InfoQube IM - Community

Manage Grids Dialog

The Manage grids dialog is used to view / edit / delete grids.

To open the dialog, you can:

Use Tools > Manage Grids...
Right-click on a workspace tab and select Manage Grids...

The dialog is divided into left and right panes:

1. The Left Pane

Left pane shows the list of grids, also shown are:

The grid source (i.e. which items are shown in this grid)
Keyboard shortcut key (Alt + number)
Whether to show or not the grid in the NavBar
Date the grid was last opened
Grid ID, a unique number identifying the grid

The tabular list allows auto-search, sort and filtering of the list:

Auto-search: In the Name or Source columns, start typing to find a grid
Sort: Click any column header to sort
Filter: Click on the column header filter button to filter the list of grids shown
(e.g. to filter out system fields, enter ">200" in the ID column header fitler)
Drag-drop grids from one position to another

Right-click on items in this list to:

Create a new grid
View the selected grid (i.e. open the grid)
Copy the grid. Once copied, you can:
- Paste it as a pane (dashboard-type grids)
- Paste the grid format, from one grid to another
- Paste hyperlinks to grids
View the list of columns
Save the list of columns as a form (see 4. Forms)
Delete the selected grid
Save the order of grids

The left pane support multiple selections. This is useful to

Open multiple grids at once
Delete multiple grids
Copy multiple grids. In a grid, do Edit > Paste Special > IQ View to create items that will be hyperlinks to grids

At the top there is a Filter button and text box. Enter text to field list. Shortcuts are Ctrl+F and Ctrl+G

2. The Right Pane

The right pane shows the properties of the selected grid (left pane).

The pane is divided into the following sections:

General
Data
Gantt Chart
Options

2.1 General

Grid name: 50 characters max. All characters are valid except " . | ~ * ! ` ? [ ] . Cannot start with a number
Description: 255 characters max.
Groups: Enter the list of groups this grid belongs to (comma separated). See 7. Grid Groups for details. The NavBar provides an easy way to manage grid groups

2.2 Data

Source: Field or SQL defining the items to show in the grid
Auto-assign field/Tag list for all top level items: Based on the grid source, this give the (read-only) list of fields and tags that will be automatically assigned a value for all new Top Level Items (TLI) created in this grid
Keep source field values when dragging out or demoting TLI: When an item is moved from a TLI to another grid or to be a sub-item, should the source field value be kept or not:
- If the grid source is complex, source field value is always kept
- If the grid where the item was dropped also have that field as a source, the value is kept
- If Ctrl key is held when dropping, the value is also kept
- If all of the above are false, the action depends on the source field type:
  - Date: Always keep
  - Number: Delete value if 0 or equal to the default value
  - Text: Delete value if " " or equal to the default value
  - Y/N: Always delete
Auto-assign field list for all items added in this grid: Comma separated list of fields. All items created in this grid will have a value for these fields
Tag inheritance Depth (0-9, -1=All): When tags are used in grid source and/or filter, sets the tag inheritance depth. See 3. Tags

Defining the Grid Source

Together, the Grid Source and the various filters specify what items are shown in the grid. Items displayed in the grid will be those that meet both the Source and the filters. See 2. Filtering for detailed information on filtering. The following helps understand how grids determine what items are shown:

When a Grid is first created its Source is set to be the field that matches the Grid's name (unless specified otherwise in the New Grid dialog)
When the Source has only one field then any new top-level-items created in the Grid will automatically have a value for this field. The grid is said to have a "Simple Source"
If the source field name(s) contains spaces or other special characters, it needs to be enclosed with [ ]
Source and Filter are kept separate so you can keep the Source constant as you tweak the Filter. Also, the Filter can be turned On / Off which is not the case for the Source

Sample Grid Sources

[Address Book]: All items with the field Address Book checked
[Address Book] AND Archived is Null: Shows un-archived contacts
Project = "Somiro": All items that have the value "Somiro" in field Project
Item like "*InfoQube*": All items with the text InfoQube somewhere in the item text
More examples here: Source Filter Editbox

2.3 Gantt Chart

See Gantt Chart Properties for details

2.4 Options

Tab Color: Color of the tab. Same as right-click on a Tab > Tab Color
Grid Background Color: Overrides the setting in Tools > Options
Default Font: Grids use the font specified in Tools > Options unless specified here. Format: Font Name | Font Size
Grid Line Properties: A set of grid line settings. Overrides the same settings in Tools > Options
Maximum item height: In pixels, 0=none
Show Done Check Mark: Show / hides a checkbox on the tree column to mark items as done
Show Hierarchy on the # column: If checked, the # column will show the item hierarchy (i.e. 1.3.2), otherwise a flat list of numbers
Shortcut (Alt + ): Enter shortcut key. Valid is 1 through 9
Multiline column headers: If checked, the grid header caption will word-wrap (up to 3 lines high, and only if columns are all at the same level and not grouped)
Column(s) showing the text font/color: By default the item font is applied to all columns. Enter a comma separated list of fields to limit this (use # for the first column)
Column(s) showing the item color: By default the item color (i.e. background color) is applied to all columns. Enter a comma separated list of fields to limit this (use # for the first column)
Is the XXX grid: There are 3 special grids in InfoQube. Scratchpad, Search results and In-Box.
Is a Dashboard-type grid: If checked, this grid is not shown, but only used as a container for other UIs. Grids, Surface-view, Card-view, Calendar, etc can be pasted to form a customizable layout of views, all shown in the same Dashboard. Details here: Dashboards
Grid auto-updates: Grids auto-update is improving with every InfoQube version. Currently:
- Grids automatically update on item field values changes and on item deletion
- This flag only affects items added elsewhere (in another view or in another instance of this grid). If the flag is set and the new item meet the grid criteria, it will be added
- If auto-update is checked, the grid will also background load sub-items under collapsed items (when the display mode is Outline)
Show in the Properties Pane: If checked, the grid and its columns will be listed in the Properties Pane, under the Grids heading.
With the grid columns visible in the Properties pane, it becomes like a form (see 4. Forms for details)
Grid visible to other applications: IQ uses Microsoft Jet 4.0 as its database engine. If this flag is set, a visible query will be generated which enables other applications, such as MS Word or Excel to view the items in the grid (read-only).
What these applications will see is however not the outline (since they do not support this), but rather the same list as the Grid > Display Mode > Flat List

3. Saving changes

Changes to grid parameters are buffered, so nothing is saved until you press the "Save" button. If you close the dialog without saving a dialog appears:

n.b. When grids are created, a matching field is often created and used as the source of items (i.e. determines what items are shown in the grid).

If the bottom checkbox is checked, this field (i.e. the field with the same name as the grid) will be deleted. It will not be possible to re-create a similar grid with the same items (unless some other property is common to all those items)
If the bottom checkbox is unchecked, the field will not be deleted. It is then possible (and easy) to re-create a new grid showing the same items as the deleted one