Add a SEARCH ALL FIELDS
under review
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Eugenio
under review
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Eugenio
This is a minor feature I am thinking about: it would be useful and the cost of development is relatively low.
I am not sure, however, about some implementation aspects:
1) where to show the "search all fields" form? I think users expect it on the top of the results grid but the quick search block is already quite busy so quick search + "search all fields" might be confusing
2) how to exactly phrase it is also challenging, maybe a field titled "keyword" (since we are not referring to a specific field) and a "Search all fields" button? Maybe it's time to rephrase other related labels as well: the "search" button close to "create new" should probably be "Advanced search" because this is what the standard search actually is. The "quick search" submit buttons could be just "Search", from the final users perspective I am not sure if it's clear why it's "quick" (and in my experiences, many final users don't even use the "standard" search)
3) which fields to include. The first answer you might think is "include everything" but I am not sure if this makes sense, here is some things to discuss:
- does it make sense to also search in fields the current user cannot see in the advanced search form? Probably not, but I am not sure how easy this can be explained to the final users (maybe a field is in the results grid , so the user assumes the "search all fields" looks into that, but it's not in the search form)
- there are some field types (rich_editor, date/time fields, Id_user, ...) that probably should be excluded form this feature but again, it's not easy to explain it to the final users in a compact and clear way
- lookup fields are the most tricky to implement: classic search in lookup fields use a dropdown (or similar) menu that send as search input the "ID" of the option but here we need to use a textbox; I guess the user expects to search for the "label" of the option
- search operators: with standard and quick search you can select equals, contains, higher than etc .... here I think that some of the operators don't fit with a "search all fields" operations. Maybe we should keep it easy and only allow "contains"
Any comment would be much appreciated!
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Don Worth
Eugenio: You raise some interesting points.
I think the best place to put it would be in the full search page as an additional "field". That way someone could search for somekeyword CONTAINS "blah" AND myfield DOES NOT CONTAIN "gorf". I agree that the search should only be across fields that can be searched on the SEARCH page. If it's on the full search page, could it be treated like a field and exposed in the Quick Search block also? Rather than treating it differently for the results page, just treat it as any other field?
Yes, I don't see an easy way to search in fields that are not text fields (like dates) since the keyword field would have to be text unless you want to make it configurable as to field type. But if the user made it a date field then text keyword searches could not be done for that table as well. But maybe that's OK. I don't have strong feelings about that.
Thank you for considering doing this!!!
Don
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Eugenio
Don Worth: Thanks for your feedback.
I think that "search all fields" is perceived more like a fast & simple way to search and that its natural place is on the top of the results page. I would say it's similar to what gmail, for example, does: there is a big "search email" textbox on the top of the messages list and then if you want you can open the advanced search.
Close to the search submit button, maybe there could be an informative popup explaining the list of fields included in the search (a dynamic list, that depends on the fields you have the permissions to search for).
Since having both the current "quick search" and the "search all fields" might be confusing, maybe there could be a setting that allows to choose (globally or for each table), if you want to show one or the other.
I need anyway to evaluate how easy is to add this feature without introducing too many changes to the search core code (the only problem is probably with the lookup fields).
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Don Worth
Eugenio: Makes sense. I guess as the lazy programmer I am I was trying to make it easier for you to implement! :-)
Don
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Eugenio
Don Worth: :))
T M Miktham
Eugenio: I feel quick search means for this option
this single box field will help user to type fethem w words and filter up by
ID / FULL NAME
nut no idea which filds a should search !fields