Find Panel
- 6 minutes to read
The built-in Find Panel provides an easy way of searching visible columns in grid Views (card fields in card and layout Views). Displayed above the grid, the panel contains a search box and control buttons.
When searching, a grid control filters records, displaying only those that contain the entered search string. If you clear the search string and perform the search again, the grid will display all records.
The Find Panel searches through the data of the currently maximized View (either the grid control’s GridControl.MainView or the currently maximized detail clone; see GridControl.DefaultView). Thus, to search against a detail View, it must be maximized.
Search Syntax
In its simplest form, a search criterion consists of a single word. If you want to search for a string containing a space character, specify this string in quotation marks. Without quotation marks, words separated by the space character are treated as individual conditions.
You can search against a specific column by preceding a search string with the column’s display name plus a colon character.
ColumnDisplayName:SearchString
Instead of the complete name, it is possible to partially specify the display name, using the initial characters of a column’s display name. A search will be performed against the first column whose display name starts with the specified substring. If you want to search against a column whose display caption contains space characters, specify the column’s display caption in quotation marks.
If the search string contains multiple conditions separated by space characters, and at least one condition defines a search against a specific column, only records that match all of these conditions are shown (i.e., the conditions are combined by the AND logical operator). If there is no column specification, records that match at least one of these conditions are shown (i.e., the conditions are combined by the OR logical operator).
Precede a condition with “+” to display only records that match this condition. The “+” specifier allows you to implement the logical AND operator. There should be no space character between the “+” sign and the condition.
Precede a condition with “-” to exclude records that match this condition from the result set. There should be no space between the “-” sign and the condition.
Examples
| Search Criteria | Description |
|---|---|
register |
Selects records that contain the “register” string in any search column. |
check register Dave |
Selects records that contain either “check” OR “register” OR “Dave” strings in any search column. |
"check register" |
Selects records that contain “check register” in any search column. |
screen +"Richard Fisher" |
Selects records that contain both “screen” AND “Richard Fisher” in search columns. |
Product:Tofu Seattle |
Selects records that contain “Tofu” in the column that starts with “Product”, AND also contain “Seattle” in any search column. |
data +entry -mark |
Selects records that contain both “data” AND “entry” in search columns, excluding records that contain “mark”. |
menu mask -file |
Selects records that contain “menu” OR “mask”, excluding records that contain “file”. |
From:Roller Subj:"currency mask" |
Selects records that contain “Roller” in the column that starts with “From”, AND also contain “currency mask” in the column that starts with “Subj”. |
import -From:Steve |
Selects records that contain “import” in any search column, excluding records that contain “Steve” in the column that starts with “From”. |
Note
Searches performed using a Find Panel are case insensitive.
Note
When searching using the Find Panel, the grid always converts a search string to lower-case.
When binding the Grid Control to a case-sensitive data source in Server Mode, data search results will not contain target entries that have text in upper case. To overcome this issue, we suggest that you use a case-insensitive data source. See the following article to learn more:How to make the Grid’s filter to be a case- and accent-insensitive in Server Mode.
Find Panel Options
The following table lists the main properties affecting the Find Panel’s behavior and appearance.
Visibility | If the ColumnViewOptionsFind.AllowFindPanel option is enabled, an end-user can invoke the Find Panel by pressing CTRL+F. Ensure that no cell editor is opened before invoking the Find Panel. Otherwise, the shortcut will be intercepted by the in-place editor. ColumnViewOptionsFind.AlwaysVisible - Set this property to true in order to always display the Find Panel and prevent it from being hidden by an end-user. ColumnView.FindPanelVisible, ColumnView.ShowFindPanel and ColumnView.HideFindPanel - Allow you to manually display and hide the Find Panel. To check the Find Panel’s visibility state, use the ColumnView.FindPanelVisible or ColumnView.IsFindPanelVisible property. |
Searching | ColumnViewOptionsFind.FindMode - Specifies whether a data search starts automatically or manually (by clicking the Find button or by pressing the ENTER key). ColumnViewOptionsFind.FindDelay - Specifies the wait time in milliseconds before the data search is initiated (in an automatic find mode). ColumnView.ApplyFindFilter - This method allows you to start a search manually in code. |
Search String | Searches are performed against a string specified by an end-user in a Find Panel’s edit box (ColumnView.FindFilterText). The ColumnView.ApplyFindFilter method allows you to specify a search string in code. |
Search Columns/Fields | ColumnViewOptionsFind.FindFilterColumns. By default, this property is set to ““. In this instance, searches are performed against all visible columns/card fields. To search against specific columns/fields, assign the corresponding field names to the **FindFilterColumns* property, delimiting them with the “;” character. Note In Server Mode, searches are performed against column values, not by column display text. For columns that use specific in-place editors (e.g., lookup editors (see LookUpEditBase) and ImageComboBoxEdit editors), column values typically do not match the column display text. Searching against these columns is not supported. Note, however, that the grid may still highlight a search string in these columns, because text is highlighted at the grid level, while searching/filtering is performed at the data store level. If you do not want text to be highlighted in non-searchable columns, we suggest that you explicitly limit the search columns with the ColumnViewOptionsFind.FindFilterColumns property. If you still need to search against a non-searchable column, you can create a data source field whose values match the display text of the non-searchable column’s cells. Assign this field’s name to the column’s GridColumn.FieldNameSortGroup property. Note In Server Mode, data searching via the Find Panel for columns whose data type is neither string nor numeric is not supported. |
Search Result | ColumnViewOptionsFind.HighlightFindResults - Specifies whether or not search strings within the located records should be highlighted. |
Keyboard Operations | CTRL+F - Invokes the Find Panel. ESC - Clears the search box. If the search box is empty, pressing ESC closes the Find Panel. DOWN ARROW - Moves focus from the Find Panel to the grid’s data area. |
Note
The Find Panel is not supported for the GridLookUpEdit‘s dropdown GridControl. If you need to enable a Find Panel for a look up editor, use the SearchLookUpEdit control instead.