Search Options

Search pages are very flexible and allow you to create a search page to your visitors that are specific to their particular search needs. This section provides a brief description of the available options to help you understand and take advantage of the available options.

Most search options are not actually page level options, but are item level settings and configurable on an item level.

dbQwikSite will automatically create an advanced search for each search field. The advanced option includes a drop down list of comparison options for your visitor. There may be times where simplicity is preferable over this level of control and added complexity. You can easily swhich a search field to "simple search" mode:

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1.	Right Click on the Page Item that you want to simplify.

2.	Select Properties from its popup menu

3.	The Properties Dialog will appear.

4.	Click on Simple Search.

5.	Choose from the three compare options for your search

•	Contains - the search input is anywhere in a text Field

•	Equals- the search input is exactly equal to the field value

•	Between - two search input boxes appear and all data value between the upper and lower values are returned.

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1.	Open the Items Editor

2.	Uncheck the Show Compare column of the items for which you want Simple Search.

Using this methods the search compare option will be set automatically to Contains.

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You can include a drop down list of possible comparisons between the field values and the user search value.

You can further customize this list to list just the possible comparison that you wish to offer. Check the comparisons you want to include in the you list. You can also customize the list value that is displayed. This can help clarify to users the application of your particular search. For example the "Less than" display value in this picture has been customized to "Not more than".

Normally a search will "AND" all the search fields input by your visitor, meaning all the field conditions must be met in order to the data row is selected to display. In some cases your web site may need to allow users to allow "OR" searching. Similar to find all customer living in California or have income over 40,000 USD/yr. You can include an an optional And/Or drop down control for a search field so that users can construct more advanced queries.

Sometimes you may want to allow your visitors to be able to search for a value in a number fields at one time. For example you may have a book database and want to allow users to search for a keyword in either the Title or in the Description fields. This can be accomplished by selecting multiple fields in the page item properties.

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Here the search field will look in the ship address and the ship city fields for the search value that your visitor inputs.

Note: You cannot search across fields of different types. For example you cannot search in for a value in a text field and a number field.

A common search is for data in a range of values. For example find all orders who total sale value is between 300 and 500 USD.

This is what we call a range search. A range search is a type of simple search. By setting a find page item property to Simple Search and selecting the Between radio button you will create a item with two input fields one for the low value and one for the high value.

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The settings on the left would Appear as:

on your find page.

As will all input form items, you can enforce data validation. This can be used to make some search fields mandatory or to ensure that the values input by your user are compatible with the database field types. Some searches could result in database errors if you failed to ensure the user provided a valid search value. For example, if you try to search for "ABC" in a numeric field this would result in a database error.

By default all search fields are optional. However there maybe times that you wish to force users to specify a minimum criteria for a search, this is particularily important for tables that contain many records. You want to ensure that your visitors are not trying to retrieve large volumes of data, and slowing your server performance.

Like other forms, you can substitute the default text input box with other controls. The most common case, it to provide a drop down lists for convenience and for reducing data entry errors. Changing the control is easy, you can change the item type in the item properties dialog. If you wanted to offer a pick list, you select List/Menu from in the available options so the item type.

When you change an item type, the available options displayed below in the properties dialog change as well. You can then add a static list of values or you can specify a table and field where dbQwikSite will read values to offer in the drop down list.

dbQwikSite provides several different search field layouts that you can use to format your Find Page. The available options can allow you to layout fields into multiple columns.

You can customize your search result messages. For example, you can present messages in your preferred language.

2. Select the Properties from its popup menu, the Page Setting window will appear

3. Click on No Record Found Message Menu ( Page Settings Window > Page Properties > No Record Found Message)