This chapter explains how to find specific objects within a project according to various filters.

Search Criteria

The search criteria for an object search are specified in the Search window.

Open the Search window

To open the Search window, do one the following:

·          On the menu bar, open the Search menu and select Search….

·          On the toolbar, click the Search button .

·          Enter the shortcut key CTRL+h.

In all cases, the Search window will open up, displaying the Object Search tab in front.

i8Note: The other search tabs are not covered here but explained in the Eclipse documentation.

Enter the search criteria

On the Object Search tab, enter your search criteria. The following fields are available:

Containing text
In the Containing text field, you can enter the search text and in the Within field you can specify where to search for this text.
Note that the search function only looks for objects that exactly match the search criteria. If you search for the string play intro within the Name for example, the search result will only contain objects that have exactly the string play intro in their names.

Modification date
Specifies a date before or after which the objects you search for have been modified or a period of time in which the objects you search for have been modified.
You can either directly enter a date or a period of time, or select one from the Date Selection dialog which comes up when clicking the Choose button  right from the Modification date field.

Creation date
Specifies a date before or after which the objects you search for have been created or a period of time in which the objects you search for have been created.
You can either directly enter a date or a period of time, or select one from the Date Selection dialog which comes up when clicking the Choose button  right from the Creation date field.

The following options serve to specify the object types you are searching for (only one option possible at a time):

Search all object types (the default)
Searches for all available object types.

Search unused objects
Searches for all objects which are not referenced within any other object (see below).
This option is primarily used to determine "junk" in a project. Sometimes you might also find out that objects that were created to be used later on have been “forgotten” and have not yet been placed properly.
i8Note: The Search unused objects function returns all objects that are not referenced by other objects. This may also be the case for the start object of your application if not used in any service. Make sure not to delete it accidentally.

If you want to restrict the search to a subset of object types do one of the following:

Search categories
Restricts the search to a subset of object types by selecting one or more categories displayed below.

Search object types
Restricts the search to a subset of object types by either directly entering one or more object types in a comma-separated list into the Selected object types field or selecting them from the Object Types Selection dialog which comes up when clicking the Choose button  right from the Selected object types field.

Object status
Specifies the lock status for the objects you are searching for. This functionality allows you to quickly find all locked objects within a project version. You can specify to search for objects locked by yourself, locked by others, or both.

The example below shows a search for all objects within a project that belong to the Components category and have the string “Caller” within their object names.

 

After entering your search criteria start the search process by clicking Search.

Search Result

The Search Result is initially located at the bottom of Desktop for Eclipse displaying the objects matching the selection. Each search, independent of whether it was an object search, quick search or a search for parent objects, is added as a new tab to the Search Result view.

In the header of each tab a brief summary is given to indicate the nature of the corresponding search, for instance a tab containing the search result for unused objects will get the name Unused Objects. Once a number of different searches has been triggered the Search Result may look like this:

As indicated by the tab headers, the first search processed was an object search for the string Caller, the second one was a quick search for Variable objects, the third one was a search for parent objects of an object Agent transfer number and the fourth search was a search for unused objects. If you move the mouse directly over one of the corresponding tab headers a tooltip with additional information about the search criteria is shown.

If an object is locked this is indicated in the Search Result list by the respective Lock icon in front of its name. A green Lock icon  indicates that it has been locked by you while a red Lock icon  indicates that it has been locked by any other user.

Using the Filter field you can filter the search result further to only show those objects that contain a certain text string within their name, or that have a name starting with a certain text string (when selecting the Starts with check box). Clicking the Reset Filter button  right from the Filter field resets the search result to its initial selection.

If the currently opened project version references one or more libraries the Search Result shows an additional drop-down list in the upper right corner. Use this list to select either the current project version or a specific library as search area.

By default the current project version is selected, which means that only objects from that project version are shown in the Search Result. Respectively, switching to one of the listed libraries restricts the search result to objects from that library matching the specified search criteria.

By right-clicking an object in the Search Result list a context menu comes up:

These commands have the following functions, which will be explained in more detail in Chapter 7 – Basic Commands.

Menu Command	Submenu Command	Function
Edit		Opens up the object editor for the selected object.
Display Dialog		Displays the dialog flow in the Dialog Designer starting with the selected object.
Display and Validate Dialog		Displays the dialog flow in the Dialog Designer and validates the dialog flow starting with the selected object.
Copy		Creates a copy of the selected object.
Delete		Deletes the selected object.
Rename		Opens up a text box to rename the selected object.
Export		Exports the selected object and all its referenced objects as an XML file.
Test Application		Opens up the Test Monitor to test the dialog flow starting with the selected object.
Lock/Unlock		Locks or respectively unlocks the selected object.
Enable/Disable		Enables or respectively disables the selected object.
Search Parent Objects		Displays a list of all parent objects of the selected object.
Tools	Project Documentation	Opens up the Project Documentation window to specify various options and create the corresponding project documentation as a PDF document for the selected object.
	Storyboard Export	Opens up the Storyboard Export window to specify various options and create the corresponding storyboard as a Microsoft Excel file for the selected object.

 

i8Note: Depending on the object type of the selected object not all of the above-mentioned options may be available.

Quick Search

For a quick search of objects belonging to a particular object category or type you can double-click the respective object category or type folder in the Object Browser or, in the case of configuration objects, in the Repository Browser.

Again the Search Result opens up displaying all objects belonging to the selected category or type in the current project or in the Metadata Repository.

Searching Parent Objects

With the command Search Parent Objects you find out where a particular object is used. It lists all objects that refer to the selected object. This is helpful to see which places are affected when modifying an object, or to check whether an object has already been introduced in all places where it is required.

To search for parent objects do the following:

1.        In the Object Browser, the Dialog Designer, or in the Search Result, select the object you want to see the parent objects for and right-click it.

2.        From the context menu, select Search Parent Objects.

3.        The Search Result opens up displaying the respective parent objects.