InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by jimspoon on 2019/04/08 02:12

I was experimenting with using the keyboard to set values of text fields with popup list editors. I found that the first press of F2 activates the field for editing, and the second press of F2 pops up the popup list. Very good.

Withing the popup list, each press of the Tab key moves the highlight as follows:

List of Values -> OK button -> Cancel button -> ??? -> List of Values

The "???" means that I don't know where the highlight is, or what is active. All I know I know is that from the Cancel button, it takes two Tab key presses to get back to the List of Values. I think I'm missing something here.

Once I'm in the List of Values button, I can use the Up and Down keys to select the value I want, and press Enter or F2 to set the field value and exit. Very good.

I haven't found any keystroke that will get me down to the yellow "Filter list ..." bar so that I can type in characters to filter the popup list. It would be good to be able to do this.

Comments

Hi Jim,

re ???: Fixed in the next version
re Filter: Ctrl+G opens the filter dialog (in the next version, Ctrl +F will do the same)

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

Neat! Now I see that Ctrl+G opens a "Filter this Grid" or "Filter List" dialog, depending on the context. And when you use it to "Filter List", and press Enter, it returns you to the popup list.

Thanks!

I've posted previously my suggestion to improve the filter for multi-select lists. The way it works now makes it difficult to use it for its intended purpose of filtering for multiple categories. I wanted to cite the examples I

gave in my thread but forum search isn't working.

1) Multi-select list of categories

2) Item is assigned to cat 1 and cat 3

3) If you filter for cat 1, it will not find the item because it lists it as a separate category of "1 and 3". So you have to manually hunt down every occurrence of "Cat 1" in combination with other categories.

4) This makes it unusable if you have a long list of categories with many combinations

Wayne

Hi Wayne,

Are you referring to filtering in the grid or in the pop-up list ? Both support filters with wildcards...

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

It's been a while since I looked at this but I'll try to reconstruct it from memory.

1) I have a multi-select with categories

2) I'd like to use that same list to filter the column.

3) That's not possible because of the way the column lists unique values. I cannot click on the checkbox for "Cat1" and find all instances of "Cat1". If an item has been assigned to Cat1 and Cat3, it won't be found.

4) Yes, I guess you can rervert to direct searches but that kind of obviates the convenience of a checklist, and you also have to worry about overlapping words when you name your categories.

If I'm wrong about this, I'll delve back into the work I did on this previously and check back. I wanted to use multi-select lists for filtering but gave up because of this.

Wayne

I found on the old thread (https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/4443) and will paste the relevant sections here:

1) I want to use a multi-select list to assign categories to a list of items, then use the same multi-select list to filter the list by checking off categories.

2) It doesn't seem possible to filter using the multi-select list. You can only filter using the column header filter list, which is not the same thing and doesn't work the way it should (in my opinion).

Example: I have a list of 4 items that can be assigned to 4 categories. The assignments are:

Item 1 = Cat-1

Item 2 = Cat-2

Item 3 = Cat-1, Cat-4

Item 4 = Cat-2, Cat-3, Cat-4

Problem 1: The column header filter displays a separate entry for each unique entry. So instead of showing a list of 4 categories to pick from, it displays each category AND each combination of categories as a separate item. This clutters the list with extraneous entries, and will make it almost unusable if you have a long list of categories with dozens of combinations.

Problem 2: the filter does not work correctly (in my mind). If I filter on "Cat-2", it shows only Item 2; it does NOT show item 4, which is also assigned to Cat-2. You have to separately select each and every combination of categories that includes "Cat-2". That's unworkable in a long list of categories with many combinations.

I run into the same problems trying to use the Tags field to filter in place. Really hoping I'm missing something major because I've been unable to make this work for me despite many tries.

--------------------------

Yes, you can filter by typing in the category name but that requires you to remember the category names or remind yourself of them by scanning entries in your list. That's certainly doable but sacrifices the convenience of a multi-select list,

The multi-select list allows you to manage a large number of categories without having to remember exactly what the names are. You just scan the list and check off the categories that apply.

The present set-up does that very well for assigning categories but doesn't follow through with applying the same system to filtering. To me, that makes the mult-select list less useful than it could be.

I know Pierre has a lot going on but I hope he can address this at some point because I think info management, including filtering, is a core function of InfoQube. A straightforward solution would be to append the multi-select list to the bottom of the column filter dialogue box.

As always, I welcome any corrections on what I've said or suggestions about how to accomplish the same thing in another way.

Wayne

Wayne, I was just thinking along the same lines, it would be great if the popup for the column filter was the same as the popup for the field editor!

Right now, when I click on the down arrow in the column header, this is all I see:

Even though it's a popup field, I don't see any way to pop up a list to select from. In the "Filter For" box I have to type something in that matches an entire value in the field - though i can do that with wildcards. It seems you are saying that you do see a popup list of values to pick from in the popup filter box, but the values are not displayed properly (Cat1, Cat2, Cat3, Cat4) as you have described - and if so, I am wondering how you got any kind of pick list to come up.

Just as an example, I think Google Sheets has a really good column filter setup (see below) that allows quick searching for desired values and arbitrary selection among the values.

I am very interested in Wayne's suggested improvements for a column filter popup.

Hi Jim,

Thanks for your suggestion, but there is just so much I can do as I don't control the column drop down list completely.

To list the values though, select Grid > Column Filter > List Values

Pierre_Admin

IQ Designer

Thanks Pierre! With the values shown it is very similar to the Google Sheets column filter - able to select multiple values - like an OR filter. If it's possible, the ability to filter (or at least auto-search) the list of values would make it still better.