Refining a Selection

The Find/Select Dialog makes it easy to make selections based on multiple criteria at once. Sometimes, however, you don’t know in advance exactly what you are looking for. Panorama has two options that let you build a selection incrementally — Select Within and Select Additional. The Select Within option allows you to whittle your data down gradually until you’ve extracted just the nugget of information you really need. The Select Additional button lets you assemble the pieces of information you need piece by piece.

To use these options, first make a regular selection, then open the Find/Select Dialog again. When there is already a previous selection you’ll see an additional popup menu at the top left of the dialog.

To demonstrate how this can be used, I’ll start by selecting Office Supplies in this checkbook database. I could do this with the Find/Select Dialog but instead I’ll simply right click on an Office Supplies cell, right click and choose Select Same (see Selecting with the Context Menu).

Now I want to revise this selection to show only office supply purchases greater than $500. To do that, I open the Find/Select dialog and set up the selection for checks (Debit) greater than 500. Notice that the preview shows all checks greater than 500, not just office supplies. When you revise selections this way, the preview does not show you what the revised selection will look like.

To actually revise the selection, choose Subset of Current Selection from the pop-up menu and press the Select button. Now the revised selection appears – there are only two checks for office supplies greater than $500.

Of course, you could obtain the same effect by combining multiple criteria in the first place. But you don’t always know in advance exactly what you are looking for. The Subset of Current Selection option allows you to whittle your data down gradually until you’ve extracted just the nugget of information you really need.

The Superset of Current Selection option is similar, but allows you to select a superset of the currently selected records. For example, if you have already selected names in Ohio, you could use Superset of Current Selection to also select names in Illinois. The result would be the subset containing all names in either Ohio or Illinois. The Superset of Current Selection option lets you assemble the pieces of information you need piece by piece.

See Also

- checkemptyselection -- notifies the user if a selection failed, and reverts to the previous selection.
- Date Search Options -- searching dates within a database.
- Favorite Searches -- saving and recalling favorite searches.
- find -- locates the first visible record in the active database for which the specified condition is true.
- Find & Replace Dialog -- finding and replacing a word or phrase (with an option to use a regular expression).
- Find/Select Dialog -- using a dialog to search for specific data.
- findabove -- locates the next previous record (above the current record) in the active database for which the specified condition is true.
- findbackwards -- locates the last visible record in the active database for which the specified condition is true.
- findbelow -- locates the next visible record (below the current record) in the active database for which the specified condition is true.
- findid -- locates a record in the active database by its ID number (see info("serverrecordid").
- findnth -- finds the nth (2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.) record that matches a true-false test.
- findselect -- opens the standard *Find/Select* dialog.
- findselectdialog -- opens the standard *Find/Select* dialog.
- Formula Search -- searching with a formula.
- Handling Empty Selections in Code -- dealing with an empty selection data set.
- ifselect -- combines the select and if info("empty") operations into a single statement.
- info("empty") -- returns true or false depending on the result of the last select operation. If no records were selected the function will return true, otherwise it will return false.
- info("found") -- returns true or false depending on whether the last *find* or *next* statement was successful.
- info("selectduplicatesortwarning") -- works with the selectduplicatesnowarning statement to ascertain whether or not the database was sorted correctly when last search for duplicates was performed.
- nextmatch -- locates the next visible record in the active database for which the condition specified in the most recent Find statement is true.
- Numeric Search Options -- searching numbers within a database.
- pleaseselectall -- makes sure that all records are selected.
- previousmatch -- locates the previous (closer to the top) visible record in the active database for which the condition specified in the most recent Find statement is true.
- Record Search Options -- searching via record attributes.
- removeselected -- deletes all selected records from the database.
- removeunselected -- deletes all unselected records from the database.
- safeselect -- makes visible only those records for the active database for which the specified condition is true. If no records match, the previous selection is retained.
- safeselectwithin -- makes visible only those previously selected records in the active database for which the specified condition is true. If no records match, the previous selection is retained.
- search( -- searches through an item of text looking for a character, word or phrase. If it finds an exact match (including upper/lower case) with the character, word or phrase, it returns its position within the text item. If it does not find the character, word or phrase, it returns zero.
- searchanycase( -- searches through an item of text looking for a character, word or phrase. If it finds a match (upper/lower case may be different) with the character, word or phrase, it returns its position within the text item. If it does not find the character, word or phrase, it returns zero.
- Searching -- searching a database to find or select information.
- select -- makes visible only those records for the active database for which the specified condition is true.
- Select Duplicates Dialog -- opens the standard *Select Duplicates* dialog sheet.
- selectadditional -- adds unselected records to a previously selected group if they match the true-false test.
- selectall -- makes every record in the database visible.
- selectduplicates -- selects records containing duplicate information in the database.
- selectduplicatesnowarning -- selects records containing duplicate information in the database.
- Selecting with the Context Menu -- searching for information related to the current cell.
- selectreverse -- makes every visible record invisible, and every invisible record visible.
- selectwithin -- uses a Boolean formula to exclude records from a previously selected group.
- Text Search Options -- searching text within a database.

History

Version | Status | Notes
10.0 | No Change | Carried over from Panorama 6.0