Filtered search¶

Filtered search enables to search for free text in combination with structured search criteria. The criteria are any numbers of criterion objects with a name and a value.

Usage ---¶

When to use¶

• When users may not know exactly what they are looking for and want to explore options by selecting different filters.
• Use it when free-text search alone isn't enough, and structured criteria add value to the search process.
• Use it to create filter formulas by adding or excluding conditions.
• Use it where there is enough horizontal space to display filter options without cluttering the interface.
• If users need to apply many filters, especially with nested or hierarchical structures, consider other filter patterns.

Best practices¶

• Use filtered Search with simple filter patterns (e.g. string, enumeration, integer, date/time) only.
• Always use strict criteria functionality and provide an explicit list of criteria.
• Ignore punctuation within searches.
• Consider adding other search capabilities according to project needs (e.g. use quotes to search for exact matches).

Design ---¶

Elements¶

1. Placeholder, 2. Container, 3. Search button, 4. Clear button

Interaction states¶

The filtered search container color should always be in contrast with its surrounding background. Use base-4 or base-1 according to that.

Filter anatomy¶

Filtered Search is used in combination with the Filter Pills. The filter can be composed of three different elements:

• Key: Targeted property or category.
• Value: Specific value of the property you are looking for.
• Operator: The intended relation between Key and Value (=, >, <, etc).

Combine the elements according to the complexity needed.

Filter patterns¶

Character value (string)¶

It allows to input text to find content without a predefined set of options.

Numeric value (integer / float)¶

It allows to input numbers. Usually has an operator and allows range filtering.

Enumeration¶

Enumeration contain a predefined set of values, from which the user can select one option (single selection) or many (multi-selection). Combine with a typeahead behavior so users can enter the search value.

If more than one value is selected, an item count shall be shown in the filter pill.

Code ---¶

Assume you are searching for a person of a specific company and location. Company and location are criteria with possible options like Siemens, Maximago or Munich, Zug, etc. You can define possible search criteria by providing these criteria with the input [criteria] as one object. On pressing return, the (doSearch) output callback event will provide you with an object describing the selected criteria and the additional string, the user entered.

The Criterion type is used as input and output data type for this component. It always has a name and optionally a label that is used for displaying to the UI. As an input object, the options property is used to specify, which options the users can select as value for the criterion. These options can be an array of strings or an array of OptionCriterion which allows to specify a value for the label and different value for doing the search. When search is activated, the callback sets the selected option (the value itself or the value property if OptionCriterion is used) as value in the Criterion object.

For more advanced use cases, custom comparison operators (e.g. > or !=) can be used besides of the standard equal operator, while also restricting the input to match a certain data type (e.g. string or integer). See the custom operators example for details.

By default, the user is allowed to enter additional criteria and criterion values than initially configured. Additional criteria can be created by adding a : after the written criteria (e.g. additional:).

Also good to know is that Criterion values are editable after they're created. So you don't have to drop the whole Criterion.

This component uses CSS Variables to make sizes and colors adjustable on the fly. Use the variable --filtered-search-font-size in combination with --filtered-search-line-height to adjust the size of the component.

Usage¶

import { SiFilteredSearchComponent } from '@siemens/element-ng/filtered-search';

@Component({
  imports: [SiFilteredSearchComponent, ...]
})

Filtered search - Basic¶

The following provides a basic example with pre-configured criteria and their options. At a minimum, you must define the criteria. Other optional parameters to define are:

• (doSearch) output for handling when user submits search criteria
• [placeholder] input for placeholder (empty string by default)
• [submitText] input for configurable 'submit' text ('Apply search criteria' by default)

Filtered search - Basic with predefined search criteria¶

This sample extends the first one by preselecting criteria.

Filtered search - Lazy loaded criteria values¶

In many cases, your application defines the criteria, but the values need to be loaded from a server. In this case you can provide an function that returns the possible criterion options as an Observable.

Filtered search - Lazy loaded criteria and category values¶

In addition to lazy loaded value, you can also lazy load the criteria itself.

Filtered Search - Strict criteria¶

If you only allow the criteria defined, use [strictCriterion] to specify it.

Filtered search - Strict category values¶

If you only allow the criteria options defined, use [strictValue] to specify it.

[strictValue] enforces [strictCriterion] to true automatically.

Filtered search - Trigger search value input¶

[doSearchOnInputChange] filters not applied explicitly ("Apply search criteria") only but implicitly while typing or selecting the search criteria.

You can use [searchDebounceTime] to change the delay between the key stroke and the search emission.

Filtered search - Custom operators¶

For more advanced use cases, the Criterion type also allows to specify custom comparison operators via the operators property. The operators are an array of strings like !=, <, >, etc. The selected operator is then saved in the operator property. To restrict the type of value, the validationType property can be set to any of these values: string, integer, or float. See the following example on how these properties can be used to filter for a certain temperature range:

Filtered search - DatePicker¶

The following example shows the datepicker's use:

Filtered search - Multi Select¶

The following example shows the use of multi select criterion: