6.2  Advanced Searching

The Search Catalog dialog is accessed from the main menu (Edit>Search). It consists of two sections. The top half lets you define the criteria of the search, the bottom half shows the results of the current search.

Start the Search dialog from the main menu

The Advanced Search window - the button on the top right toggles between simple and advanced search

The search criteria toolbar at the top has the following components:

• Add Search Filter - appends a new search filter row to the search filter table (below the toolbar).
• Duplicate Search Filters - duplicates currently selected rows in the search filter table. This is useful if the user wishes to search for a set of values in a specific class/field.
• Remove Search Filters - removes the currently selected rows in the search filter table.
• Match type - Match all means matching records must have matched all the defined filters, Match any means matching records need only match at least one of the defined filters.
• Search from - Allows the user to define the root of the search. Only the search root and any subrecords of the search root will be searched. If the 'Search from' record is the catalog root, the entire catalog will be searched.

The search filter table consists of individual search filters, added using the toolbar Add button. Each search filter has the following components:

• Filter class - for 'Field value' filters, this restricts the value search to a single record class, or '(any class)' to leave the record class unrestricted.
• Filter field - for 'Field value' filters with Filter class restricted to a single class, this criteria allows the user to restrict the value search to a single field within the record class, or '(any field)' to leave the record field unrestricted.
• Filter relation - for 'Field value' filters, this allows the user to select the matching operation between the expected value and the record field value. For example 'contains' would allow a search value 'pp' to match field data 'apple'.
• Filter value - for 'Field value' filters, the value to search for (depending on the filter relation) or '(any value)' to leave the value unrestricted. For 'Class' filters, the allows the user to select the class of records to match, or '(any class)' to leave the record class unrestricted.

Using the filter table, complex search filters can be created. For example, you could build a filter to search for all records of class 'Document' with author 'me' that are not published in 'Nature':

The dialog updates with each search criteria change to show the matching results in the catalog. The results panel consists of the following components:

• Results table - shows matching records. If the selected results are of a single class, the table will show all fields in the result records, with the addition of 'Name' for the record name, and 'Path' for the path to the record within the catalog. If the selected results contain records of different classes, only 'Name' and 'Path' are shown. As with the browse panel, clicking on a column name will order the records by that column. Selecting a record within the table will cause Catalyzer to display the record in the main window.
• Results toolbar class selector - The selection box above the results table shows the classes of the current search results. If the results are of mixed class, the user can choose the class of records to display with all fields, or '(any class)' to display the name and path of all search results.
• Results toolbar copy to clipboard button - clicking here will copy the current search results to the clipboard from which they can be pasted into other applications such as spreadsheets.
• Results toolbar print button - clicking here will allow printing of the current search results. See the section on Printing.