Creating views

[prf5]

Sorry if this request has been made already. I would like to create and display views of my database. By "views," I am following RDMS terminology -- a subset of the database, generally created by sorting and filtering. For instance, I have items that are essentially disposed of, but I don't want to delete them. One view might consist of active items only. Another view might consist of items having a particular attribute or set of attributes.

Thanks for creating a great product.

Paul

[kevina]

You can achieve what you are requesting with saved Quick or Advanced Searches. The results of a Search are filtered and can be sorted as well.

In essence a saved Search is a view of the Info Database (a sorted subset of all the data) and can be linked like any other Info Item.

[prf5]

Thanks, but saved searches isn't quite what I am looking for. Search results appear in a "related items" pane. They can be sorted, but sorting is not built into the query, so the sort I get is the last one I used, not the one I want for the current search. Likewise, I can choose which fields are displayed, but these settings are global.

The search results pane doesn't have a categorical scheme or hierarchy like the Data Explorer. What I'm looking for is a means of creating data explorer views, and a ready means of indicating how the data explorer has been restricted.

While I'm at it, the advanced search allows simple boolean connections, but statements can't be nested. So, I can't search for (statement 1 and statement 2) or (statement 1 and statement 3 but not statement 2). Since the search box is surely only a graphical representation of a query syntax, it would be very handy if I had a way of entering the syntax directly.

Thanks for your assistance.

Paul

[kevina]

You can include the Hierarchy attribute as a column in the search results to show the tree structure (although search results can't be expanded/collapsed). Also, the fields chosen for display for a saved Search are specific to that saved Search and are not global.

Your second comment about limited boolean search logic is not accurate as you can indeed nest advanced search criteria using indenting. Each level of indenting is analogous to being within paranthesis (they are grouped as you described). Perhaps the documentation needs to be more clear on this capability.

Regarding your request for hierarchical filtering: if you could see a 'filtered' Data Explorer Pane, what would it show? All items that matched the criteria and all of their children? What would the matched items be parented to? I can't quite imagine how to filter a hierarchical tree with some data missing... Would all the parents (and children) of matched items be displayed and exclude any 'branches of data' (from the root item) that have no matches within? Please elaborate on your suggestion...

[prf5]

Thanks for clarifying my misunderstanding about the nested graphical search syntax. I think the capability is documented well enough. If anything, this valuable feature may warrant greater attention, possibly through more examples.

Regarding filtered hierarchical views, it occurs to me that what I've been asking for is different from searching for attributes. I want a way to display selected pieces of the database's category structure, aka branches of the hierarchical tree. For instance, my database has three categories: projects, meetings, and notes. "Projects" is further sub-divided into ProjectA, ProjectB, and ProjectC. I'd like to create a view that shows project items with a red or blue flag. If there are no such items for a given project, I need not see an empty set. But for items that meet these specs, I want to see the entire relevant category structure. That is, item, sub-category (projectA, projectB, etc.), and category (Projects).

The concept here is "inheritance," and I'm thinking about how views were handled by Lotus Agenda, a PIM that I lived in for years, but ultimately had to abandon. In Agenda, categories inherited the properties of their elements. That is, properties of child categories are assigned automatically to their parents, but not vice-versa. So, properties of a meeting assigned to projectA are also assigned to projectA and to projects. However, properties of the project category are not automatically assigned to sub-categories or items within sub-categories.

To answer your question directly, a filtered data explorer would show all the selected items, along with the parents of these items, and the parents of these parents, etc. -- all the way up to the highest level, "my data." What it wouldn't show are the empty sets, such as the un-selected siblings of first-level parents -- for instance, projectB, its child categories and items.

A category-based view could be displayed in the related items pane rather than the data explorer, provided that the elements of the category structure were treated like attributes, and sorting included headings. That procedure would create a view of the explorer window without supplanting the explorer's being, in essence, a "show all" view.

Paul

[kevina]

It sounds like your use of "Category" is the Title of each Item... I am not fully grasping what you are requesting...

We did some research into Agenda when we started this project, but to be honest I don't believe we ever fully understood the part of Agenda you are referring to... If you can elaborate on the behaviour you desire, we will evaluate it and try to incorporate it if it makes sense in our application and is widely useful.

Perhaps some ascii art (or similar) of some fictious items (like your Projects example) would help clarify your feature request. Or you could attach a diagram to a forum post (or start an off-line email conversation @ support@kinook.com).

[xja]

Originally posted by kevina
Regarding your request for hierarchical filtering: if you could see a 'filtered' Data Explorer Pane, what would it show? All items that matched the criteria and all of their children? What would the matched items be parented to? I can't quite imagine how to filter a hierarchical tree with some data missing... Would all the parents (and children) of matched items be displayed and exclude any 'branches of data' (from the root item) that have no matches within? Please elaborate on your suggestion...

I would LOVE a feature that did exactly that. To be more specific, for all matched items, show the item and all ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc) expanded, and have the item's children in the tree, but collapsed. Hide all branches that don't contain a matched item.

Alternatively (not as good but maybe simpler), you could just expand all and then collapse all branches that don't contain a matched item.

This would be handy if I wanted to see a hierarchical view that shows all incomplete Tasks but don't want to be distracted by all the other items in the tree. Or show all emails hierarchically. etc. Basically it is like a regular Search, except it shows the matched items organized by their hierarchy.

[lena]

Originally posted by xja
To be more specific, for all matched items, show the item and all ancestors (parents, grandparents, etc) expanded, and have the item's children in the tree, but collapsed. Hide all branches that don't contain a matched item.
I would like to add my vote for this request. This would certainly help with managing very large files. It would also be a solution for my 'export search results' option, because I imagine in this way you can do anything with a view that you can do with the whole tree.

I imagine being able to filter on the spot, as well as being able to predefine filters. That way I could easily save all my data in one file, and still not be overwhelmed.

[reesd]

Originally posted by kevina
Regarding your request for hierarchical filtering: if you could see a 'filtered' Data Explorer Pane, what would it show? All items that matched the criteria and all of their children? What would the matched items be parented to? I can't quite imagine how to filter a hierarchical tree with some data missing... Would all the parents (and children) of matched items be displayed and exclude any 'branches of data' (from the root item) that have no matches within? Please elaborate on your suggestion...

Their are several tested techniques for working with filtered trees. In my mind, the best way to think about the problem is to recognize the fact that the filter selects specfic nodes throughout the tree. You then need to decide what to do visually with parent/child nodes around the select nodes.

This can be described in two simple options:
Show parents (or show N parents)
Show children (or show N children)

You then use color or other visual mechanisms to differentiate between actual selected nodes and "ghost" nodes (I think that is what Ecco called them).

A couple examples:

For instance, Ecco would show parents and children. It would show the parent nodes in blue.

Shadowplan by default doesn't show parents or children, but if you turn on "greedy mode" it shows the children. I'll add shadowplan is a great example of the power of using a tree view with columns and filtering.

Thanks,

d