Searches and Results

§1  Introduction

The dBase window includes in its menu bar different search options that allow locate all items from dBase containing a certain text. The menu presents the following options:

Figure 1

• Search is case sensitive
• Search in Titles
• Search in Logbooks
• Search in Notes
• Search in eAddresses
• Search in Extended data
• Search in all dBase

§2 Search switch

In addition to being able to restrict the search to a specific component, or extend it to all dBase, searches can be performed in two ways, depending on whether or not distinguish between upper and lower case. This behavior depends on the state of a switch-type (ON/OFF) controlled by the first option. Initially this switch is disabled, so that the switch is turned off and searches are not case-sensitive.

  Note that the state of this switch does not just affect searches, also to all operations that involve comparing strings in dBase. For example, the generation of a Dictionary.

The other options do not require further comment; any of them leads to a window where you can enter text to search. Once the search is performed, is obtained information on the number of new matches found. Then there is a change of view and is now shown the screen of results with three windows that have a orange background as shown in the attached figure.

Recall that the dBase window has three buttons , and , with which you can switch at any time between the three views available: Standard; Results and Extended Data.

§3  Search windows

The windows 6, 7 and 8 contain the results according to the following breakdown:

Window 6:  titles of the items in which there has been match, if this had happened in the Title, the Note, or in any of the extended fields except the one multi-line (eDir).

Window 7:  logger lines, if the match happened in a logger field.

Window 8:  Lines of the extended multi-line field (eDir) if the match happened in this field.

The inspection of these result fields follows the usual procedure; the elements of the window 6 can be found giving focus on it and pressing any key; the cursor is positioned on the line whose description starts with the character entered. The windows 7 and 8 allow to perform horizontal/vertical displacement with the corresponding bars, to inspect the hidden elements. The bar headers are resizable, so you can drag with your mouse to widen them. And successively clicking with the mouse on the title of any column, the rows are sorted according to the direct/reverse alphabetical content of the selected column.

By clicking with the mouse on any line of the windows 6 and 7, the lower status window shows respectively the title or description of the element, while the windows of Note (4), Log (5) and Links (2) show elements corresponding to the selected item. In the case of logger elements (window 7), the window 5 shows the log of the element, so that the line can be seen in its context.

In any event, by clicking the right mouse button on an element of some results windows, you get a contextual menu with the option "Go to the owner", which allows to convert the item in the actual. In this case, the main windows (1) change their configuration to show the path of the selected element, but the contents of the results windows will not be altered.

The menu also has the option Delete, but is not to physically remove the element, but remove it from the results window. Where necessary, the buttons  under each window allow "clean" the content of the window, leaving them empty for further searches.

Recall that the searches are cumulative, meaning that the results obtained in a search not disappear when doing the next; on the contrary, the new findings are added to the previous ones without seeing any duplicates, since each search only add those results who previously not exist in the window.