Working With Single and Multiple Select Lists

In WebFOCUS Designer, list controls are created for alphanumeric fields and numeric dimension fields. There are two types of list controls in WebFOCUS Designer:

• Single Select List. Allows you to pick a single value at run time.
• Multiple Select List. Allows you to pick multiple values at run time.

An example of a single select list control is shown in the following image.

Once you have made a selection in a single select list, your content instantly refreshes to reflect that selection.

An example of a multiple select list control is shown in the following image.

Once you have made all your selections in the multiple select list, you must click outside of the control for the content to refresh.

If the prompted filter was created in a visualization with new content, you can switch between a single and multiple list control by right-clicking the control and selecting Single or Multiple. If the prompted filter was created for external content, the parameter on which it is based is already defined as single- or multiselect.

List controls for new content include a search feature to make it easy to select the filter values you want to use. To add or remove the search box for a filter for external content, select or clear the Search check box on the Settings tab of the Properties panel. Once search is enabled in the control, simply start typing any word or syllable and all values that contain it will display.

If a list contains 200 or more values, the paging feature is added to the bottom of the control. When paging is active, 10 values display per page. An example of a long list with the paging feature enabled is shown in the following image.

List controls for new content also include the Select all and Clear buttons. These are especially useful when you need to eliminate just a few values from your results. You can click Select All, clear the values that you need to eliminate, and click outside of the control to refresh your content. These can also be added to multiselect list controls for existing content by selecting the Selection controls option on the Settings tab.

Once you've typed a search term, you can use the Select all button to select all search results, as shown in the following image.

Note that the Select All option selects all values in the control. If the control does not contain all field values, then those values won't be included in the filter. Additionally, the filter selection will not update to include new values added to the data source. To ensure that all values for the selected field are included in the filter, clear the filter selection. All displays on the filter control, indicating that all values are used in the filter.

Dropdown list controls in pages assembled from existing content can be converted into different types of controls that offer similar functionality. You can convert a multiselect list to a checkbox controlor a button set, and you can convert a single-select list to a radio button control or a button set.

Note: In charts, reports, and visualizations with new content, drop-down list controls and slider controls using the Detail option have a record limit of 5000 values. Values beyond this limit are not available for selection in the filter control. There is no record limit for filters in visualizations assembled from existing content, calendar controls, or slider controls using a summary aggregation.