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


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I don't know if it's possible to please people who basically just want their old workflow restored. And I will never understand how anyone could think 20 at a time was an objectively good way to work with tens of thousands of results.

 

So on that note, some ideas on how to make the current search actually better, not "more like the old search" better:

  • significantly increase the 1000 cache limit or at least provide a startIndex/skip parameter for the main search
  • search within search results (e.g. copy Discourse forum software and hijack ctrl-f to do a full text search of all search results, not just those already loaded on page)
  • found by me date, favorited by me, cache type as (sortable) columns
  • Indicate a cache is on a personal bookmark list (show which list in pop up)

(Honestly, not configuring a sane default sorting for the found by search link was a silly thing to do. Consider how trivially easy it would have been for you to add the correct parameters to the link, and the amount of pushback not doing that caused to the entire change. Why do you do this to yourself?)

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On 4/21/2021 at 12:19 AM, 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.

 

Could you please replace "possible" with "important"? ;) I guess that most of us using the found list are searching by date and not distance. In fact I the only reason to search by distance for me might be looking for the closest and furthest cache. But searching for my last finds is what I'm doing on a daily base. So, having this as the default simply reflects my standard usage.

Oh, and leaving out country and state also isn't exactly what I like. It's another thing that makes this list version less useful for my needs. So, it would be cool to get that back. And yes, as it seems to affect these lists in general it would also be a general improvement then! I gave up on mentioning the waste of space, so I don't say more about that... :P

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On 4/20/2021 at 9:15 PM, reybr said:

 

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.


This should be removed by default for all and only visible if it is enabled by user in his setttings.

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Just a few notes about reducing basic members perks.

As a basic member I acknowledge that Geocaching does not earn much money from me. I have bought a few trackables, that may have made them a bit of money. So if Geocaching has introduced a reduction in basic members functionality to increase their willingness to pay, that is fine of course for a commercial company. However, I fear that for many non-paying members it will just reduce their fun in geocaching and in the end they may stop with it. I can use my money for more useful purposes. It is my experience that many premium members are happy with non-premium members around (we often go geocaching in groups) so in the end they will also loose their fun and may stop.

I guess Geocaching will have to analyse which way they can make most money. If they decide to get rid of non-paying members, they loose me (and family).

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There are two things to this. First there is searching for geocaches, with the intention of finding ones to go after. I personally don't do this much, I generally use the map (although that is not as useful nowadays), but sometimes I do. Then of course I filter out the ones I have already found, so I have no use to see my found date. It could also be useful in this case to see the distance, not from home but from some point where I'm going to go, and also to sort on that. I think this was possible also with the classic search. As I said before, I don't see a single thing that is better with the new search results, but several that are worse (the missing info column!). But then again, I could live with it. I think the reason the new search did not get significant enough pushback for it to be dropped (could that even happen?) is that the classic search was still around and you could continue to use it.

 

But then there's the list of own and other's found and hidden caches. I didn't even realize these could be considered as "search". I do this all the time. They just HAVE to have the information they had before, and of course distance from home is useless, and of course they have to be sorted on found/hidden date! And most importantly, it must be possible to see them all, not just 1,000 of them. And when I want to see the 1,000:th find of another player that has 12,000 of them, I can not be expected to scroll down a page of 12,000 entries. There has to be pages! The old lists had their limitations, configurable page size could have been good and also the possibility to go to a page by number, but this is way, way worse. 

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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. Edit: Removing functionality for basic members to see logs is going way to far. Imagine being a beginner trying to find your first cache which does not even have a hint. I think it is a step backwards from the previous updates. Instead of bringing more players in and getting more people to go premium (by making them have to pay to see logs). It is just pushing them back due to the lack of functionality. This also destroys the ability of all members voting which logs are the best. Please revert this update. We are getting annoyed with having to look through each cache.

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9 hours ago, bluesnote said:

Just my two cents on the update:

 

Personally, I think the new update was just haphazardly put together. I don't understand the reasoning to default the lists to display distances from your home coordinates. That said, it is a nice option to have if Groundspeak wishes to integrate both options into the old, better version.

 

I do not like having all of my finds (thousands of them) on one page. I like having them split into 20 caches per page. I dislike the fact that you can no longer see when the cache was last found by another user. If the old system isn't broke, why fix it? IMO, this does more harm than good. I can see what Groundspeak was trying to do, but it seemed like it didn't work as there wasn't anything to fix in the first place.

I agree. Instead of discarding a much loved feature, why not merge it into the other “updated” feature. There was nothing to fix in the first place. By merging them, the cost of maintaining the “old” feature is now eliminated.

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On 4/20/2021 at 2:16 PM, Geocaching HQ said:

 
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!

I’m quoting this as a reminder.  A number of posts have been hidden from view because they are unrelated to the current Release.  Thanks for staying on topic. 

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The things that have become worse now have been mentioned several times now - and I can only underline every single of these complaints.

The website is now only half useful as it was before.

 

Please change it all back - or give us at least the choice to change back by some button to press.

 

This is horrible.

Edited by *B'Elanna*
read more posts that summon up better what I think, can't quote them all, so I write my own.
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Voorlopig vind ik deze verandering niet leuk.

Maar wat niet goed is, zijn de standaard caches in de lijst met "DISTANCE from HC" 
in de vondsten van gebruikers. Alsjeblieft - ga terug naar de standaardsortering 
op datum van laatste vondst (in de lijst met mijn vondsten) zoals deze was ingesteld
 in de oude zoekopdracht of voeg gebruikersspecifieke instellingen toe voor mijn standaardsortering 
(niet op afstand maar op elke gewenste kolom - bijv. worden opgeslagen en kan opnieuw worden gebruikt 
wanneer u de pagina de volgende keer opent)! Ik wil niet op sort klikken wanneer ik mijn vondsten 
(of vondsten van vrienden) open - ik wil niet eerst de dichtstbijzijnde caches zien - het slaat nergens op.
Ten slotte ontbreekt er "Datum gevonden door mij" in de kolom "Gevonden op" van andere cachers
in English
I don't like the changes, especially the nearby caches of someone from my home
Edited by glupo
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7 minutes ago, Keystone said:

There is an active thread in the Geocaching.com Website Bug Reporting and Feature Suggestions forum section regarding difficulties with viewing Maps and Lists.  Comments in this Release Notes thread should be limited to the search results changes.

Thank you. I completely overlooked that. I deleted my previous post and will go there first next time.

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I held a live runthrough session of the changes and features here, hoping to cover most things people have discovered and mentioned - it's about a 20 minute look at the update.

I tried to steer away from opinions and just cover the details - opinions are for comments and the forum :P Outstanding issues and bugs I'm keeping track of in the video description and pinned comment.

So if I missed anything (pretty sure I did), please let me know after checking the description and comments. The video may get dated if anything changes since it was published (and will be noted in the description)

► https://cachetheline.net/profilelinks

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5 hours ago, ChriBli said:

There are two things to this. First there is searching for geocaches, with the intention of finding ones to go after. I personally don't do this much, I generally use the map (although that is not as useful nowadays), but sometimes I do.

 

5 hours ago, ChriBli said:

But then there's the list of own and other's found and hidden caches. I didn't even realize these could be considered as "search". I do this all the time.

 

4 hours ago, tbbiker said:

Funny.  I have been geocaching for 11 years and never realized that my "All Gecaches Found" page was considered a search.  I just considered it part of my dashboard.  Live and learn! 

 

I can learn to live with the new search pages.  I can.  But as ChriBli and tbbiker said, I never realized (though it makes sense, in a way) that the listing of my finds and others' finds is also a search.  Andit's one I used a LOT.  Nearly each time I log in.  I reveiw my recently found caches, and look for follow up activity' I'll check on specific favortie caches I've found and look at follow up logs, etc etc.  

 

I agree with this post - just incorporate a few of the more requested/missed features int he new update and I think that compromise might just work.  FULL results (not limited), custom pagination (20, 50, 100, etc), less white space, and default sort by date found by the chosen user (not necessarily in order of preference!).

9 hours ago, mustakorppi said:

I don't know if it's possible to please people who basically just want their old workflow restored. And I will never understand how anyone could think 20 at a time was an objectively good way to work with tens of thousands of results.

 

So on that note, some ideas on how to make the current search actually better, not "more like the old search" better:

  • significantly increase the 1000 cache limit or at least provide a startIndex/skip parameter for the main search
  • search within search results (e.g. copy Discourse forum software and hijack ctrl-f to do a full text search of all search results, not just those already loaded on page)
  • found by me date, favorited by me, cache type as (sortable) columns
  • Indicate a cache is on a personal bookmark list (show which list in pop up)

(Honestly, not configuring a sane default sorting for the found by search link was a silly thing to do. Consider how trivially easy it would have been for you to add the correct parameters to the link, and the amount of pushback not doing that caused to the entire change. Why do you do this to yourself?)

 

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Thank you for all your feedback so far. 

 

We are currently working on updating the default sorting for viewing

  • Your finds
  • Your hides
  • Someone else’s finds
  • Someone else’s hides

to be “Found On” and “Placed On”, respectively. 

 

Until this update is implemented, Premium members can manually filter for the desired date by clicking on “Found On” or “Placed On”. For Basic members, the current available functionality is limiting the sorting to “Distance”. With the update we are working on, we will open this up to allow for sorting by found date and placed date in the above cases.

 

Thank you also for reporting bugs!

  • I have reported the pre-existing bug of unexpected sorting further down in the search results and will post when we have an update. 
  • I have also reported the unintentional search results when viewing someone else's finds and then adding the filter to only show caches that I also found.

Some of the other suggestions will likely take a bit longer to implement, but we are documenting your feedback and will take it into consideration when we take the next steps.

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1 hour ago, nykkole said:

Thank you for all your feedback so far. 

 

We are currently working on updating the default sorting for viewing

  • Your finds
  • Your hides
  • Someone else’s finds
  • Someone else’s hides

to be “Found On” and “Placed On”, respectively. 

 

Until this update is implemented, Premium members can manually filter for the desired date by clicking on “Found On” or “Placed On”. For Basic members, the current available functionality is limiting the sorting to “Distance”. With the update we are working on, we will open this up to allow for sorting by found date and placed date in the above cases.

 

Thank you also for reporting bugs!

  • I have reported the pre-existing bug of unexpected sorting further down in the search results and will post when we have an update. 
  • I have also reported the unintentional search results when viewing someone else's finds and then adding the filter to only show caches that I also found.

Some of the other suggestions will likely take a bit longer to implement, but we are documenting your feedback and will take it into consideration when we take the next steps.

 

Looks like my response to your post was moderated.  

 

What I was trying to say was, a) in a joking manner, suggest that the fastest way to fix the issue was to use Ctrl-Z, which for those who are in the know, means to just undo the changes you made, and b) in all sincerity thank you for responding to the community about this.

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3 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

 

The old search is still there. They just have to change back the links, talk about an easy fix. Of course that would mean admitting they were wrong.

That will never happen if you don’t believe me look at the March 11 2015 thread outrage 

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Before this change, I found the following menu options very useful: Geocaches > Have found ... and that used to list all the caches I've found by date order (with the most recent first) and also when the cache was last found (so I could see if any recent caches I've found have had more recent visits... nosey, yes, but interesting. Now that menu option just lists all caches I've found seemingly by distance from my home. Please reverse this change and bring back the old way of showing the list of caches found.

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I believe this has been mentioned once or twice, but I would like to emphasize it:

On the old dashboard, under Search Options was Search for Geocaches, and two subcategories - "near your home location" and "(filter out finds)".  Part of my morning ritual was to click on "(filter out finds)" to see if new caches have come out.  (I don't like getting the email notifications since they can clutter up my email, especially if someone plops a new powertrail all over my area.)  The old search went out to 50 miles, while the new one is limited to 10 miles.  Yes, I can change the filter to 50, but the old way was more convenient.

Can you add a feature, perhaps under our Profile,  that lets us set some specific filters instead of your default values?

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With a lot of the community recommended changes to this upgrade being relegated to the “yeah, we’ll get to it at some stage” level it is clear (as if it wasn’t already) that the developers’ time is valuable and limited. Therefore rolling out changes such as these, that are widely condemned by the geocaching community, only wastes the developers’ limited time having to rehash their work. Will GCHQ be taking a serious look at whatever community review process these changes went through to be approved prior to implementation?  Clearly, by the responses to this announcement, whatever focus group or section of the caching community these changes were vetted by is not a good representative cross-section.   As others have said, as a daily user of the site I am more than happy to help in this process.  

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1 hour ago, egroeg said:

I believe this has been mentioned once or twice, but I would like to emphasize it:

On the old dashboard, under Search Options was Search for Geocaches, and two subcategories - "near your home location" and "(filter out finds)".  Part of my morning ritual was to click on "(filter out finds)" to see if new caches have come out.  (I don't like getting the email notifications since they can clutter up my email, especially if someone plops a new powertrail all over my area.)  The old search went out to 50 miles, while the new one is limited to 10 miles.  Yes, I can change the filter to 50, but the old way was more convenient.

Can you add a feature, perhaps under our Profile,  that lets us set some specific filters instead of your default values?

 

The concept of "saved searches" associated with the new dashboard, or perhaps the homepage, is very interesting!

 

In the meantime, a workaround is to set up a pocket query that mimics the settings you desire:

  • centered on home coordinates
  • within 50 miles of the centerpoint
  • filter out finds

After setting up the pocket query, click on the "preview the search here" link.  You will then see the results displayed just like the old search, and they will be in the old, familiar format.  Finally, create a bookmark in your browser for this search results link, with a name like "Morning Ritual - Caches Near Home."  Remember, pocket query results can be previewed at any time, all day long, without ever having to schedule the query to run as one of your daily limit of pocket queries.

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25 minutes ago, Amaranthe said:

Please keep the old search for us who thinks is better than the new. It does not hurt the site to have an option does it?

 

The original Release Notes post included this explanation:

 

On 4/20/2021 at 2:16 PM, Geocaching HQ said:

The goal is to reduce the confusion from (and related cost of maintaining) multiple search experiences, but also to reduce website vulnerabilities.

 

So in addition to the cost of maintaining multiple sets of code that perform similar functions, the old search apparently exposes security holes that can't be fixed without redesigning the code. (Which is what the new search is: a redesigned version of the code.)

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1 hour ago, Keystone said:

The concept of "saved searches" associated with the new dashboard, or perhaps the homepage, is very interesting!

 

In the meantime, a workaround is to set up a pocket query that mimics the settings you desire:

  • centered on home coordinates
  • within 50 miles of the centerpoint
  • filter out finds

After setting up the pocket query, click on the "preview the search here" link.  You will then see the results displayed just like the old search, and they will be in the old, familiar format.  Finally, create a bookmark in your browser for this search results link, with a name like "Morning Ritual - Caches Near Home."  Remember, pocket query results can be previewed at any time, all day long, without ever having to schedule the query to run as one of your daily limit of pocket queries.

 

Also, with the searches using the URL querystring for the parameters, you can simply bookmark the search you desire and go directly to that in your browser. I have a number of 'saved searches' this way.

 

 

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19 minutes ago, niraD said:

 

So in addition to the cost of maintaining multiple sets of code that perform similar functions, the old search apparently exposes security holes that can't be fixed without redesigning the code. (Which is what the new search is: a redesigned version of the code.)

Absolutely support these types of changes happening however the key phrase that you mention is “code that perform similar functions”.  I think the main gripe of many is recent changes always seem to reduce existing functionality or usability to achieve these changes, rather than maintain and improve on. 

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2 hours ago, Keystone said:

 

The concept of "saved searches" associated with the new dashboard, or perhaps the homepage, is very interesting!

 

In the meantime, a workaround is to set up a pocket query that mimics the settings you desire:

  • centered on home coordinates
  • within 50 miles of the centerpoint
  • filter out finds

After setting up the pocket query, click on the "preview the search here" link.  You will then see the results displayed just like the old search, and they will be in the old, familiar format.  Finally, create a bookmark in your browser for this search results link, with a name like "Morning Ritual - Caches Near Home."  Remember, pocket query results can be previewed at any time, all day long, without ever having to schedule the query to run as one of your daily limit of pocket queries.

 

I took a shot at this, and there's an issue:  Since there are 6011 unfound caches within 50 miles of home, I set the cache counter at 6500.  I get a notice that 1000 is the maximum I can request.

Suggestions?

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7 minutes ago, egroeg said:

Suggestions?

 

Find 5500 caches!  :D

 

Seriously...  if the primary purpose of your search is to spot brand new caches that I published overnight, then add to the pocket query parameters "have not been found" (for FTF opportunities) or a date restriction.

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9 minutes ago, Keystone said:

Seriously...  if the primary purpose of your search is to spot brand new caches that I published overnight, then add to the pocket query parameters "have not been found" (for FTF opportunities) or a date restriction.

 

Likewise, I have a PQ set to only show all unfound geocaches (no date restriction) within the province. The nice thing about the PQ preview is you can bookmark the Map Preview link as well, so you can go straight a live, up-to-date map view of all unfound geocache listings. No need to run the PQ (because it's based on the preview results which are live).

 

Please never remove the PQ module, hq... :anibad:

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On 4/21/2021 at 3:23 AM, TheLF said:

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.

C23306EC-9C81-479B-9A92-3F1218A72F48.png

Yes, thats weird. I noticed that too. Also, some caches show the most recent find on that cache and not the date when the user found that cache.

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7 minutes ago, tbbiker said:

When I try to do a regular search for unfound caches, the distance from location box is shaded out with my search resulting in 3+ million caches.  Was this like that since the release :/

 

You need to set a starting point (your home location, a cache's GC code, locality or whatever) before clicking on Filters. You can then set the distance in the Filters box.

 

image.png.c60dda00d213ed55894cc24e27c1b5a6.png

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