FILTER HELP ~~~~~~~~~~~ The filter option is the one on the far right of the control panel. Allows you to pick and display certain records , depending on certain conditions. For example if you had a file of peoples addresses and one of the fields was their postcode. To find all the people in the Walsall area , you would :- Make sure nothing is highlighted. (If it is click on CLEAR) Click on the POSTCODE field so it is highlighted. Click on the LIKE expression so it is highlighted. Type in the following :- WS* and press RETURN Then click on OK. All the postcodes that begin with the letters WS will be filtered out and displayed in the filter viewing mode. (See Filter Display) Taking the same example as above , but if all the people with a Walsall POSTCODE AND with a SURNAME begin with the letters F through to S you would do the following. Make sure nothing is highlighted. (If it is click on CLEAR) Click on the POSTCODE field so it is highlighted. Click on the LIKE expression so it is highlighted. Type in the following :- WS* and press RETURN Click on the AND logical expression so it is highlighted. Click on the SURNAME field so it is highlighted. Click on the LIKE expression so it is highlighted. Type in the following :- [F-S]* Click on OK. The LIKE expression is an extremely powerful part of the PowerBase filter options. The following are acceptable special characters for use in with this option :- * Any number of preceding or following characters. i.e *S would find all the enteries in that field that end with an S. *EN* would find all the enteries that contain EN. F* would find all the enteries that start with an F. ? Must be same number of characters. i.e ???N??K? would find all the enteries where the 4th letter is an N , the 7th is a K and the length must be 8 chrs. This would find the name RENNOCKS. [a-b] Will find all the enteries in a field that are one character in length and =a through to =b. i.e [5-7] would find numbers 5,6 and 7. [a-b]* Will find all the enteries in a field that being with the character a through to character b. i.e [C-K]* would find all enteries whose first character is C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J or K and has any number of following characters. Other delimitors include :- > greater than , = equal to , < less than , >= greater than or equal to , <= less than or equal to , <> not equal to. Upto two expressions can be queried at once using the AND , OR , NOT logic gates. Please note that date fields can also be filtered so you could for example find all the dates after 20/08/1992 using DATE > 20/08/1992 e.g using the address/names etc. example again ... ADDRESS LIKE *ROAD* AND AGE > 21 This would find all people that live in a ROAD AND are aged over 21. NAME >= SMITH OR NAME <=JONES This would find all people with the name SMITH and people with a name further up the alphabet than SMITH OR people with the name JONES and people with a name lower in the alphabet than JONES. When you have set a filter up you can either click on CLEAR to start again , OKAY to find all the records that obey your filter , CANCEL to exit the filter utility or ALL which will display all of the records in the database. ** Use the DISPLAY FIELDS option on the options menu to select which fields will be output when filtering or label printing. ** FILTER OUTPUT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The filtered records can be output to either :- SCREEN (DEFAULT) - Viewed on screen only PRINTER - Printed and viewed on screen (Alter the printer preferences to suit) LABEL PRT - Label printed and viewed on screen (Alter the printer preferences to suit) FILE - Saved to a file for mail merging FILTER DISPLAY MODE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The filtered records are as default displayed a single record per page , but this can be changed for another viewing mode by changing the filter display on the filter screen. The modes available are :- RECORD :- (Default) displays one record at a time on the screen. PAGE :- Displays each record on the screen as the RECORD mode but scrolls upwards so you can see the last few records found. TABLE :- Displays the records in a table format with the field headings at the top of the screen and the record data in rows underneath. Use the display fields option on the OPTIONS menu to select which fields you wish to view. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ When you are viewing the filtered records , you have three options buttons to choose from :- Quit - Will stop filtering and return you to the standard edit screen. Auto - Will automatically display the filtered records without you having to click the mouse on the NEXT option. (The speed can be altered in the preferences section) Clicking the mouse button when this option is selected will stop Automatic filtered record display mode. Next - Displays the next filtered record. The next record can also be displayed by just clicking the left mouse button anywhere other than the three buttons.