The Story
This tool was created to compensate for the cumbersome search on geocaching.com. A long time ago I requested that a multi-functional search box be put at the top of every page. I got annoyed that to search you have to wait for a huge page to load, then scroll down to the keyword search, which is what I want most of the time.
This was even more frustrating when trying to look up cache details wirelessly on my phone. Therefore, this page is optimized for quick loading, especially on mobile devices. For known wireless devices, it will use the printer-friendly version of the page rather than the full one. If your wireless device doesn't go to the right place, please let me know.
Smart Searching
GQS will look at the search and try to guess the format of it. Here are the formats that it will recognize and where it will send you:
| Format | Pattern | Example | Destination |
|---|---|---|---|
| US Zip Code | 5 digits | 90025 | Caches in that zip code |
| UK Postal Code | 2-4 numbers, 2 numbers/letters, separated by a space |
EC1V 9HQ | Caches in that postal code |
| US Area Code | 3 digits | 415 | Caches in that area code |
| Waypoint | Starts with "GC" | GCMGWM | The cache's information page |
| Waypoint (Geocaching Australia) | Starts with "GA", then 4 digits | GA0088 | The cache's information page |
| Geocaching "GUID" | Ugly string of numbers and letters | 793d0999-a667-405a-b530-4339ee488ac8 | The cache's information page |
| Travel Bug (by number) | 6 digits | 315027 | The Travel Bug's Page |
| Travel Bug (by ID) | Starts with "TB" | TB8D2B | The Travel Bug's page |
| Swaggie (Australian Travel Bug) | Starts with "SW" | SW0001 | The Swaggie's information page |
| Coordinates | coordinate string | N37 13.487 W121 58.582 or 37.224783 -121.976367 |
Boulter.com Coordinate Map and Info Page for those coordinates |
| Keyword | (anything else) | Waterfall | Caches with the keyword in the start of their titles |
There are three "go to" options: "details", "print" and "log". Each of these will direct you to a different page for a cache on geocaching.com. Also, the search checks to see if a keyword search will only return one result and if so will send you directly to the cache page.
For example, if you were to type in "displaced" into the search box, you would go directly to the cache page for my Displaced New Englander cache.
If you select the "print" option, you'll go directly to the printer friendly version of the page.
The most useful one for me is the "log" option. That will take you right to the page where you can log your find (or not!)
But wait, there's more! What if the search returns more than one result? It would be a shame to not carry your action all the way through, so I added a little cache selection page, as long as you get less than 20 matches back. (I didn't want to deal with paging.)
Meta Words
Prefixing your search with special words can search specific things or take you to certain pages.
"found: boulter" Shows you the list of all caches Boulter has found
"hidden: boulter" Shows you the list of all caches Boulter has hidden
"profile: boulter" or "user: boulter" Takes you to boulter's profile page
"watch: GCXXXX" or "watch: assume nothing" Will put that cache on your watchlist
"unwatch: GCXXXX" or "unwatch: assume nothing" Will remove that cache from your watchlist
"email: boulter" Takes you to a page to send an email to boulter through geocaching.com
"forums:" Takes you to the Geocaching.com forums
"au:" Will search all of Geocaching Australia
"auforums:" Takes you to the Geocaching Australia forums
"nlforums:" Takes you to the Geocaching Netherlands forums
"new:" Shows you new caches in a particular state/province by their
numeric geocaching ID.
"help:" or "about:" Takes you to this page
If there are more meta words you would find useful, please suggest them!
Other ways to use Geocaching Quick Search
Alex de Vries (aka Lt. Sniper) has written a Search Plugin for Mozilla Firefox for GQS.
Bookmarklets:
Geocaching Quick Search
Geocaching Quick Log
Geocaching Quick Print
Why do I need the bookmarklet?
It's not required, but it's useful because it makes it really quick
and easy to use. Hit the bookmarklet from your links bar and it pops
up a dialog box to type in your search and you're there!
Customizing the search form
You can pass parameters to the search form to set the default status of the options. These are the options:
mode = "cache" (default), "printer" (same as mobile), and "log"
decrypt (turns on)
all (turns on)
Example 1: Go to log page
http://boulter.com/gqs/?mode=log
Example 2: Mobile version, show all logs decrypted
http://boulter.com/gqs/?mode=printer&decrypt&all