Submitted by WayneK on 2021/05/19 14:37

Are there any plans to improve how filtering is done? 

It was suggested that it be done via a dialogue pop up with a list of values that you can filter by.  You then simply check the values you want to display.  Everything would be direct and simple.

I find the current system difficult to figure out and I have tried many times, including spending hours setting up filter test cases to better understand how things work.  I've never been able to create exactly what I want.

It's been a long time since I've gone through that process so I can't remember the difficulties I encountered off the top of my head.  I do remember one: if you have InfoQube create a list of values, it treats each combination as a separate instance.

For example, a multi-select list with entries: V1, V2, V3, V4, V5.  I want to be able to filter by any combination of those values.  But as soon as you start entering multiple selections, InfoQube changes the list to:

V1, V2, V1andV2, V3, V2andV3, V4, V1andV2andV4,etc.  So if you want to filter by V1, you have to manually search for V1 AND every combination of V1 with other values.  With many values and many combinations, the list quickly becomes unusable.  I wrote this up in detail in a previous thread.

Maybe some of these issues have been addressed in recent updates.

To me, filtering is an absolute core function that should be made as easy as possible with simple dialogues. 

Wayne

Comments

Hi Wayne,

Your issue seems to be limited to text fields using the multi-select editor, is that correct ?

A couple of notes:

  1. You can filter for *V1* or something similar. It helps if your values are { } enclosed
  2. You can use Tags

any plans to improve filtering

Make a suggestion, I'll look into it :-)

 

I know I can just edit for text values and I've thought maybe I should just do that and be done with it.

The advantage of the checklist is that it presents a clean list of choices.  No remembering, looking up, and typing out values along with needed qualifiers "and", "or", and no correcting typo's.

I know this is simple stuff for people who work with databases but it can be intimidating for users who aren't familiar with these basics.

My gut standard of use is that you should be able to do simple tasks entirely on the fly without consulting the manual or going through step-by-step tutorials.  A single dialogue interface would accomplish that, I think.  You could even add simple instructions within the box to make it even easier.

Wayne

Right now, I'm trying this: create a topic text field set to "Auto-list of values, Multi-Select".

This does create a checklist of values to select from.  It also hasn't created the Frankenstein entries (v1andV2) that I mentioned above.  So far, so good.

But now I want to filter the column using the checklist, but I don't see how to do it.  If i click on the column header, the filter choices are "All, Blanks, non-Blanks, Filter-for"  Why can't the checklist appear here and let me select which combination of values I want to filter for?  That doesn't seem like a big leap from how it's set up now, and would go a good ways to making it easier to use.

Wayne

Enter *V1* in the filter dropdown, or press Shift+Ctrl+G and enter *V1* in the dialog. It also provides for some options

I'm not saying it is perfect, but it's workable and I currently have too many other things to do to address this

 

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