Release Notes (Website: Links now point to new search results) - April 20, 2021

[+Geocaching HQ]

Release Notes (Website: Links now point to new search results) - April 20, 2021

With today’s release, we have updated links on Geocaching.com that were pointing to the old search results, with the exception of Pocket Query preview links. (Note that you can still see the old search results if you have a direct link, or if searching via the old search.)

 

Why did we make this update?
There are many different ways to search for geocaches on Geocaching.com. With this update, we are taking the first step towards retiring the old search, which has remained in place for six years since the current search was released in March 2015. The goal is to reduce the confusion from (and related cost of maintaining) multiple search experiences, but also to reduce website vulnerabilities. As a benefit, this update provides consistent filtering and sorting, the option to add caches to a List, and the increased option to map caches from the search results.

 

Details about the update
We have updated all links that currently link to the old search results (except Pocket query previews). These links now link to the new search results. For example, a link that started with www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx now links to a URL starting with www.geocaching.com/play/search.

 

The following links are updated:

• Links to nearby caches below the cache description
• Links to finds and hides from the player profile
• Links to the old search on https://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx
• Links to the old search on https://www.geocaching.com/my/recentlyviewedcaches.aspx

 

You’ll now get all the benefits from the new search, such as:

• Mapping search results (this was not possible for all results in the old search)
• Adding search results to Lists (this was not possible from old search results)
• Option to further filter search results
• Additional (and consistent) filters and sorting
  • Premium members can sort on all columns, Geocache Name, Distance, Favorite, etc.
  • Basic members can sort on Distance

 

Other differences to note:

• With this change, we removed the workaround for Basic members to access Premium member filter options. 
• Basic members no longer see all finds from another player.
• The new search results don’t show some of the information that the old search results show. For example if a cache contains trackables or has an uncleared Needs Maintenance icon.
• Results are limited to 1000 caches (please use sorting and filtering to further narrow down the results as necessary).

 

Nicole (nykkole) is watching this thread to answer questions whenever possible.
 
Any posts in this thread should relate to features in this release. Comments unrelated to the release may be removed. Please direct unrelated comments to other appropriate threads. Thanks!

[+Max and 99]

20 minutes ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Basic members no longer see all finds from another player.

Can someone explain this to me? 

[+lapiduch]

For now I don´t like this change (simple graphic design) but I will have to get used to.

 

But what is not good is default sort of listed caches by "DISTANCE from HC" in users´ finds. Please - return back default sort by last find date (in the list of my finds) as it was set in old search or add user specific settings for my default sort (not by distance but by any column anyone want - e.g. last used sort to be saved and can be used again when you open the page next time)! I don´t wanna click on sort anytime when I access my finds (or friends finds) - I don´t wanna see closest caches first - it doesn´t make sense.

 

Finally, there is missing "Date found by me" in "Found on" column of other cachers.

[+reybr]

35 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Can someone explain this to me? 

 

If a basic member opens the profile page of another user and goes to the Geocache section, the link "All geocache finds" is gone. For a premium member it is still there.

[+VAVAPAM]

40 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

1 hour ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Basic members no longer see all finds from another player.

Can someone explain this to me? 

I took it to mean that Basic members wouldn't be able to see PM-only caches in a Premium member's find list [thus limiting their ability to glean info about those caches]. 

[+=m1ch1=]

I dont like the new "Geocaches Found" and "Geocaches Owned" Format :(

I will the old one back...

[+jy09]

50 minutes ago, Max and 99 said:

Quelqu'un peut m'expliquer cela? 

What I understand is that before today the basic members, could find the GC codes of premium caches by going through the list of caches found by a premium member .. but I don't know I'm not Basic ..

[+dadoskawina]

I'm not happy with the default sorting order (it should be by date starting from the newest).

 

Also limiting results to 1000 is not a good solution. Could you please introduce pagination? So access to all finds/hiddes will be easy. Filtering out results doesn't do the job as:

- it is hard to find such criteria that fit exactly for those results that are beyond default 1000

- there is no option to filter by find date (what is essential for my finds search).

[+Lynx Humble]

1 hour ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Other differences to note:

• The new search results don’t show some of the information that the old search results show. For example if a cache contains trackables or has an uncleared Needs Maintenance icon.

Any plans to bring those features on the new search results?

 

Like others said why default sorting isn't by date instead of distance???????

 

[+baer2006]

3 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Results are limited to 1000 caches (please use sorting and filtering to further narrow down the results as necessary).

Kills a few puzzles. I know several, where the CO has hidden some info in old find logs (e.g. find on a specific date, their very first find, or something like that). If the CO has more than 1000 finds, it could become very tricky or impossible to locate the required log.

OTOH, I know that GS is not obliged to keep every website quirk alive just to make puzzle cache owners happy .

Edited April 20, 2021 by baer2006
misleading typo

[+TheLF]

Viewing on iPad Pro.
I agree as several others do... default sort should be date found (newest first). It’s the most logical sort order, and the most likely reason we’re looking at someone’s profile.

ALSO... if I’m viewing the profile of 4 of my friends in different windows, there is no name header to help with identification.  It just shows their find count and the list of recent finds.? I have to hit the back button to see who I’m looking at.

[nykkole]

3 hours ago, Max and 99 said:

Can someone explain this to me? 

reybr had the correct answer: If a Basic member looks at the profile page of another player, the text "All Geocache Finds" (and any cache types in the finds list) are not linked. Viewing the finds of another player is a Premium member filter option.

 

[nykkole]

3 hours ago, lapiduch said:

 

But what is not good is default sort of listed caches by "DISTANCE from HC" in users´ finds. Please - return back default sort by last find date (in the list of my finds) as it was set in old search or add user specific settings for my default sort (not by distance but by any column anyone want - e.g. last used sort to be saved and can be used again when you open the page next time)! I don´t wanna click on sort anytime when I access my finds (or friends finds) - I don´t wanna see closest caches first - it doesn´t make sense.

Thank you (and others who have mentioned it) for the feedback of the default sort by "Found On" date when viewing someone's finds. This is on our list of possible future improvements.

 

[+thebruce0]

Thanks for the clarifications nykkole!  Apart from the 'shock' of the change, it seems as though most all of the information is still accessible. It'll just be getting used to the 1000 finds max (rather than paging through all results), and the loss of the compact appearance of the list.

 

The function being PM only answers whether basic members can see PMO caches in the list.

[+thebruce0]

Actually - I saw a good point raised. If the viewing of the finds/hides is now a PM feature, will puzzles that require users (basic included) to obtain information from these lists no longer be allowed? Such info will be astronomically more difficult for non-PM users to find, if at all.

[+2Abendsegler]

Why do you make the functionality so often smaller and worse, instead of making them bigger and better to our delight. 

I can not understand it. It's just sad. 

[+TheLF]

2 more thoughts.

1. Showing the date I found a cache in a friends “found list” was very helpful in the past.

2. What is the “+” used for on the far right column?  It doesn’t seem to offer or ask for any action on my part.

[morinox]

With this change, it currently seems impossible for standard members to search for unfound caches. Which would be a show stopper for a lot of people, including me. Please elaborate on that.

Edited April 20, 2021 by morinox
typo

[+SW00P]

Every one of these new features are terrible. 

 

Filter out finds under search for geocaches. Used to go 50 miles and filtered out my finds and hides. Now defaults to 10 miles and everything comes up. Why? 

 

Under user profile I want to see the geocaches I found from latest to my first. The new list is terrible.

[+TheLF]

Another glitch is when looking at a profile, and you sort the “found on” columb to the newest first, when you scroll down a few pages, the dates start to be out of sequence, then showing the last find date for that cache, not the find date for that geocacher.

[+Lynx Humble]

2 hours ago, nykkole said:

Thank you (and others who have mentioned it) for the feedback of the default sort by "Found On" date when viewing someone's finds. This is on our list of possible future improvements.

 

Only possible future improvements???

 

You only need to add this line of text to the url to save everyone 2 clicks and correct your mistake : &sort=FoundDateOfFoundByUser&asc=False 

 

 

 

[+CAVinoGal]

4 hours ago, lapiduch said:

For now I don´t like this change (simple graphic design) but I will have to get used to.

Same here.  I will have to get used to it, but as thebruce0 stated:

56 minutes ago, thebruce0 said:

it seems as though most all of the information is still accessible. It'll just be getting used to the 1000 finds max (rather than paging through all results), and the loss of the compact appearance of the list.

What I do miss is the two boxes that show the date the cache was last found, and the date I found it.  

 

And add my voice to the many who want the default sort to be most recent found date, by user.

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, nykkole said:

Thank you (and others who have mentioned it) for the feedback of the default sort by "Found On" date when viewing someone's finds. This is on our list of possible future improvements.

 

 

The same applies to the owned caches lists, they ought to be sorted by date placed.

[+brendan714]

My comments, some of which have been mentioned above: 

1) Found caches should be sorted from most recent find to oldest, instead of closest to furthest

2) Owned caches should be sorted from most recently placed to oldest, instead of closest to furthest

3) "Date Found By Me" is missing.  This is nice to know when you are looking at your friend's finds. 

4) There is a big bug when you sort by "Found On" - the top few rows are all in order, but as I scroll down the date order is all messed up.

5) If I want to browse far back into my found history, I have to keep scrolling and scrolling down.  And if I have to re-load the page for any reason, I am stuck back up at the top again.  

 

Note that in my opinion these items should not be "possible future improvements" - they are essential features (that exist in the old search) that should be done now to make this a useful and efficient tool. It makes no sense to sort closest by default.  My 3 closest finds are caches I found 8, 8 and 9 years ago, respectively, and all are now archived.  Why should I default to that when I click to see my finds or the finds of my friends?  

 

In my opinion there is also way too much white space which means more scrolling to get the same amount of information as what the old search had.

 

As a paying customer, it's frustrating to get "updates" that are a step backwards in many regards. 

[+sceatsie]

Can no longer see what I found yesterday can only see caches nearest to home = rubbish!!  Please return it to how it was.  Change for change sake!!

 

[+BeholderX]

This is a very bad change. You might as well remove the whole statistics page then because now you have taken away the best way to keep track on your progress. I used this feature daily. 

[+rogernordin]

When search result is based on an account (mine or someone elses) the default sort order should be Date, newest to oldest. Sorting from home coordinates makes sense for generic search, but not when search is based on an account.

 

You can still see logs in found order, but it now requires two additional clicks on "Date found", which not only wastes my time, making the whole process slower, but also wastes server resources on your end because the server will have to perform three searches instead of one to get the view that people really want (searching based on distance to home location, searching based on date but in wrong order when you click on Date found, then searching again the third time in the most desired order).

Edited April 21, 2021 by rogernordin

[+mity!]

Puh. This "feature" increases the difficulty by at least two stars of all these vanity caches where you had to identify special finds of the celebrated user. That means that you have to count out now that a special find was the user's 827th personal find or which cache was his find number 555. I know lots of these mysteries...

[+Toniczech]

For me it comes as a very undesired and unpleasant change. At least I'm glad, the old search (which I prefer for many reasons, already mentioned by fellow cacjers here, remains accessible via the old-style url string, but, If possible, for me a general opt-out switch (akin to opt-out I use every month to stay by the old logging form) would be very appreciated. Such is my opinion as a veteran cacher who is PM:

 

A significant part of my GC-activities revolve around using the old-search and the new search makes many of these tasks difficult or impossible to carry, 

 

The old compact layout of the table is much more useful and for me personally much more visually accessible. I'm geocaching with a serious visual impairment. Which means everything on my monitor is displayed at 300-400 % size. The new search is not very space-efficient even when displayed in 100%, but gets very very expanded and stretched when viewed at higher percentage of size. The result is that the right half of the table disappears beyod right limit of the screen, while the visible left half seems to have a lot of space between columns seemingly unused. This is in sharp contrast with the compact way old form looks.

 

Secondly, as a big local "caretaker" I spend quite significant amount of time searching (via "nearest", "hidden by" etc. links from cache listing pages) for potentially orphaned, neglected or othervise endangered caches, with the goal to fix them, to make other fellow cachers to fix them, to mediate their adoption etc. This includes lots of search, not even for the (until yesterday) simple task of discovering and indentifying those endangered caches, but also for assesment of status of their creators/owners (i. e. recent trends in their geocaching activity - how much they were caching last yer compared to year before etc.). The same for evaluation of potential future adoptive owners - the search through their hides and finds is essential for evaluation of their capabilities to function as a responsible and long-term reliable CO. The NM icon in the old form is extremely helpful in this process. One can instaneously see which cache in the particular area or in someone's portfolio of hides needs attention and help from others. I consider this an essential feature and demand it to be incorporated enen into the new search.

 

Another thing I must object, is the way cache icon is handled. The new form shows the icon of archived caches in a "faded" white version, which is very impractical for my visual imparment - while the color icons are easily to distinguish whether the cache is Traditional, Multi, Mystery or whatever, the faded icons seem effectively all the same for me. (The same objection I have towards analogous icon handling in archived listings.) 

 

I concur with the demand on default sort by date found and with the demand on including the date of my visit to the new search. IMO the way the old search handles this, is quite good (two dates below each other in one column - one for the other person's date of find, second for my date of find (if my find exists). Well, I can imagine that two dates in one table column would likely be incompatible with the sortable nature of the new search. For this and many other reasons I call for keeping the old seach alive infinitely. Please don't phase it out entirely in some forseeable future. It still has a lot of usability, it is in some (for many people important) way superior to the new search and it is also the unbroken bridge, that connects GC two decades ago with the preset and with the future. This is my 20th year in the game; I have been in it throughout almost all GC history; and I never witnessed a website change with more profound (and, as I fear, in some ways potentially harmful and community-destructive) impact on the ways we work with cache search. I have been using the old search since 2002 and are quite comfortable with it. (In fact, as any searching "graophically" on the map is effectively extremely unfriendly to my eyesight; the more textual table of the old search is the only way I can effectively browse through caches on the website. The new search undoubtedly has advanced features that are (or will be, after some improvements) useful for many others, but the old serch remanins important for many and vital for some anyway. Bear this in mind when thinking over the future of the old search.  

 

What about a possibility to make the order of columns (and which of them to show or not to show) somehow customizable via user-set preferences. For me, in some context, the most important data come within last columns, while the middle of the screen is stuffed with info of less interest for me. Therefore I'd like a possibility to individually pre-set certain columns to "more prominent" left margin. Something like that. Also the possibility to individually switch-off displaying (in some contexts) "obtrusive" textual labels "ARCHIVED" and "PREMIUM" near above cache name would be appreciated. For me, as a PM the importance of such a info directly from search table is very low. The Premium status of a particular cache is enough detectable during a closer look into a particular listing of interest. For BM the "PREMIUM" label of course makes perfect sense.

 

And what I'm missing in the new search, is a possibility of showing nearest caches for a position or region as they were "alive" on a particular date in the past. Eg. to be able to look exactly which caches there were in my country as of, let's say, May 1, 2005. GC encompasses not only 2D coordinates of space, it has also accumulated a lot of history in the 4th dimension of time. Let the bygone caches and stories and stories get closer and easily accessible to present generations of cachers. A possibility for them to see the cache "roster for the past", i.e. the spatial search displaying the respective results as if they were for any selected date in the past. 

And OT BTW thanks a lot for the not-long-ago introduced Great story feature. A complementary thumb-down button would be sometimes also useful. :-)  

[+Lin57]

Yesterday I discovered that you have the new update for the new website. But I'm not happy about having to date every time. I would prefer with old as I trvis this. I hope to gladly return. But see if most people want old so better to change. But if you choose a new version or old ones, it is recommended that people choose which type. But think of older old people who are used to the same website. When you see people want back, you should return the old version. It feels stupid for distance and old first cache so not good.

[+JimJinks]

The old search is still available if you use a bookmarked link

 

https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?ul=nykkole

 

Insert your own profile name at the end of the link

[+Redn3ck]

March 11th 2015 All Over Again 

 

 

 

[+Hynz]

Terrible evolution and update  I wish complaining about abundance of white space would be my major gripe.....

At least https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx is (mostly) working and providing informative and clear results. But for how long?

Seems even becoming PM again would not save me from the new drawbacks and applying necessary workarounds.

 

[+thetomi]

The main drawbacks have already been mentioned so I won't repeat them. Just to note that this is a big no for me. Visually, the new layout is a mess. Can't see any improvement from the user point of view. An opt out switch to the old view would be much appreciated!

[+IceColdUK]

A result that seems strange to me...

 

I selected 'All Geocache Finds' for a friend's account, and the results correctly showed their 500+ cache finds.  I then clicked on 'Filters' and 'FOUND STATUS: Found' to see which of those caches I'd found too.  Instead of getting a subset of their caches, the results showed a superset of the caches that at least one of us had found.  Not at all useful, but is this working as designed or a bug?

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by IceColdUK

[+IceColdUK]

Generally, I don't have a problem with the switch - maybe I just don't use this functionality as much as some? - but one thing I do miss is the two 'Found On' dates: one for me, one for the filtered account.

[+CommunistOnions]

I want the old one back. It has more functions (e.g can view when a cache was last found). The new version is annoying and inconvenient, especially when I am planning a trackable gathering trip or viewing if someone has left swag or something in a cache. Is there a similar thing to the old version? The feature was the reason why I use the geocaching website and now with it removed, there is no use in me visiting the website. Please delete the new version due to it being quite lacking and hard to interact with and bring back the old version. It will save time.

[+taxoft]

It's crazy. Nor Basic Members neither Premium Members cannot see all other member's finds .

"Results are limited to 1000 caches (please use sorting and filtering to further narrow down the results as necessary)."

 

Please bring the paging back and throw an <censored> Ajax far away.

[+GeoElmo6000]

https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?ul=GeoElmo6000

 

I have this link bookmarked and use it for my own finds; changing the name after the equal sign can be used for other players (and a + needs to be inserted for spaces in people's names). 

 

https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?u=GeoElmo6000

 

Similarly I use this for hidden caches for myself (and others).

 

Groundspeak PLEASE don't take these away!

[Christyan]

17 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Basic members no longer see all finds from another player.

Is this just another step to really get a premium membership for every child of a family, that has an own account and for every person, that just wants to try it out with a fried for the first time?

In both cases, normally there is just one person logging all caches on a device and one of the easiest way to just log them yourself afterwards is by going through the profile, which was conveniently sorted by log date. Now not only is that not possible at all for the named groups or of course all other Basic members, even for a premium member it is made much harder by sending you to a search page with very strange default filters.

I can't really understand both decisions.

It really seams, like you want to encourage people to only log on location with smartphone, which imho is terrible, since it just lead to logs getting shorter. Which contradicts the new "great story" and "helpful" buttons completely.

Edited April 21, 2021 by Christyan

[+GeoElmo6000]

13 hours ago, nykkole said:

reybr had the correct answer: If a Basic member looks at the profile page of another player, the text "All Geocache Finds" (and any cache types in the finds list) are not linked. Viewing the finds of another player is a Premium member filter option.

 

 

Removing functionality from basic members is unacceptable.  I'm a premium member to support the hobby which I enjoy, not because of this function or that or for premium caches.  I'm already disappointed with GS' decision to filter the non-premium caches that can be found through apps to D2 & T2 and lower when basic members can see more than that using the website; basic members should be able to see on the app what they can see through the website.  

[+oz_bean_counter]

I'm going against the grain - I like it!

Finally, I can do some meaningful filtering on CO's caches, or search by geocache name.

 

It's a good day for me

[+bosorcicka]

Big problem is, that in this view is no possibility to search the cache which was found by user at specific date. for example if I need find, what cache was founded by user seedcorp 5-th of march 2010, it is problem, becouse he has more than 25 000 fouded caches.... And searching of this type is neccesary for solution of some mystery caches...

[+dadoskawina]

3 minutes ago, oz_bean_counter said:

I'm going against the grain - I like it!

Finally, I can do some meaningful filtering on CO's caches, or search by geocache name.

 

It's a good day for me

You were able to do so previously as well, just by using search page. The only new feature I see is the possibility to filter on caches found by someone else. This could however be done just by adding option to search filtering instead of breaking old finds/hides lists.

[+Goldenwattle]

Don't like it, as one of my favourite features is not there. When I look at someone's found list I like to be able to see if I have found that cache. It's a feature I have used a lot. Plus why the heck would I want the default to show the closest cache? I want to see my latest finds. This site gets worse with every change. This is inferior to the old. Upset!!!!!!

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Goldenwattle

[+oz_bean_counter]

7 minutes ago, dadoskawina said:

You were able to do so previously as well, just by using search page. The only new feature I see is the possibility to filter on caches found by someone else. This could however be done just by adding option to search filtering instead of breaking old finds/hides lists.

 

I've never seen the "old" search page until today! So happy to have it in the filter. 

[+mustakorppi]

18 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Basic members no longer see all finds from another player.

A step in the right direction for sure.

[+KulisekW]

18 hours ago, Geocaching HQ said:

Basic members no longer see all finds from another player.

 

2 minutes ago, mustakorppi said:

A step in the right direction for sure.

 

No! It's not good decision and "right direction". I'm PM for years but me and many others disagree with this point.

[+KulisekW]

Dear HQ

I pay for PM and now I haven't option see the list of my all finds on web? "We only show 1,000..." (and primary sort by distance...) Are you kidding me? A similar comment I've to list of my own geocaches.

For second (third?): Why you add some new restriction for BM? Positive motivation makes sense, not constant limitations.

And my longterm problem, why you wasting space on pages? Why you add so much white empty space? It's uncomfortable for viewing.

 

Greetings from Czechia, the country with many unhappy geocachers

[+brendan714]

There is a serious issue with white space in this new update. As a result, the pages now have significantly less efficiency and functionality.  I did some side-by-side screenshots.

 

ON MY COMPUTER

1) I am able to see almost 15 caches in my screen view with the old search VS only 9 caches in the new search

2) In the new search I am missing pieces of information such as the maintenance wrench and trackable icons, as well as the "found by me" date. 

3) The new search is significantly wider, causing my eyes to run back and forth across the entire screen.  

4) I can easily select and copy text (cache name, GC code, cache owner) in the old search, whereas that is not possible in the new search. 

 

The result on the desktop version is a loss of efficiency and functionality:

 

-------------------------

 

ON MY PHONE:

1) I go from seeing 20 caches on the old search to only seeing 9 on the new.

2) Although I can see all useful cache information on my phone on the old search, I can ONLY see distance on the new!!  (the 3 dots button allow me to select the ONE parameter I want to see)

 

The result and side-by-side comparison is almost laughably bad to see the loss of features and information in the new search!

 

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by brendan714