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Release Notes (Website: Enhanced Search Results)


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On 5/11/2022 at 1:17 AM, The A-Team said:

Well, it's now been 3 months since this release. It looks like development has largely halted on this project, judging by the lack of further updates from Lackeys or changes to the search's behaviour. It could be that developers have been shifted off to start another project, which is what seemed to happen with many of the past projects that never reached completion.

 

The lack of movement on even the critical issues is very concerning. It would be one thing if the users just had to deal with functionality that had been removed or didn't look as good as it could, but users are also having to deal with broken functionality.

 

One wonders if the wider staffing issues have also hit HQ, and they're just scraping by with a few developers. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if you don't have enough cash-flow to maintain the necessary staffing levels to support the product that is geocaching.com, it might be time to increase the membership price. Jeremy's promise was never realistic (and it had to have been around 20 years ago at this point), so I wouldn't worry about "breaking" it. With inflation these days, a price increase is inevitable and absolutely necessary.

 

...and by all means, if there's anything the community can do to help, please let us know. We all want this site to keep going.

I'm sure the funding would be sufficient if one just refrained from embarking on "projects" like the new search that bring more harm than good, and pointless appearence changes like icons for caches and message center or the shape of the profile picture. I'd rather keep the current membership price if that could ensure a stable product.

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

Any movement on reinstating the Personal Notes field in search filters?

Please.

Or let us know if that is NOT going to be returning. Silence can be deafening.

I second that, even if I don't need that particular function. Change without apparent reason is frustrating.

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On 5/14/2022 at 1:05 AM, ChriBli said:

I second that, even if I don't need that particular function. Change without apparent reason is frustrating.

 

I too would love an answer to this or even a workaround for a backdoor way like on the previous search.

 

Can we please have an update?

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Leaving beside the other still valid complaints about the new list ;) I have the following two visual suggestions:

 

(1) please don't just grey out the colours of the icons of disabled and archived caches. It makes it difficult to identify the cache type and also if there's a smiley or frouney attached.

Suggestion: Only dim or pale the colours.

 

(2) please make it also easier to diffentiate between archived and disabled caches. In the old lists you had the names striked and the name of an archived cache additionally changed to red.

Suggestion: Grey out the letters of the name of an archived cache and leave the disabled ones black.

 

 

image.png.a73bb4cf833dd56a55e988ac014b7d4d.png

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On 5/13/2022 at 9:35 AM, thebruce0 said:

Any movement on reinstating the Personal Notes field in search filters?

Please.

Or let us know if that is NOT going to be returning. Silence can be deafening.

 

It's so loud. I might need a hearing aid soon. :'(

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On 6/1/2022 at 12:17 AM, thebruce0 said:

 

It's so loud. I might need a hearing aid soon. :'(

 

I've sent multiple comments, emails and messages to Moderators, Grroundspeak and Reviewers with no response.

 

I think its dead in the water. I've learned to live with it. 

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2 hours ago, Team Canary said:

I've sent multiple comments, emails and messages to Moderators, Grroundspeak and Reviewers with no response.

 

I think its dead in the water. I've learned to live with it. 

 

I know. But dead in the water is precisely why I raised the question again and added the commentary...  it's not even dead in the water actually; it's indeterminate, because there's been no answer. It could be being worked on. It might not be. We don't know. And that's the very frustrating part :(  Perhaps it's something like Schroedinger's cat. If it simultaneously both is and isn't being worked on since there is no way to know, then at least in some fashion it is... ...  

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1 hour ago, thebruce0 said:

It could be being worked on. It might not be. We don't know. And that's the very frustrating part

geocaching.com forums user experience in a nutshell.

 

To me the frustrating part is knowing how easy it would be for Groundspeak to do better.

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We're very sorry to not have posted any recent updates as our team continues to iterate on the release.

 

We have now added back the Personal Cache Note filter. Players can filter for caches that have their personal notes attached and for caches without personal notes too.Geocaches with a personal cache note display the envelope icon in the Search results and in the results table on the Search Map. If a cache has a personal note, but also has a DNF, solved coordinates etc, then the respective icon will show instead of the envelope icon.Again, we appreciate your passion for the game.

 

We will keep you informed about further enhancements as the team continues to work on further improving the search experience.

Edited by onepooja
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On 6/17/2022 at 6:33 AM, onepooja said:

We're very sorry to not have posted any recent updates as our team continues to iterate on the release.

 

We have now added back the Personal Cache Note filter. Players can filter for caches that have their personal notes attached and for caches without personal notes too.Geocaches with a personal cache note display the envelope icon in the Search results and in the results table on the Search Map. If a cache has a personal note, but also has a DNF, solved coordinates etc, then the respective icon will show instead of the envelope icon.Again, we appreciate your passion for the game.

 

We will keep you informed about further enhancements as the team continues to work on further improving the search experience.


Yes!!!

 

Thank you for the changes, much appreciated. 

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On 6/16/2022 at 10:33 PM, onepooja said:

We're very sorry to not have posted any recent updates as our team continues to iterate on the release.

 

Slow but proper releases are much better than many bugged releases in a row.

 

In the meantime: Can anyone find GCWFBR in my finds list. I can't.

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On 6/25/2022 at 2:56 PM, famerlor_dragon said:

In the meantime: Can anyone find GCWFBR in my finds list. I can't.

 

Could you clarify your ask?

The cache shows if you search for caches you have found ("found by me") as the most recent find when you order the caches via the "last found" column. If a "Found by me", Found by Player X, Found by [multiple players] filter is checked, the date in last found is the find date of the respective player. We're currently working on more clear column header designations for such scenarios.

An example search for that from what a third party would see: https://www.geocaching.com/play/results/?fb=famerlor_dragon&asc=false&sort=foundDate

 

In case the question is about why it may not show right away after you have logged it. The search runs against a data cache not the DB itself. So when you log the cache it triggers a re-index of the data cache which may take several minutes. Once it is done, you'll find the cache in the search results.

 

If you want real-time data of any of your logs, I recommend you use https://www.geocaching.com/my/logs.aspx?s=1 instead.

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4 hours ago, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

Could you clarify your ask?

 

This will not be necessary as it is there now.

 

In this case, those several minutes were more than 24 hours, which was probably some glitch somewhere - not necessarily a data caching issue on my side though as I had this checked from multiple devices, GC accounts, and Internet networks. My finds count was one less than it should have been as well, so it was not a sorting issue either. I logged the cache Friday afternoon GMT+2 and apparently it was not index by the time I posted in the forums (~midnight Saturday).

 

But as I said, it's works now, so it was a temporary glitch.

 

BTW: Renaming the columns is a good idea.

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Today, we released another set of small improvements to the Search Results experience:

  • Hover text across several items on the page that needed them. Please note that self-descriptive buttons like "Map these geocaches" intentionally don't have duplicate hover text. 
    • Cache type icons
    • The smaller sub icons:
      • Found
      • DNF
      • Owned
      • Draft
      • Personal Cache Note
      • Corrected coordinates
    • Info column icons
      • Needs maintenance
      • Part of a GeoTour
    • Misc buttons
      • Search button
      • Select one
      • Select all
  • We have added a tooltip to the Found by filter that explains that mapping and adding to lists is not possible for queries using this filter.
  • Renamed the column header "last found" to "found on" for queries that use the Found by me, Found By Player, or Found By [multiple players] filters. This more accurately reflects the functionality and is to avoid confusion.
  • Renamed the column header "Placed on" to "Event date" for queries that exclusively show Event Cache types. Please note that if there is a mix of Event Caches and other geocache types, the header will remain "Placed on".

 

We'll keep you posted of further updates as they become available.

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Today, we released another set of small improvements to the Search Results experience:

  • Players can now add 1000 caches to Lists
    • Without any sub-selection applied, the default button now shows “Add 1000 to List”
      image.png
       
    • With the select-all box checked, the button reflects the total results of the page, e.g. "Add 200 to List"
      image.png
       
    • With a sub-selection checked, the button reflects the number of selected items, e.g "Add 1 to List"
      image.png
       
  • We’ve updated the cache type icon size and overall padding on the page. This reduces row height and prevents the checkboxes from bleeding into the background.
  • We’ve updated some page styles to better reflect default, hover, focused, and disabled element states:
    • Filter button
    • "Learn more" links
    • Add to List button
    • Map geocaches button
    • Column headers
    • Cache Title
    • Favorite point numbers
    • Trackable numbers
    • Part of a GeoTour icon
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7 hours ago, Delta68 said:

I've just noticed that non-premium members can no longer see pmo icons on maps.
I presume this due to this latest change as I was able to see them a couple of weeks ago.

 

The web maps, both the Search Map & Browse Map, have never not included preview-icons of PMO caches for Basic Members for a long time. Instead they have always included all non-PMO caches.

 

On the mobile app, Basic members can see greyed out icons for non-PMO caches that are behind the paywall, due to higher D/T ratings. It doesn't include preview-icons of PMO caches.

 

The new search results didn't change that or what is shown on the map. Some of the default filter settings changed, so maybe you could verify whether that causes the difference in what you are seeing.


That said, it'd be great if you could provide more detail on what you see now vs what you believe to have seen before. 

 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

The web maps, both the Search Map & Browse Map, have never included preview-icons of PMO caches for Basic Members.

 

When I started geocaching I was a Basic Member for a long time. I was aware of Premium Only caches just because I saw them on the map. There were some offset in coordinates and the cache description was somehow blocked.  Today a Basic Member can not see PMO caches on the map. The filter to exclude PMO caches is not available for Basic Members. It is nailed for All
image.png.cd08f46c05d5a8b304db22ed86a7059c.png

I don't know when PMO caches disappeared from the map. But if it is intented feature that Basic Members can not see them, I suggest to nail the filter to Basic Caches instead of All.

 

 

Edited by arisoft
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21 minutes ago, arisoft said:

When I started geocaching I was a Basic Member for a long time. I was aware of Premium Only caches just because I saw them on the map. There were some offset in coordinates and the cache description was somehow blocked.

I started geocaching in 2013 and was also BM for a long time. By then, I could not see PMO caches on the browse map (if there was a search map I was not aware of it). Sometimes, for unknown reasons, the map had a glitch that made it show all caches as unfound by me (no smileys), and then also PMO caches were visible. They appeared on the map at the correct coordinates. I know that because I took the opportunity to find a few of them that way.

 

3 hours ago, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

The web maps, both the Search Map & Browse Map, have never included preview-icons of PMO caches for Basic Members.

arisoft seems to have started in 2010. So there was a time between 2010 and 2013 when PMO caches were visible on the map, and something has indeed changed. Albeit a long time ago.

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16 minutes ago, ChriBli said:

I started geocaching in 2013 and was also BM for a long time. By then, I could not see PMO caches on the browse map (if there was a search map I was not aware of it). Sometimes, for unknown reasons, the map had a glitch that made it show all caches as unfound by me (no smileys), and then also PMO caches were visible. They appeared on the map at the correct coordinates. I know that because I took the opportunity to find a few of them that way.

 

I also started in 2013 and I remember being able to see PMO caches on the browse map if I zoomed out far enough, but they disappeared when I zoomed in closer. There was a trail of them along a local creek a short walk from home and, after I'd found all the non-PMOs around my local area, that was the nudge I needed to go premium.

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13 hours ago, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

 

The web maps, both the Search Map & Browse Map, have never not included preview-icons of PMO caches for Basic Members for a long time. Instead they have always included all non-PMO caches.

 

On the mobile app, Basic members can see greyed out icons for non-PMO caches that are behind the paywall, due to higher D/T ratings. It doesn't include preview-icons of PMO caches.

 

The new search results didn't change that or what is shown on the map. Some of the default filter settings changed, so maybe you could verify whether that causes the difference in what you are seeing.


That said, it'd be great if you could provide more detail on what you see now vs what you believe to have seen before. 

 

 

 

Thanks for the explanation.
The cache I could see greyed-out was indeed a non-pmo higher difficulty.

We've only stopped being paying members this year (after fifteen years), so it's taking a bit of getting used to.

Our own owned caches are still PMO so not even visible to us.



 

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Today, we released another set of small improvements to the Search Results experience:

 

We have created better parity for viewing a players FINDS, both from the player’s profile and via the search filters. Before they would include archived caches when viewed via a profile link, but only active caches when viewed via the search filter.

  • Going forward, the experience via profile links will remain unchanged
  • For search results accessed via the search filters, they will include archived FOUND caches if one of the following filters is checked:
    • Found by me (as part of the Found status filter)
    • Found By [Player X]
    • Found By [multiple players]

We have created better parity for viewing a players HIDES, both from the player’s profile and via the search filters. Before they would include archived caches when viewed via a profile link, but only active caches when viewed via the search filter.

  • Going forward, the experience via profile links will remain unchanged
  • For search results accessed via the search filters, they will include archived HIDDEN caches if one of the following filters is checked:
    • Caches I Own (as part of the Owner status filter)
    • Hidden By [Player X]
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Thanks for continuing tweeking the list output. Compared to the first incarnation there are certainly improvements visible. So please don't stop.

Since malicious tongues might argue improvements are easily possible only because of the abysmal baseline ;) so just to visualize the difference of the old and currently new search list. The pictures are adapted to show the true screen real estate:

search_old.thumb.png.6925e505ec5570bdcd92134975d826ba.png

9 resulting caches taking 1015x734 pixel and even presents the date of my own find in an (certainly only IMHO) clean and compact view.

search_new.thumb.png.917470dea59f51676f56ea50ec1e41c2.png

9 resulting caches taking 1831x893 pixel (219%, more than the doubble area). On my 27 inch monitor I need to go almost fullscreen with my browser to get the last column (and no way to eventually just scroll horizontal to see it).

 

I get it that nowadays web developer are somehow forced to use certain tools which are a bit unflexible but provide the possibility to produce nice outputs quickly and maybe even without much programming skills. But is the new list layout really the best what Groundspeak can do? Or are there really a significant number of people out there (even within the developers) who seriously consider the second picture as an "enhanced" version of the first?

 

Quote

Merriam-Webster: enhance

HEIGHTEN, INCREASE
especially : to increase or improve in value, quality, desirability, or attractiveness

 

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Today, we released another set of small improvements to the Search Results experience:

  • We have improved the feedback provided to players when adding caches to a List via the Add-to-List pop-up - creating parity with other places of the website
    • You will now see more clear confirmation when the caches where added - a green checkmark
    • You will see when adding the caches failed - a red X
    • You will see when adding caches is not possible - a red !

 

The bug identified in the forums here will be part of the next sprint.

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My player account also can no longer see other player's archived caches.  I don't see this as a feature,  nor mentioned in the release notes above. I assume it's a bug. Whats wrong with GC? No Map, No other Cacher.... ?? And this all, wth a Premium Account!!

Edited by elfe77
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3 hours ago, elfe77 said:

My player account also can no longer see other player's archived caches.  I don't see this as a feature,  nor mentioned in the release notes above. I assume it's a bug. Whats wrong with GC? No Map, No other Cacher.... ?? And this all, wth a Premium Account!!

Start with post number two for the mention of this. 

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It is now 7 months since this update and Groundspeak have still not fixed the issue that you can only see the last 1000 caches. On two occasions in the last week I have needed to look at another players finds in 2021 and it is impossible to view their last years finds as it is more than 1000 caches ago. All you can do it move to the first 1000 caches that they found many years ago but nothing inbetween. 

Am I missing something? As surely this can’t still be a bug that has not been fixed yet. Is there a different path I can follow to see ALL their finds rather than from their profile. 

Edited by GeoJaxx
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1 hour ago, HHL said:

Yes and yes:

Use this Url: https://www.geocaching.com/seek/nearest.aspx?ul=hhl

Replace hhl with the desired cachername.

Thank you - this has worked. However is this only available if you have this old link? If so it is still a problem and needs Groundspeak attention, if the website has not been updated so that everybody can easily search for all finds for a cacher directly. 

Edited by GeoJaxx
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3 hours ago, GeoJaxx said:

It is now 7 months since this update and Groundspeak have still not fixed the issue that you can only see the last 1000 caches. On two occasions in the last week I have needed to look at another players finds in 2021 and it is impossible to view their last years finds as it is more than 1000 caches ago. All you can do it move to the first 1000 caches that they found many years ago but nothing inbetween. 

Am I missing something? As surely this can’t still be a bug that has not been fixed yet. Is there a different path I can follow to see ALL their finds rather than from their profile. 

 

In the current search experience, enter their username in the "Found by" filter and specify the "Find date" filter to be between January 1, 2021 and December 31, 2021. Then hit search.

 

This will show you all found caches, both active and archived, for that user in that timeframe. If that should exceed 1000 results, you can adjust the timeframe to keep it under the threshold.

 

Web searches are generally moving towards more nuanced search results instead of just dumping 1000s of results on a user. Timeboxing queries as described above is a common strategy to do so. I apologize if that doesn't meet your personal preferences but there are currently no plans to revisit how/ how many results are presented per query. 

 

 

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On 8/14/2022 at 4:57 AM, elfe77 said:

My player account also can no longer see other player's archived caches.  I don't see this as a feature,  nor mentioned in the release notes above. I assume it's a bug. Whats wrong with GC? No Map, No other Cacher.... ?? And this all, wth a Premium Account!!

 

Please re-read my post from August 2 on how you can access this information if you have the right filters set:

 

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On 9/14/2022 at 3:21 PM, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

Web searches are generally moving towards more nuanced search results instead of just dumping 1000s of results on a user. Timeboxing queries as described above is a common strategy to do so

For a simplified mobile interface, that's understandable. Can it not be reasonable to provide the option to receive a larger list for those who wish it? Especially on desktop where realestate and bandwidth is generally far more prepared for a query like that? The website, after all, still provides a page that lists ALL logs for your account on one single web page, which can take time to render even on a fast machine once you're over say 10,000 finds.  Why not provide a delimiter option on the search results for those who choose to make use of it?

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15 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

For a simplified mobile interface, that's understandable. Can it not be reasonable to provide the option to receive a larger list for those who wish it? Especially on desktop where realestate and bandwidth is generally far more prepared for a query like that?

 

Theoretically - yes. Practically where we are right now - no.
 

Just some of the limitations:

  • Technology limitations of the Elasticsearch data cache that is being queried
  • Performance at scale
  • Poor user experience of Adding-to-Lists (limited to 1000 caches) vs. results that would far exceed that - you'd need to mitigate that
  • Poor user experience of inconsistent search experience across platforms
  • Additional build and maintenance costs
15 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

The website, after all, still provides a page that lists ALL logs for your account on one single web page, which can take time to render even on a fast machine once you're over say 10,000 finds.

 

https://www.geocaching.com/my/geocaches.aspx is a very old legacy page that still relies on old poorly performing SQL queries. This kind of technology is not scalable.

 

15 hours ago, thebruce0 said:

Why not provide a delimiter option on the search results for those who choose to make use of it?

 

See above.

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Well, first off, thanks for all the work you do do (the team) for the website. My comments are in love, for constructive criticism, not negativity :)

Now, the fact that other websites do have search functions that can return all results, even if paged, means that it is possible. So, the limitations you're referring to are purely contextual to this website and manner and choices of development, not fundamental limitations to the concept of returning massive full results to a complex search. It's a matter of how it can be done, not if it can be done.

 

That said, not knowing the backend system, obviously we can't simply hand-wave off any limitations built into HQ's system :P   I only see differences between use of this search ability compared to other search functions on other websites, and wonder why there are limitations here...

 

Which is pretty much what this means:

12 minutes ago, Bl4ckH4wkGER said:

Theoretically - yes. Practically where we are right now - no.

 

Using concepts like the 'elasticsearch' you describe sounds like a backed-into-the-corner situation - employing a programmatic concept that itself has limitations, and so making a choice to reduce some options for the sake of enhancing others. If that's how it is, then okay; unfortunate, but okay. (because it can be done, just not here, now)

 

Performance at scale, a cost issue; but again, that legacy page produces its results quickly. The lag is in the rendering of the page in browser with 10's of thousands of table rows in a single table. I would argue that page would be much faster if the HTML rendering were fixed to be more optimized instead of one massive single table.  Now at scale, of course 100's of people with 10,000+ finds loading the same page simultaneously would likely be disastrous for the server. I'm not advocating for a single query to return 10k+ records and rendering in one html page :P

 

I think the biggest issue here is the 1000 results limitation. I'd say that "Poor user experience of Adding-to-Lists (limited to 1000 caches) vs. results that would far exceed that - you'd need to mitigate that" is entirely subjective.

At this point it's a tradeoff - Bad: limited to 1000; Good: 1000 is most relevant to most people and matches the list max.

Whereas unlimited - Bad: what to do with >1000 results when adding to a list? Good: user gets everything they want to find.

It's just a matter of designing a UI that accommodates.  There've already been suggestions for search options like "Not in list...", which would allow for a flow like this:

1. Search for all caches in a country

2. Add first 1000 to new List

3. Rerun, +not in country List(s)

4. Repeated 2-3-2-3 until results are empty.

This of course is an added feature for people who wish it, and makes no difference to people who find "top 1000" searches sufficient. So it'd be an improvement to the user experience, not a detriment.  Options that are there for people to use who wish them can't detract from a user experience of those who don't use them if the UI is friendly enough in its presentation.

 

But this, I think, is arguably the biggest cause of people complaining about UI experiences, ironically: "Poor user experience of inconsistent search experience across platforms"

This move and trend (generally speaking) to make a user experience nearly identical across very different platforms I think causes more harm to platform-specific user experiences. Mobile-first design may be well and good, but if there's no need to force a mobile experience on a website or segment of a website that is highly used by desktop users, then why do so?

 

I suppose the answer is this: "Additional build and maintenance costs"

 

If that's what it all boils down to, then there's not much we can do, I guess ;P  Except convince more people to join and subscribe to the website as premium members so there is more resource for R&D and better overall UX design across, and specific to, platforms. :)

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Is there still something broken in the search system?

 

I wanted to look for night caches so I picked "Utrecht, Netherlands" for it's central location with a 200km circle and the night cache attribute:

https://www.geocaching.com/play/results/?st=Utrecht%2C+Netherlands&oid=388&ot=region&r=200&hf=1&nfb=ardila.nl&att=52&asc=true&sort=distance

 

1315006621_Screenshot2022-10-23134028.thumb.png.471a06ff169c5da456ccd08acfe63faa.png

 

It only finds 4 caches but I would expect it to find these for example:

https://coord.info/GC80AGC

https://coord.info/GC2HC1F

https://coord.info/GC90VR4

Edited by ardila.nl
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1 hour ago, HHL said:

Your search URL searches for caches in the state of Utrecht. The three missing caches are listed in other regions than Utrecht.

use this instead:

https://www.geocaching.com/play/results/?st=city+of+utrecht%2C+netherlands&oid=-1&ot=query&r=200&hf=1&nfb=ardila.nl&nfb=HHL&ho=1&att=52&asc=true&sort=distance

You are right.

That's kinda confusing, I didn't notice that it selected the region as I just typed "Utrecht" and hit enter.

It used to auto select the city if I did that.

hmm, it seems that using a regional search disables/ignores the "Distance" setting. I just changed it to 1km and it still finds the same 4 caches.

 

Only the filter page makes the difference between a regional or city search clear.

The result page just says "Location" in both searches it doesn't make it clear that results are limited to the region

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On 10/23/2022 at 9:18 AM, ardila.nl said:

it seems that using a regional search disables/ignores the "Distance" setting. I just changed it to 1km and it still finds the same 4 caches.

It gets messy. If you search within a region, there's no explicit center point from which to determine 'distance'.  IMO, in that case the Distance should be distance to home as that's the only relevant point location at that point. Otherwise, the search would be picking an arbitrary 'center' of the selected region (which I believe it does now), and then distance has almost no meaning or relevance.

 

Search from location? Distance = from location

Search within region? Distance = from home (or just 0, as it's within the region and has no relevance)

That, IMO, is the way it should be.

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On 10/24/2022 at 4:07 PM, thebruce0 said:

Search from location? Distance = from location

 

This is the way it makes sense in real life. If I search by location, I want the caches closest to the location listed first (which was the case until recently). Now I'm getting them sorted by the distance from my home location. Which, as you can see from the screen capture attached, is a bit awkward. I would expect the Fremont caches around HQ first, but I get the caches on the eastern side of search perimeter first. Displaying search results on the map works as expected, though.

Screenshot 2022-12-06 at 10.31.44.png

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On 10/24/2022 at 3:07 PM, thebruce0 said:

It gets messy. If you search within a region, there's no explicit center point from which to determine 'distance'.  IMO, in that case the Distance should be distance to home as that's the only relevant point location at that point. Otherwise, the search would be picking an arbitrary 'center' of the selected region (which I believe it does now), and then distance has almost no meaning or relevance.

 

Search from location? Distance = from location

Search within region? Distance = from home (or just 0, as it's within the region and has no relevance)

That, IMO, is the way it should be.

That is because a location is a centre point and region or country is a filter NOT a centre point. Clearly they are two separate fields with different meanings but Geocache HQ for some reason has decreed that they need to be in the same field. Split them up and all would work just fine for everybody with lots of flexibility.

Edited by lodgebarn
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