Thread: Conducting Searches Using BaseCamp

Note: BaseCamp's Find Bar was totally redesigned for BaseCamp 4.1 and up and thus this tutorial is obsolete. This tutorial will remain for reference purposes. For a tutorial covering search in BaseCamp 4.1 and later, click [Only registered and activated users can see links. ].

Conducting Searches Using BaseCamp

There has been some confusion regarding how the search in BaseCamp works. Unlike MapSource, searching with BaseCamp uses a different interface that people used to MapSource may have difficulty adjusting to. In order to help people adjust to the BaseCamp's search feature, this tutorial was born.

I: Introducing The Find Bar

The Find Bar is BaseCamp's interface to the search engine within the program. The Find Bar has three fields, and these fields allow the user to narrow the search to the specific item being looking for. For our purposes we are going to label the fields "Find", "near", and "containing". While these names don't sound all that intuitive, it may make more sense when the user notices that the Find Bar is actually designed to read like a sentence, e.g. "Find [an] Address near Milan, Italy containing Govone" or "Find Cities near [the] Center of [the] map containing Lexington".

The Find item of the Find Bar is a drop down menu field. When the user clicks on the arrow at the right side of the field, the user will see the following screen:

It looks rather complex, but in reality it's no more difficult to use than using the POI search function on a GPS receiver. In fact, for basic searches only the top three items are essential. "Geocaches" is a specialized search function for aficionados of that hobby while the remaining items in the menu are for locating specific items within the points of interest database in a map set. This tutorial isn't going to go into detail regarding the specialized search functions of BaseCamp, but these extra search functions honestly need little explanation.

The near item is also a drop down field. When BaseCamp is started two options are available on the drop down:

The "Center of map" option and "Center of selection" options work in a similar fashion. The difference between the two is in how they narrow down the search results. If using "Center of map" to find items the search will be conducted using the center of the current map display as the focal point. To use the "Center of Selection" option, the user taps the magnifying glass icon in the menu bar and draws a box around the area to be searched, which then expands to fill the screen. The center of that box becomes the focal point of the search. The focal point of the search is always represented on the map by a large red "X".

Unlike the "Find" field, the "near" field can also be typed into. This is most useful for narrowing searches. This feature of the "near" field is prominently used for searches in BaseCamp.

The last part of the Find Bar is the "containing" field.

Like the other two fields, the containing field is a drop down field. However the containing field does not have a list of preset items available to it like the other two fields. This field is used to narrow a search down by searching for specific words or phrases within the map databases. For example, using the word "Main" when searching for "Main Street" or "Coors" when searching for items related to the brewery. The drop down field retains a list of previous searches so that the user can quickly search for an item once more if desired.

II: The Basics of Search

When searching for an item in BaseCamp it is important to know what is being searched for. Is the search for a city? An address? A point of interest? Once the user knows what they are searching for, they need to set it in the Find field in BaseCamp.

The near field is used to narrow the search down. As mentioned above, the near field can be used to broadly search for items by setting the search to "Center of map" or "Center of selection", but its greatest use is the ability to narrow down searches by selecting a specific city, e.g. Toronto. The near field cannot be used to narrow searches by country, so using a city is essential unless using one of the "Center of" options. The user types in a portion of the name or the full name of the city into the near field and BaseCamp will return a list of results that contain that term. So, typing in Lexington into the near field would provide the following list:

The user then searches for the desired city in that list and clicks on it, which will set that city in the near field. The map display will change to the location surrounding the desired city.

The containing field is used to narrow the search down even further, by searching for a particular name or item within the section of the map defined by the near field, e.g. searching for Main Street or for a POI such as a park. Unlike the near field, the items that can be searched for in the containing field are limitless. However, if the other fields are not set correctly the user may receive no search results when conducting their search.

III: The Results

A successful search will generate a list of points based upon the parameters given in the Find Bar.

The screen shows fifteen items at a time. If there are more than fifteen items and the user wishes to see the other items, there are a pair of arrows at the bottom right corner of the list pane. Pressing the right arrow will take the user to the next page, while the left arrow will take the user to the previous page.

IV: Step By Step Search Procedures

The following instant guides are to assist users in successfully conducting basic searches. They do not cover in any great detail the advanced search items in the Find field of the Find Bar, however those advanced search items are simply shortcuts to searching for specific types of POIs in the map database. Using these instant guides does not guarantee a successful search, and it is possible that even with everything set properly a search may turn up with no results.

All Points of Interest:

1. Select "All Points of Interest" in the Find field.
2. Type a city name into the near field.
3. (Optional) - Type a POI name or portion thereof into the containing field.
4. Press the green arrow on the Find Bar or press Enter on the keyboard to search.

This search will generate a list of POIs in a given city. This search can also be used with the two "Center of" selections in the near field, in which case it will generate a list of POIs based upon the center of the map as the focal point. If choosing to use one of the advanced search items in the Find field, select that item, e.g. Bank/ATM, instead of "All Points of Interest". The advanced search items will limit the search to the specific type of POI, in this case Banks and ATM machines.

Address:

1. Select "Address" in the Find field.
2. Type a city name into the near field.
3. Type the house number (if known) and the street name into the containing field.
4. Press the green arrow on the Find Bar or press Enter on the keyboard to search.

With street names it is recommended to search for the least common item in the name and to omit the common items such as street, road, way, or the non-English versions of these common items. This is because the maps use the official name of the street while users may know that same street under an informal alias. It is highly recommended not to use the two "Center of" options on this search. With either of those options selected, the search may pull every instance of that street name and address within the current view of the map or it may pull nothing at all.

Cities:

1. Select "Cities" in the Find field.
2. Type a city name into the near field.
3. Leave the "containing" field empty.
4. Press the green arrow on the Find Bar or press Enter on the keyboard to search.

This search will generate a list of cities surrounding the focal point. To search for a city using either of the "Center of" options, select a "Center of" option for the near field and type only the city name - no state or country - into the containing field.

Geocaches:

1. Select "Geocaches" in the Find field.
2. Type a city name into the near field.
3. Leave the "containing" field empty.
4. Press the green arrow on the Find Bar or press Enter on the keyboard to search.

This search generates a list of all the geocaches surrounding the focal point. For this search, entering a city is recommended. While the two "Center of" options can be used this search works best near a specific destination. Many geocaches are named, and thus the containing field can be used to search for a specific cache or a series of caches containing a particular word.

V: Conclusion

The search feature in BaseCamp is easier to use than the MapSource version in that to do a search all a user has to do is be able to read and construct a sentence by putting elements together. That is not to say the BaseCamp version is better than the MapSource version; it's simply a different way of doing the same thing. It does have the advantage of being readily available while the MapSource version would call up a separate window. Even with its advantages though, there is one area where the search in BaseCamp could be improved: initialization. Unlike MapSource BaseCamp requires some time to ready the map database for use, and depending on the map and when that map was last accessed it could take upwards of a few minutes before the search is actually ready. However, that is a minor inconvenience compared to using a program which Garmin no longer supports.