Conducting Searches Using BaseCamp 4.1 Or Later

[Strephon Alkhalikoi]

Conducting Searches Using BaseCamp 4.1 Or Later

For BaseCamp 4.1, Garmin rewrote the search algorithm for BaseCamp. Gone was the old Find Bar and its three fields that were read like a sentence. Replacing the Find Bar was a single text box for searches. Currently, Garmin is implementing the search changes in stages, with Phase I currently complete.

I: Introducing The New Find Bar

The Find Bar is BaseCamp's interface to the search engine within the program. The Find Bar consists of a single field and allows the user to narrow the search to an extent. The new Find Bar is also a drop-down field. 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

To use the new Find Bar, at minimum simply type in what you want to search for and the city it's located in. The Find Bar is very forgiving, in that it supports "Fuzzy Search". Thus, "govone, Milan" and "govone, Milano, MI, ITA" return the same results.

III: The Results

By default BaseCamp displays a list of "Top Results" based upon the center of the map view and culled from the following sources:

• Points of Interest
• Addresses
• Geocaches
• Garmin Adventures
• POIs in "My Collection"
• Yelp (BaseCamp 4.2)

These results are separated by category, as shown.

Each category displays five results, and additional results can be accessed using the "More" button. At the top of the results screen are icons for each category of results. At a glance it is possible to see which categories are active, as the active categories will be bounded by a blue box. To remove a category from the list of results, simply select the category icon using the mouse. The blue box surrounding the icon will disappear, along with any results in that category. For example, in the picture above, the icons for Garmin Adventures and Geocaches do not have the blue box surrounding them, and thus they are not included in search results.

IV: Find Options

While most searches can be conducted using the basic instructions above, there may be times where the user may wish to search only for specific items. For this, Garmin provides the Find Options screen. Before accessing the Find Options screen, make sure the Find Bar is empty. To access the Find Options screen when a search has not been performed, select the Find menu (see left image below) and select "Find Options". If a search has been performed, there is a gear icon on the right hand side of the search results screen that will take you to the Find Options screen (see right image below).

On the Find Options screen you have a text field titled "Location". Basic searches use the center of the current map view as the starting point. To change the Location, select the Location text field and type in a city. The user types in a portion of the name or the full name of the city into the text field and BaseCamp will return a list of results that contain that term. The user then searches for the desired city in that list and clicks on it, which sets that city in the Location text field.

In addition to "Location" you also have "Type". This allows the user to narrow down the search to a specific item, e.g. looking for Geocaches in the area. Most of the options presented are pretty self explanatory and nothing more needs to be done with them to search. However, there are two types of searches that do require more information. When selecting "Points of Interest" or "All Adventures", a section titled "More Options" appears.

The Points of Interest options (see left image below) allow the user to select a specific type of POI to search for, similar to the Find dialog box in the Find Bar on earlier versions of BaseCamp. The All Adventures options (see right image below) allow the user to set various things like rating, distance, duration, difficulty level, and even the publishing date of the Adventure.

Once the options are set as the user desires, select the "Search" button and the Find Options screen will be replaced by the search results. From this point, it is possible to change search types, simply by using the "Find" menu and selecting a search type. However, repeatedly changing search types results in the selected city being removed from the Find Bar, reverting the search to "Center of view" in the Find Options.

V: Conclusion

BaseCamp 4.1's search is a dramatic improvement from the search in earlier versions of BaseCamp, but it still has some room for improvement. For example, while searches are far easier to conduct than in old versions of BaseCamp, there is the issue of losing the city you're searching in when changing the type of search. The search itself should use natural language. As it stands now, you cannot use the words "near" or "in" when conducting a search or else the search comes up with no results. The convetion of "item, city, state" is a bit stilted. Despite the minor issues mentioned, the change in search is more than welcome.

[catymag]

I will study this lol, thanks for the update, actually with Trip Planner feature in new BC beta ,search becomes more important too.
Edit :I added thread link in Tutorials Index

[Strephon Alkhalikoi]

I've installed the beta, but haven't tried searches on it. Let me know if I screwed up something or if something isn't clear. I was in a bit of a rush today.