their finds (could be very tedious). I would agree that if you didn't find the archived cache yourself or know who hid it, it gets much tougher trying to track it down.

Link to comment

I realized today that there is no way to pull up a cache page for an archived cache. I needed to look at one when I was researching my qualifications for a challenge cache. The results it spits out are the closest active caches even when I search by the GC code. Archived caches are supposed to be available for viewing purposes but I see no way to get to them.

 

If you know the GC code of the archived cache, then you can find it using the direct URL: coord.info/GCxxxxx

Link to comment

You can also find an archived cache:

 

1. By entering its GC Code in the search box on the Geocaching.com main homepage.

2. By clicking on the "Log a Geocache" from the "Play" menu along the top of each page, and entering the GC Code.

3. By looking up the caches hidden by the owner of the archived cache.

 

The new search feature is designed for finding geocaches that you can go out and search for -- not for caches that aren't there anymore.

Link to comment

You can also find an archived cache:

 

1. By entering its GC Code in the search box on the Geocaching.com main homepage.

2. By clicking on the "Log a Geocache" from the "Play" menu along the top of each page, and entering the GC Code.

3. By looking up the caches hidden by the owner of the archived cache.

 

The new search feature is designed for finding geocaches that you can go out and search for -- not for caches that aren't there anymore.

 

This can be a real problem for anyone who travels, attends an event or finds a cache which is archived before the get somewhere they can post their logs. When I flew to Georgia I didn't get all my logging done for a couple of weeks after I returned home. Not everything should be assumed easy and instant.

Link to comment
This can be a real problem for anyone who travels, attends an event or finds a cache which is archived before the get somewhere they can post their logs. When I flew to Georgia I didn't get all my logging done for a couple of weeks after I returned home. Not everything should be assumed easy and instant.
One of the reasons I like using field notes is that I don't have to find the cache listings any more. I just go to my list of field notes and submit the logs. Even when the events have been archived, logging them using field notes is easy.

 

Of course, it should still be simple to look up any geocache listing given only the GC code.

Link to comment

Read the previous release notes

 

We're excited to announce that the new Search tool is now available to all Geocaching members. It's faster, easier to use and helps you find the exact adventure you want—and it's all thanks to the geocaching community. Geocaching Premium members took a sneak peek at the new tool and we appreciate all the feedback and suggestions we've received to date!

 

Go ahead and take it for a spin by searching for Pi Day events and Mystery Caches near you so you can earn your Pi Day souvenirs on March 14.

 

While you’re at it, be sure to test drive some of our favorite searches:

 


  •  
  • Find the Mystery Caches you have solved, but not yet found.
  • Plan a geocache outing with your geocaching buddies.
  • Find the most Favorited geocaches in your area.
  • Find geocaches in your state with the D/T combination that you need to complete your Fizzy Grid.

And don’t worry. We know you’re excited to download these powerful searches to your GPS device and/or sync them with the Geocaching app. (We are 100% with you there!) Our team will be working hard on building this functionality into the Search tool in the near future.

 

Visit this FAQ to learn more about Search (including how-to’s for all our favorite searches).

 

And speaking of new upgrades to Geocaching.com, check out the new Hide a Geocache page. It’s designed to be more helpful for new geocache hiders and streamlined for seasoned geocachers.

 

I have found a simple Format Problem when using your 3 most interesting searches (Events, oldest geocaches, geocaches with favorite Points). The Problem is that my home coordinates (something near 48.xxxx 10.yyyyy) are used in a "wrong" Format will say it is used with a delimiting comma instead of a decimal Point. This Looks like 48,842266, 10,100942 (this is a direct copy out of the search window) and - of course - it leads to a DNF. When I correct the given coordinates by simply entering a decimalpoint after the 48 and 10 the search works, but unfortunately not the 3 given most favorite searches. Please try to correct - I'm sure These searches are also if interest for me!

Thanks in advance H_M_A

Link to comment

I have found a simple Format Problem when using your 3 most interesting searches (Events, oldest geocaches, geocaches with favorite Points). The Problem is that my home coordinates (something near 48.xxxx 10.yyyyy) are used in a "wrong" Format will say it is used with a delimiting comma instead of a decimal Point. This Looks like 48,842266, 10,100942 (this is a direct copy out of the search window) and - of course - it leads to a DNF. When I correct the given coordinates by simply entering a decimalpoint after the 48 and 10 the search works, but unfortunately not the 3 given most favorite searches. Please try to correct - I'm sure These searches are also if interest for me!

Thanks in advance H_M_A

 

What browser are you using? Sounds like the browser is providing that format of coordinate. Or if your computer's localization settings say to use "," instead of a period for decimal values, Groundspeak can't change that.

 

But, they could add a check on their end to see - if a coordinate can't be determined - if replacing commas with periods makes a difference.

Link to comment

I have found a simple Format Problem when using your 3 most interesting searches (Events, oldest geocaches, geocaches with favorite Points). The Problem is that my home coordinates (something near 48.xxxx 10.yyyyy) are used in a "wrong" Format will say it is used with a delimiting comma instead of a decimal Point. This Looks like 48,842266, 10,100942 (this is a direct copy out of the search window) and - of course - it leads to a DNF. When I correct the given coordinates by simply entering a decimalpoint after the 48 and 10 the search works, but unfortunately not the 3 given most favorite searches. Please try to correct - I'm sure These searches are also if interest for me!

Thanks in advance H_M_A

 

What browser are you using? Sounds like the browser is providing that format of coordinate. Or if your computer's localization settings say to use "," instead of a period for decimal values, Groundspeak can't change that.

 

But, they could add a check on their end to see - if a coordinate can't be determined - if replacing commas with periods makes a difference.

 

Hi thebruce0, I am using IE11. May be the browser provides that Format of coordinates, but where do These values come from? I was sure that the search function uses the values stored and found in my personal Profile on geocaching.com. But - of course - this is stored in a format like N nn° mm.xxx' and NOT as used in the search function which looks like N nn.mmmm°. So I am not sure where my home coordinates are coming from when being used in the search window. Normally all windows dealing with my home coordinates in the geocaching.com environment are working perfect. Why is there a difference now?

When you propose a check at Groundspeak's end - if a coordinate can't be determined - that would be a great help!

Link to comment

Hi thebruce0, I am using IE11. May be the browser provides that Format of coordinates, but where do These values come from? I was sure that the search function uses the values stored and found in my personal Profile on geocaching.com. But - of course - this is stored in a format like N nn° mm.xxx' and NOT as used in the search function which looks like N nn.mmmm°. So I am not sure where my home coordinates are coming from when being used in the search window. Normally all windows dealing with my home coordinates in the geocaching.com environment are working perfect. Why is there a difference now?

When you propose a check at Groundspeak's end - if a coordinate can't be determined - that would be a great help!

 

It is interesting. I do believe that it may be your localization settings that use comma instead of period, and if Groundspeak's code is attempting to convert that string to the proper format, it can't because it doesn't know how to treat commas. That's my best guess.

 

If they don't see your issue here, you could post a new thread in the Website forum with a title beginning with "[bUG]". That should get their developers' attention. For now you can try checking your Windows' localization settings for how it treats/displays numbers.

Link to comment

 

I have found a simple Format Problem when using your 3 most interesting searches (Events, oldest geocaches, geocaches with favorite Points). The Problem is that my home coordinates (something near 48.xxxx 10.yyyyy) are used in a "wrong" Format will say it is used with a delimiting comma instead of a decimal Point. This Looks like 48,842266, 10,100942 (this is a direct copy out of the search window) and - of course - it leads to a DNF. When I correct the given coordinates by simply entering a decimalpoint after the 48 and 10 the search works, but unfortunately not the 3 given most favorite searches. Please try to correct - I'm sure These searches are also if interest for me!

Thanks in advance H_M_A

 

Thanks for reporting this H_M_A. We are able to reproduce your issue and we'll work on a fix for the bug.

Link to comment

I am getting to really dislike this new search.

I have my search set to 20 miles. In the old search if I clicked on the Search for nearby Geocaches magnifying glass, it would bring up all the caches and then I could click on map these results. This would then zoom me into my home location and I could then scroll around to my hearts content. Now it brings up a map unzoomed and seeing as I live in London I get a map of part of Southern England with 1000 or more geocaches all crammed on top of each other It just seems to look like a huge blob.

Under the old system I never used to have a range so that if I was going somewhere I could just pan around the world to the place I was going and then zoom in.

Now we are limited to 30 miles - this is far too small an area.

Can you please bring back the old system as this was far superior.

Link to comment

I live in New Zealand. In the past we could select on "region" North Island and South Island. I can't select this anymore.

KM's is not an option as some spots on the south island are closer than others in the North Island.

 

Secondly with the Pocket queries you can easily select caches by placed date....would be great if that was possible too as I use it for a lot of my queries.

Link to comment

I am getting to really dislike this new search.

I have my search set to 20 miles. In the old search if I clicked on the Search for nearby Geocaches magnifying glass, it would bring up all the caches and then I could click on map these results. This would then zoom me into my home location and I could then scroll around to my hearts content. Now it brings up a map unzoomed and seeing as I live in London I get a map of part of Southern England with 1000 or more geocaches all crammed on top of each other It just seems to look like a huge blob.

Under the old system I never used to have a range so that if I was going somewhere I could just pan around the world to the place I was going and then zoom in.

Now we are limited to 30 miles - this is far too small an area.

Can you please bring back the old system as this was far superior.

 

Geocaching World Wide .... but you can only get a 30 mile map. SHeesh ............

 

Yeah, I used to do the same thing. After this change, I quit. No more pre-searching. I'm done with out-of-area caching !! [sadly]

Link to comment

I live in New Zealand. In the past we could select on "region" North Island and South Island. I can't select this anymore.

 

You simply need to limit your search area to the desired island, like so:

 

[snipped to reduce size]

 

and when you try to use that same process for a state in the USA (like: California), you get 'Please enter a number less than or equal to 30.'

 

Are we supposed to limit caching to a 30 mile radius? How absurd !!

Link to comment
and when you try to use that same process for a state in the USA (like: California), you get 'Please enter a number less than or equal to 30.'

 

Are we supposed to limit caching to a 30 mile radius? How absurd !!

Don't give it a center point (on the first page) and it will work correctly. I just tried searches for "all events in all of California", "all caches with more than 15 FPs in all of California" and even "all caches in California" and they worked correctly. Albeit the last one gave an unordered subset of 15,000 caches that was pretty useless.

Link to comment
and when you try to use that same process for a state in the USA (like: California), you get 'Please enter a number less than or equal to 30.'

 

Are we supposed to limit caching to a 30 mile radius? How absurd !!

 

Don't give it a center point (on the first page) and it will work correctly. I just tried searches for "all events in all of California", "all caches with more than 15 FPs in all of California" and even "all caches in California" and they worked correctly. Albeit the last one gave an unordered subset of 15,000 caches that was pretty useless.

 

Actually, it returns 1,000 of 15,000 found - and you are absolutely right, the results are not only 'pretty' useless, they are absolutely useless. A mish-mosh of caches throughout the California borders without reason or logic.

 

It seems the designers of this process don't understand the difference between making it a product of having a job versus the user wanting to pursue a hobby. I don't want to make this a 'work project'. !! There's no fun left in the 'finding' end of it ... for me ... and a few others I've discussed this with at event meet n greets. They - like I - just don't bother anymore. Maybe that's what GS wants - Premium dues payments for less user consumption of resources. If so - IT WORKED !! :(

Link to comment

Actually, it returns 1,000 of 15,000 found - and you are absolutely right, the results are not only 'pretty' useless, they are absolutely useless. A mish-mosh of caches throughout the California borders without reason or logic.

...so don't use that specific set of search criteria if it doesn't give you what you want.

 

I find it pretty unlikely that you actually want to get a list of all the caches in California. It's more likely that you're after some subset of that, so just add the necessary criteria to limit the results.

 

...and FWIW, the results of the California search should default to sort by distance from your home location. I have no idea why you would get a list of random caches, unless maybe you haven't set a home location in your profile.

Link to comment
and when you try to use that same process for a state in the USA (like: California), you get 'Please enter a number less than or equal to 30.'

 

Are we supposed to limit caching to a 30 mile radius? How absurd !!

 

Don't give it a center point (on the first page) and it will work correctly. I just tried searches for "all events in all of California", "all caches with more than 15 FPs in all of California" and even "all caches in California" and they worked correctly. Albeit the last one gave an unordered subset of 15,000 caches that was pretty useless.

 

Actually, it returns 1,000 of 15,000 found - and you are absolutely right, the results are not only 'pretty' useless, they are absolutely useless. A mish-mosh of caches throughout the California borders without reason or logic.

 

I'm curious what you want it to return. Without any filters even if it returns a full list of caches in CA, it would still be pretty useless. If you want a list to cache with, as a premium member you have access to Pocket Queries. So what is you would like to see with your whole state search? Rather than point out negatives, it is more useful to describe what you would like to see in the results to meet your needs for the way you want to use the system.

Link to comment

Actually, it returns 1,000 of 15,000 found - and you are absolutely right, the results are not only 'pretty' useless, they are absolutely useless. A mish-mosh of caches throughout the California borders without reason or logic.

...so don't use that specific set of search criteria if it doesn't give you what you want.

 

I find it pretty unlikely that you actually want to get a list of all the caches in California. It's more likely that you're after some subset of that, so just add the necessary criteria to limit the results.

 

...and FWIW, the results of the California search should default to sort by distance from your home location. I have no idea why you would get a list of random caches, unless maybe you haven't set a home location in your profile.

 

If you leave the home location in, a search is limited to 30 miles (or less). I tried to enter 300 miles (as 250-300 is our normal driving day) and it will not permit that search.

 

When I did the search as suggested by Lil Devil, no location, it returned 1,000 of 15,000. When you ask it to 'Map Results', it gives a map of 1,000 caches scattered from Mexico to Oregon, Pacific to the Eastern border.

Link to comment

Is there an easy way to search for local events using the new filter? My home coordinates are entered, but I get all of the events in Australia - some up to 3,000 km away! The same problem with caches with favourite points and oldest caches. It's rendered the quick searches all but useless. The new system has some cool ideas, but with the current limitations I have just bookmarked the old search engine to avoid useless screaming at the computer. The new system feels like it has been set up solely for people with smartphones, so bad luck if you don't cache that way. Every time I decide to try out the new version I regret it.

Link to comment

Is there an easy way to search for local events using the new filter? My home coordinates are entered, but I get all of the events in Australia - some up to 3,000 km away! The same problem with caches with favourite points and oldest caches. It's rendered the quick searches all but useless. The new system has some cool ideas, but with the current limitations I have just bookmarked the old search engine to avoid useless screaming at the computer. The new system feels like it has been set up solely for people with smartphones, so bad luck if you don't cache that way. Every time I decide to try out the new version I regret it.

 

The featured searches are based on the reported location of your IP address rather than your home location (allowing them to be used when traveling more effectively). To see all of the events in your state based on distance from your home, use this search: https://www.geocaching.com/play/search?types=6&r=55

Link to comment

If you leave the home location in, a search is limited to 30 miles (or less). I tried to enter 300 miles (as 250-300 is our normal driving day) and it will not permit that search.

 

What are you actually searching for at that distance? Why not go straight to the map (http://www.geocaching.com/map) and see/filter all caches from there?

 

Thank you. That's the map I've been missing since I could no longer use the 'Search for Nearby Geocaches' on the front page.

 

Long explanation about why we use it that way. Retired folks often do things in a rather 'deranged' order ... :)

Link to comment

My geocaching buddy and I hate the new search feature. Some of the issues:

 

1) not concise on the page,

2) doesn't display the difficulty/terrain in the results

3) requires one to already know the approximate location of a cache before one can search for it (this has been extremely frustrating)

4) too limited in range (30 miles? not nearly enough!)

5) creates problems for constructors of puzzle caches -- most of us want to know if our idea's been done before and sometimes even if the title's been used already. A 30 mile radius isn't enough to give that info!

 

PLEASE go back to the old search. It did the job. The only refinement the old one really needed was the ability to search for any word contained in a title, not just "starts with".

Link to comment

...

3) requires one to already know the approximate location of a cache before one can search for it (this has been extremely frustrating)

4) too limited in range (30 miles? not nearly enough!)

5) creates problems for constructors of puzzle caches -- most of us want to know if our idea's been done before and sometimes even if the title's been used already. A 30 mile radius isn't enough to give that info!

For what you're trying to do, you probably don't want to use the max-30-mile radius search due to its limited range. Instead, leave the main search field blank and instead limit your search by region. For example, you could search for a keyword in all puzzle caches in California (here's an example search for California puzzles with the word "sudoku" in the title). You may benefit from checking out my guide, and in particular the page covering keyword searches.

Link to comment

When searching by zip codes on the recently revamped search engine, I was initially able to scroll through all the caches in a 10 mi. radius which worked great - no more clicking on multiple pages of caches. Now when scrolling and getting about 4/5 of the way to the bottom of the page, the list "refreshes" (without refreshing the webpage) and jumps back up the list, such that one never reaches the last caches at the bottom of the page and the page repeats several caches that are 4/5 of the way down the page over and over as one scrolls. This started about a week ago. The zip codes I'm searching are 24018 and 24016.

Link to comment

I don't seem to be able to print the lists of caches that I generate with the "new Search" that was one of the best things I could do with the old search, some of us still believe in hard copy and don't have the latest greatest 'apps' or smart phones to use for this. Hope you guys get the message and try and get this thing to work or get rid of it!

FAH-Troop

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...