So I just went and checked it out. For Silver Eagle. On page one, the "sort by state" works, but it I go to page 2 it switches back to "sort by box name". I want to find all his boxes in the state of WA.....and other states we may travel to. I tried going to page 10 of his plants, change it to "sort by state" and it reverts to page one. Then when I go to page 2, it reverts to "sort by box name". It seems like there must be a glitch of some sort, or I am totally missing an important step! Thanks for your help.

https://www.letterboxing.org/boxes/search/by-owner.php?ownerId=64&showArchive=1&sort=location&page=2

I tried again. It works on page 1, but if I move to page 2, it reverts to "sort by box name". I'm trying to find his boxes in Washington State, for starters. He has a LOT of plants to look through! I must be missing something.....

Thanks for the URL. That's very helpful! I have to admit, I have absolutely no idea how you found that link. As far as I knew, the only link to it was the "My Letterboxes" link option which shows your own boxes. The fact that it works for other box owners is more-or-less a side-effect of code reuse that I started implementing after taking over LbNA. A lot of search options will work in the URL for that page--but they weren't actually ever intended to be used that way. Long term, I want to remove that page entirely and just link to a regular box search with the necessary search options set to return the same results.

Which is mostly how AQ works, btw. There are all sorts of links for "newest boxes" or "logbook plants" or whatever--but they all essentially just run the same code to do a search. The only difference is that the default settings are set differently for each one.

LbNA largely hadn't done that historically, but rather than maintain a dozen different pages that essentially run variations of the same basic search, I've been working to combine them into a single search results page that just have different default settings applied depending on the link that's followed.

Anyhow.... not really important to your problem. =) But at least knowing what page you were on, I understand where you are.

You are correct about the sort option being broken on that page, but I'm not really sure I want to fix it. I'd rather just redirect the link to an actual search page with the necessary settings and have one less page to maintain. Especially given the fact that that's already my long-term goal for the site.

But you can run an actual search that does what you want. Go to the Search for Letterboxes page. That's the main search page.

It's divided into three sections. The first is mostly just a "simple search" that people want to run 99% of the time. "What are the letterboxes near XYZ location."

The second section lets you look up a box by its LbNA #. Useful if you happen to know it because it's printed on the clue and you wanted to look it up to record a find or something.

The third section is basically the same as the "Advanced Search" page on AQ. It has all the options! That's the section you want to use.

Fill in "Silver Eagle" as the owner and select "Washington" as the state. The default settings might have the "hide my plants, find and attempts" checked depending on your preferences, and you can click those off if you want to see the whole list of boxes he has planted in Washington.

Then it takes you to these search results.

It's a beautiful list. The best list. You've never seen a list like it before. It has all of the results you want and nothing extra. There aren't pages of boxes to look through. Silver Eagle might be a prolific planter, but the number of boxes he's planted in Washington are relatively modest. =)

The boxes are sorted by location, but only because there's no sort option otherwise available. Long term, I'd like to add a sort option so they can be sorted based on the name of the box, location, last found, planter, or all sorts of options like AQ allows, but that hasn't happened yet. But in this case, all of the matching results easily fit on a single page of results and you shouldn't have any trouble finding what you're looking for there. =)

-- Ryan

Thank you for all this information. I have no idea how I found that link either..... I sure wasn't searching for it! It's just what comes up each and every time I go to LBNA!

I will try the info you sent and see if I can make it work! QM

I see an Add to Event button on the owner's box info page. Could there ever be an Add Bonus Box?

Apologies in advance if this has already been asked.
I'm wondering whether there could be a way to log, on Atlasquest, the custom stamps that are available in National Parks for use in the Nat'l Parks "Passport" books. (These may be called "Cancellation Stamps," though I am not sure about that.) There are typically 2 per place--one with the name and date, another with an image. I don't choose to carry a Passport book, but instead I stamp these into my Letterboxing logbook. Surely I'm not the only person who does?
There are a lot of these park stamps, though!

I do the same as you. You could record them on atlasquest and chose "other" as type.

Just record them as a find on an unlisted "other" box type.

-- Ryan

Another option is to join Parkstamps.org and log them there. That website is designed to log those exact stamps and as a bonus will help you keep track of what's available.

Logging them here as an "other" really doesn't make sense unless you just want a number to increase.

Oh, I was not aware of parkstamp.org. Great idea.

Any chance to adding that the box is a magnet stamp to the attributes options ?

I’d love this attribute, too!

When it comes to adding attributes, the main thing I look for is something that will help people narrow down what kind of boxes they want to look for. A sort of "filtering" option. Many of them actually can be searched for from the Advanced Search page.

I don't really see a need for people to search specifically for magnetic stamps, though. That seems more like a property of the box rather than a property of whether someone might want to look for a box (or not). You can just tell them it's a magnet stamp in the clue.

-- Ryan

I would love to be able to filter them OUT without having to read each clue.

I agree, the option to filter them out would be wonderful to have, especially in a big city, where unique hiding spots are a rare find. NYC alone has a ton of boxes, the vast majority are magnets. But, for me, the really memorable ones are always those creative few that find another way…

I think a simple solution is to use "magnetic" as a keyword. And then having the ability to filter out some keywords would be helpful.

For example there are quite a few letterboxes that could benefit from the keyword "nologbook." If someone wants to find a complete letterbox, it would be simple to filter out those without a logbook.

Ryan would this be an easy thing to implement?

I prefer to plant "regular" boxes. However, I often travel with noxers and don't want to waste their vacation time while I'm frantically looking for a place, often in a busy location, to plant an actual box. So magnet stamps have become my preferred way to plant when I travel. One of my most-found boxes over the past few years is a magnet stamp, so I guess other folks like to find them in busy areas, too!

That's what I do, but for someone like Dingus whose entire clues are ciphers, it may not be possible to do that, or it might detract from the experience of the clue.

We enjoyed finding your US Solar System Model: Pluto a while back. Sad it's goners.

Hmm.... that's a really interesting idea. It never occurred to me to make a way to filter out certain keywords. I'll need to look into that.

Adding standard keywords like "magnetic" and "nologbook" would be trivially easy to do, though. A way to remove those from the results would require a bit more effort and I'd need to look into that.

-- Ryan

Sorry I wish I'd been clearer when I asked if Magnetic could be added to the Attributes options of a box. I was asking for it to be added as a property of the box itself. A basic notification from the owner that you should be looking for a magnet the same way owners currently let someone know they will need a compass for a box.I was not meaning for its addition for use a search option.


The same holds true for every option in the Attributes selection I suppose. "You will need your compass" "Bring Fido" "Bike Friendly". There are fourteen Attribute options. Is there a programming issue with adding one more? It appears that there is room for several more icons. A little horseshoe magnet icon could fit in there nicely.

One of the biggest concerns I've read about on the boards is the experiences of new boxers. I would really hate to have new boxers get frustrated when they go out to find a box that is in place but they couldn't find it simply because they didn't know to look for a magnet.


For a mystery or a story theme, there's only so many times/ways you can allude to a magnet seamlessly.

But that's largely what the attributes are for--as a search filter. A way to help people narrow down which boxes might be of most interest to them at a glance.


But buried in the clue, it's not something that people can search or filter for. People need an option to know, "Oh, that box requires a compass and I don't have one--better skip that one!" or "That box is Fido-friendly, which is good because I wanted to bring Fido."

The attributes are primarily meant to help people look/sort/filter through search results.

Now some people have argued that they would like a way to avoid magnetic stamps, and that's actually a good argument for adding the attribute. But I'm not really convinced it's an option that most people would find useful. A couple, sure, but I just don't imagine that a large chunk of people are going to avoid a box just because it's a magnetic box/stamp.


Potentially. The attributes are stored as a number in the database--a bitwise thing--but it means there are a limited number of icons I can use. I need to be a little selective in which ones I think would be the most useful for people.

And "just one more" isn't really a good argument for adding something anyhow. You want an extra attribute, then someone else wants one, then someone else, and next thing you know, there's 200 attributes that people have to scroll through and pick from. I even turned it into an April Fools joke!

So no, I'm not interested in adding "just one more" attribute. That's a slippery slope.

Generally speaking, the only attributes I want to add are to help people narrow down which boxes they want to focus on when looking through a long list of search results.


I would hate that too, but like I said before, you don't need an icon to tell them that.

If you really don't want to put it in the clue, I do like the idea of adding it as a keyword, and have even added that as one of the standard keywords for traditional boxes.

-- Ryan

Using the keyword approach, do the keywords appear on the letterbox page itself when I look at it? Or do they only return boxes after checking the box and searching for let's say Magnetic now that it's an option. Can you run a search that includes some keywords while at the same time excluding others?

I'm sure I am not alone when, rather than performing comprehensive filtered searches every time, I usually look at the Newest Letterboxes list on the home page. I click on the box and review the informative icons for that box. Simple and effective.


Displaying an icon might be easier

"oh, that box is a magnetic box, I'd better adjust my mindset for the search" or "that box is magnetic---better skip that one!"

I was initially against magnetic stamp only letterboxes, but I've seen the light! We have some very clever planters with very clever hides! They open up urban areas to more letterboxing opportunities. The Magnets offer another way to bring people closer to what/where you are trying to share with far less compromise.

Other than a logbook, which are already thankfully (admit it) missing from the majority of boxes in a series, these boxes require clues/directions to find them and provide the inky proof that they were found.

They appear on the box description page, but I'm not opposed to adding them to clue pages if people find that useful.


Theoretically, yes. In practice, I'm having trouble getting it to not include boxes with specific keywords, though, and I haven't been able to fix it.


Glad to hear it! =)


Setting a person's mindset can be done in the clue. You can tell people to look for a suspicious pile of rocks/twigs, look on the west side of the tree, look UP in the tree or look for magnetic box. They're all things that should be in the clue, not something requires an icon.

I'm not sure why my last post was so unclear, but icons are primarily for searching/filtering boxes, not for "adjusting" the finder's mindset.

There's even been a question about it in the help pages since 2008. It's pretty much what I regurgitated here, though. It's not a new policy!

-- Ryan

The joke icons from April Fools Day are so funny-I just read them now and almost spit out my morning coffee from laughing so hard!!

I too like the idea of the magnet 🧲
Icon, especially with the drive by car icon. Even though it may be listed in the clues, a quick glance at the icon
automatically gets my attention !!

Thank you.

just my two cents

-Planters choice - that attribute just tells me the planter likes the place, not sure how that 'filter' would change anyones mind on looking or not looking for a box. The person can easily say "I love this place" in the clues.


I disagree, If 'tradition' was important to me, I might filter out all 'magnet stamps' due to the chance they are not in a box or have a log book.
I probably would just avoid those. (i know some have log books)

I personally like magnet stamps. When I go out letterboxing, I will go for the traditional hike, but I will always check to see if there are little magnet stamps in the area after I finish or if I am traveling, easy peasy and fun.

Plus, they are great for a little night boxing, even when you don't mean to letterbox in the night...lol (inside joke) I actually have a page in my log book that is dedicated to these little finds.

I think its a great idea for an 'attribute', so if people want to see if there are any 'magnet stamps' in the area with out reading all the clues, it would be a nice easy feature.

I know my family would love that. Im tired of the 'eye rolls' when I say "oh look, we have time to go look for a letterbox, it will be quick...". 😂

That was more of a compromise that went with the blue diamond. To be honest, I don't like it as an icon either!

But some of the complaints with the blue diamond was that new boxes couldn't have them, and people felt that they were a better judge of which of their boxes were "worthy" of being special, and I added the planter's choice as a compromise. I don't like it, however, and have never been a fan of it--but I considered it more of a "package deal" with blue diamonds. I'll even use it to help decide if a box that's a borderline blue diamond should get a blue diamond or not.

And for those who felt that blue diamonds were "soulless" and not at all accurate, it gave people a way to search for the "blue diamonds" that were essentially selected by the planter.

Don't go crazy adding it to all your boxes thinking that will help all your boxes get blue diamonds--the effect is weaker the less selective you are about handing them out to your boxes. If you add it to all of your boxes, it's ignored completely.

But you do make a good point.... that icon may have lived beyond its usefulness, and perhaps I should just change it into a keyword instead. Not everyone finds blue diamonds particularly useful, but I don't really hear about anyone using a planter's choice box to choose between two boxes. At least some people find blue diamonds useful. (Although I'll also admit, the main purpose of the blue diamonds was just to encourage people to plant quality boxes rather than quantity and give people a virtual pat on the back for a job well done. The search/filter was more of a side benefit.)


But it's not! ;o)

And the argument wasn't that it was a useful tool for searching, but rather to "set the finder's mindset." Now the fact that it can be used for searching doesn't necessarily make it a particularly useful tool if almost nobody would ever use it, which is what I think would likely happen here.


...they can run a clue search for all boxes with the word "magnet" in the clue.

-- Ryan

I use planter’s choice when I am in a new area and there are lots of boxes to choose from (prioritizing blue diamonds over planters choice when it makes sense)