Edit Filters Dialog

This dialog allows you to edit the filters of a MS Help 2 collection. It is available from the FAR H2 Viewer window, once you have opened a namespace (collection), and the FAR Filter Editor.

The Filter editor displays the Namespace being edited in the title bar of the dialog. Because the editor allows you to edit filters of child (plug-in) Namespaces you may see two Namespaces displayed in the title bar. The first NS name is always the parent NS being edited. The second NS name is the child NS that owns the currently selected filter. Whenever you plug into another namespace you are effectively adding to its pool of attributes.

Note that if the attribute list is empty it means either there are no attributes defined for the current collection (or its plug-ins). Or it can mean that the author chose to hide the attributes completely (this is different from "Show Hidden Attributes" below). An author can declare attributes in the HTML but not expose those attributes to the Filter dialog attribute list. To do this the author simply omits the collection level HxA file. In this case you can still create filters in this dialog if you know the attribute name/values. Doing "view source" on an HTML page will show you any attributes declared (in the <xml> data Islands).

Read more about defining Attributes: http://helpware.net/mshelp2/attribs.htm

Not all H2 Viewers provide a Filter Editing dialog. FAR supports Filter Editing for any collection you open. VS DExplore seems to only supports Filter Editing for MS.VSCC & MSDN collections. At this stage it seems that VS 2005 does not provide a traditional Filter dialog at all as it found many users found the concept too difficult. Although VS 2005 does allow you to create filters in other ways.

Filter Name / Add / Remove

The Filter Name drop down, contains a list of all filters for the current collection (the collection loaded in the FAR H2 Viewer). You can add a new filter or delete an existing filter using the Add and Remove buttons. The actual list of filters associated with the current collection is not updated until the OK button is pressed. When you select a Filter name, the actual filter definition is displayed in the edit control below.

Filter Definition

This edit control allows you to edit your filter query string. When you select a Filter Name (above) you will see its Filter Definition appear in this control.

Each filter contains one or more "Name"="Value" attribute pairs. The list of available attributes are listed in the Attribute list below.

Right-click Popup Commands

Insert Selected Attribute Inserts the selected attribute (below). If this is disabled it means there is no item selected in the bottom list. You can also insert by double-clicking an attribute list item.

Insert "AND" Inserts the word "AND". Use AND to create an intersection between two attributes.
Example: ("TType"="script") AND ("TType"="introduction"). This filter would only display topics marked with both ("TType"="script") AND ("TType"="introduction").

Insert "OR" Inserts the word "OR". Use OR to create an addition between two attributes.
Example: ("TType"="script") OR ("TType"="introduction"). This filter would display ALL topics marked with either ("TType"="script") OR ("TType"="introduction") or both.

Insert "NOT" Inserts the word "NOT". NOT negates the following block.
Example: NOT ("TType"="script"). This filter would display all topics NOT marked with ("TType"="script").

Use brackets to group.

Example: (("TType"="script") OR ("TType"="introduction")) AND (NOT ("DocType"="Article"))
The inner brackets are always evaluated first. This filter would find...

Topics marked with attribute ("TType"="script") OR ("TType"="introduction")

Topics NOT Marked with attribute ("DocType"="Article")

Finally we AND these results. I.E. Topics that intersect (common hits) the 1. and 2. result lists.

Calculate Topics Available

This button allows you to test your filter. It displays the number of topics (hits) that match the selected filter (above). If you test this on a huge collection, such as the MSDN collection, it could take several minutes to complete. Be patient, it will return and your application will unlock itself. Hopefully MS will optimize this command in time, or PC's will become very fast and it will no longer be a problem.

Attribute List

This list contains all the attributes (Name/Value pairs) defined by the author of the collection. Double-click an item to insert it into the filter definition above.

The author can defined the following:

A friendly Name - This is seen in column one

A friendly Value - This is seen in column two

The actual raw "Name"="Value" data pair. This is seen in column three. This is the actual attribute data that you insert into the Filter Definition (above).

Show Hidden Attributes

Green Ticks: The author can also mark either the Name or/and the Value as being "hidden" from the user. If you want to see the hidden attributes then check the box "Show Hidden Attributes". You can use these however they will probably not yield any results, since they have been marked as hidden for reason. All non-hidden Names and Values are marked with a green tick.

OK, Cancel, Help

OK - Press OK to except changes, save and close the window.
Cancel - Press Cancel to dismiss the dialog and cancel any changes.
Help - Press Help to get this online help.

http://www.helpware.net/

Insert Selected Attribute	Inserts the selected attribute (below). If this is disabled it means there is no item selected in the bottom list. You can also insert by double-clicking an attribute list item.
Insert "AND"	Inserts the word "AND". Use AND to create an intersection between two attributes. Example: ("TType"="script") AND ("TType"="introduction"). This filter would only display topics marked with both ("TType"="script") AND ("TType"="introduction").
Insert "OR"	Inserts the word "OR". Use OR to create an addition between two attributes. Example: ("TType"="script") OR ("TType"="introduction"). This filter would display ALL topics marked with either ("TType"="script") OR ("TType"="introduction") or both.
Insert "NOT"	Inserts the word "NOT". NOT negates the following block. Example: NOT ("TType"="script"). This filter would display all topics NOT marked with ("TType"="script").