Jump to content

Release Notes (Website: New Search Map) - April 25, 2019


Recommended Posts

3 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:

Windows XP isn't the best OS to use with modern websites. Then again, if you're using XP, your hardware is probably ~15+ years old?

 

In some work environments old software is still used that isn't compatible with newer OS's. I know people who have to use old OS's, even on newer machines. :P

I wouldn't say an old OS is bad for modern websites - it's old browsers. You can have old browsers on new OS's, but your browser can only be as new on an old OS as much as the browser is compatible with the old OS.

Old browsers are still fine for websites that don't cut people off who don't have access to the latest and greatest browser technology (and it's not very often that that's actually necessary, depending on how much development time/funding you have available :laughing:). I greatly respect developers who still create functional websites for most every browser, but make better versions for the high tech - as opposed to making the best website ever first, then providing a stripped-down barely functional website they don't care much for for the status quo.

 

But once browsers start losing their support (like Chrome and FF on Vista no longer being updated) then there are other issues at play than whether a website 'works' or not... mainly, back doors, security loopholes, unfixed bugs, all things viruses can exploit, etc...

 

Anyway.  XP is still a strong OS at least insofar as being able to browse the internet. But it's not able to keep browser brands up to date with the latest & greatest tech. So it all depends on what kind of browsing you're doing, and whether your browser version is still supported :)

 

I'm quite glad flash is pretty much DOA, hehe. So much you can do now in standards-compliant scripting, and still fairly well supported in older browsers.

Link to comment
On 7/23/2019 at 7:13 AM, CAVinoGal said:

I would be happy if we could select our own default map.  I would choose the Browse map, yes, but we should have the option, I think.

 

I did use the (now) default search map during the recent promo, and could get used to it, possibly.  Still, I keep toggling back to the browse map on the computer.  On my phone, I did a whole lot more filtering the past week or so than I have done before, thanks to the promo.

I agree. The Search map worked well for the MATM promo on my computer and phone. Normally I would always skip the Search and go to the Browse map. Now that the promo is over I'm back to skipping it again.

  • Upvote 2
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment

I keep looking for a cache in an area, and suddenly realize the web page is in “search mode” again. Search does have its uses, but not as often as Browse.

 

Please, please let us choose the default. 

Edited by geoBirder
  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
17 hours ago, geoBirder said:

I keep looking for a cache in an area, and suddenly realize the web page is in “search mode” again. Search does have its uses, but not as often as Browse.

 

Please, please let us choose the default. 

Can't agree more. Sadly all are requests are ignored. Please somebody tell us whet the use case is for the default to be search including finds and hides. Bonkers.

  • Upvote 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment

This was mentioned quite some time back but apparently not in this thread so I'll bump it again as it's still not fixed. When you click on View Larger Map on a cache with corrected coordinates, the map centres on the original (bogus) coordinates, often leaving the actual cache at its corrected coordinates somewhere outside the map boundary.

Link to comment

I find that I never use the search map. There might be one occasion where it would be useful: to see given waypoints on a larger map than the small map on the cache page has. But for that to work it would:

a) need to display those waypoints on that map to start with

b) I'd need to be able to select different maps to display hiking paths, satellite images, etc.

 

Yes, the name search map would in that case be confusing. But why do I end up on this search map if I click for the larger map to start with?

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
2 hours ago, arisoft said:

I try to use it sometimes. It was practical tool for locating jevels etc.  For me it is too slow for everyday use.

It was useful for jewels, and I think it was very clever of them to come up with something that showed it off. I don't find it too slow for everyday -- I guess I have enough bandwidth or horsepower or something -- I just always run into the problem of panning away from the caches. To this day, from time to time I'll pan and not understand why there isn't a cache where I know there should be. Then I remember to switch to browsing.

 

One thing I learned from the jewel search really slayed me. I'm looking for jewels. I search in one place. Not enough. So I enter a new location in the search field, and the map slews to the new location but doesn't search there. The map is now completely empty. As misguided as I view the feature of mapping only what's been searched for no matter how the user moves the map, at least I understand the logic behind a pan not bringing in new caches. But I changed the search location. I'm fully on board with logic being this being a search map. There's no way in heck it makes sense for me specifying a location to mean anything other than "search here now."

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
5 hours ago, dprovan said:

There's no way in heck it makes sense for me specifying a location to mean anything other than "search here now."

 

I do. I've occasionally entered a location to get to the vicinity of a location so I can more accurately pinpoint a specific location by panning around the map. I don't want to automatically search just because I enter a new location which could be as specific as coordinates or as vague as a country name.

 

The only time I'd support auto-updating the search of moving to a new location is if it's set as an optional toggle.

Link to comment

I guess the new announcement about Lists helps explain why all of the feedback given about the Search Map has been ignored. What's the point of having the community give you feedback if you release a 1.0 and then go off and start something else that nobody asked for? I'm not saying that the changes in Lists aren't good, but please, fix the problems you already have first.

  • Upvote 1
  • Love 1
Link to comment

This has been archived https://coord.info/GC22FB4

So I went to the page of the cache and in the past I would click on "View larger map" to see if anything new had been added to the same location or close by.

But because all links have been replaced with the new search map instead of the browse map I get:

Screenshot_20191211_132151.png.7ef5f9ad01c0813fff1ae86a0d7b46ca.png

Ok, I get that because it's archived.

But after this the map opens on my home coordinates and not on the coordinates of the cache.

I'm not really liking the search map so far but this certainly doesn't help and making it useless in this case as well.

  • Upvote 1
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
4 hours ago, ardila.nl said:

Ok, I get that because it's archived.

But after this the map opens on my home coordinates and not on the coordinates of the cache.

I'm not really liking the search map so far but this certainly doesn't help and making it useless in this case as well.

Yep, that's pretty annoying. One more failure caused by the more general problem that's been discussed from the beginning: people almost always use the map link from a geocache page to look at all the geocaches in the area, so it should lead to the browse map. For some reason, the interface assumes we only want to see that specific geocache, so it fails altogether when the geocache is archived, and it limits the map to that one geocache when it isn't archived which isn't that much more useful.

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
2 hours ago, dprovan said:

people almost always use the map link from a geocache page to look at all the geocaches in the area, so it should lead to the browse map.

Each cache page provides two map links:

A. The link "Show larger map" which obviously does only show this one cache as the small map does.

B. "Geocaching.com Map" which shows all caches around this caches (as the center).

Just use the appropriate link. ;-)

 

Hans

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment

And that's why this is different. Previously, "Show larger map" would show the cache icon (now it doesn't show archived) as well as nearby caches.  Now, "Show larger map" only shows the cache icon if it's not archived.  It no longer shows nearby caches, and it also errors if you use the link with an archived cache. For many of us this is a downgrade in usability (even though it takes you to the new Search Map)

Edited by thebruce0
  • Upvote 1
  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
53 minutes ago, HHL said:

Each cache page provides two map links:

A. The link "Show larger map" which obviously does only show this one cache as the small map does.

B. "Geocaching.com Map" which shows all caches around this caches (as the center).

Just use the appropriate link. ;-)

 

Hans

 

If these links were clearly identified regarding their purpose (and weren't separated into different areas), then I could accept that as a solution. Of course, that isn't the case.

 

Really, though, like dprovan said, the use-case needs to be considered. Are there really enough users that want to view only that one cache such that it makes sense to make that the default (or even have the link available at all)? My guess would be that the number of such users is extremely small and it doesn't make sense for this function to even exist from a cache listing page.

 

Of course, that assumes that TPTB would even be willing to push more traffic to the Browse map. Based on their actions so far, it seems like they want to minimize the use of that map as much as possible. Despite their statement otherwise, I fully believe that they want to retire it at some point. That will be an interesting day...

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
13 hours ago, HHL said:

B. "Geocaching.com Map" which shows all caches around this caches (as the center).

Just use the appropriate link. ;-)

I've never used that link before :)

It "solves" my issue.

But in my opinion I would like the geoaching map link, linked to the browse map or a second link directly linking to the browse map

e.g.

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
12 hours ago, The A-Team said:

I fully believe that they want to retire it at some point. That will be an interesting day...

I'm afraid of that as well but I really hope they never do or at least make the search map better.

Every time I'm confronted with that search map I switch to browse map because there are very few use cases for me where the search map is better than the browse map.

  • Upvote 4
Link to comment
6 hours ago, ardila.nl said:

But in my opinion I would like the geoaching map link, linked to the browse map or a second link directly linking to the browse map

e.g.

It is there. Though I have mentioned that it makes sense to move the Browse Map link up with the View Map link, perhaps even changing "View Map" to "Search Map" and including it in the section with "search."

1900801160_ScreenShot2019-12-12at8_18_17AM.png.2fb42f4a265543e59e1e1e93d6950498.png

Link to comment
7 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:
6 hours ago, ardila.nl said:

But in my opinion I would like the geoaching map link, linked to the browse map or a second link directly linking to the browse map

e.g.

It is there.


But that link doesn't begin with the context of the cache being looked at. Browsing from the location of the current cache is not a link on the Listing page.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Mineral2 said:

It is there. Though I have mentioned that it makes sense to move the Browse Map link up with the View Map link, perhaps even changing "View Map" to "Search Map" and including it in the section with "search."

That "View Browse Map" opens the browse map but not on the coordinates of the cache I'm currently on which is the functionality I'm missing

Edited by ardila.nl
Link to comment
4 hours ago, thebruce0 said:


But that link doesn't begin with the context of the cache being looked at. Browsing from the location of the current cache is not a link on the Listing page.

 

Right down the bottom of a cache listing, just above the logs, is a section labelled For online maps...

image.png.456b60dfd28be6ca301610f64af89486.png

Clicking on the first entry (Geocaching.com map) opens the Search Map centred on the cache location and showing the surrounding caches as well (this even works on archived caches but doesn't show the cache itself), and from there you can click on the Browse Geocaches button at the top to go to the Browse Map at that location.

  • Helpful 2
Link to comment
Just now, barefootjeff said:

and from there you can click on the Browse Geocaches button at the top to go to the Browse Map at that location.

Me and a lot of other people are not a fan of the new search map and rather use the browse map.

I wished they never changed it to the search map by default. Why can't it be the browse map by default and only show the search map when I'm using the search function.

(I've talked to a beta tester about this after the new search map went live and as far as I know they advised GC against changing the default map)

Link to comment
On 12/11/2019 at 12:11 PM, HHL said:

B. "Geocaching.com Map" which shows all caches around this caches (as the center).

Just use the appropriate link. ;-)

Thanks for the tip! I had no idea they did different things. Now I know that only half of them are illogical.

 

(It turns out I'm in the US, so I also have the link at the top that says "in California, United States", which also does the right thing, although in some sense, that's why "view larger map" always takes me by surprise since it's so wrong.)

Link to comment

Yep. Again, these are the current functions:

 

* Geocaching.com map -> Search map centered based on the listing's GPS location. Results shown are a search from that GPS coordinate and centered on that coordinate. Thus, the search not showing archived caches will not show the archived icon if the source listing is an archived one.  "Browse geocaches" must be clicked to view the browse map.

* View larger map -> Search map centered based on the listing's GC Code. Results shown only include the listing's icon, if the listing is not archived. If the listing is archived, that link returns an error and then resets centered on your home coordinates. You also need to pan or change filters to perform a search showing nearby caches. "Browse geocaches" must be clicked to view the browse map.

 

There is no way currently to view an archived listing on any map via the links available on the archived listing.

A number of prior functions now required multiple clicks to achieve with the current link destinations.

 

Another workaround to get straight to the browse map with nearby caches without going via the Search Map is to click the "...all nearby caches" link then "Map this location".  Otherwise you need to do URL fiddling to make use of additional features.

  • Helpful 1
Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...