Indexing - limit to key fields

Knack Community
1

Hi Again

Our database has lots of text, lots of information.
But the lack of being able to specify what is a key index field parameters is starting to drain me.

For example SURNAME GIVEN NAMES are of primary interest.
But mentions of the name or part of the name in someone else’s name is not.

Example SMITH Specific surname.
Yes I can specify in a filter surname IS smith AND ONLY GET SURNAME SMITH RESULTS

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But at the user level they get a search box and the results end up including names like ARROWSMITH SMITHFIELD SMITHON and guys who were born in SMITHVILLE, SMITHOWN etc. (see image)

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It is indeed powerful to have an all encompassing search facility BUT IT IS COUNTER PRODUCTIVE to my way of thinking and probably the reverse of what I would like IN A SEARCH facility which to my programming background is normally reserved for specific index searching.

I would much rather do a “search everything” click to have it search all fields for occurences and stick to specific INDEX FIELDS for normal (in effect is what “contains” selection in filters does.

Be interested in other experiences and viewpoints

2

I don’t disagree with you but you might have a couple of options:

You can deselect the keyword search so that doesn’t happen.
You could allow users to use add custom filters
-OR-
You could use a Search view.

3

Yes I agree and with some of mine I set up Alphabetic custom filters as we have some 30,000 names in total in the database. However once you go custom you cant add “new user defined filters” which is a bit of a bummer.

But then again the user defined filters suffer from inability to do and/or fUctionalities it’s either AND or its OR.

Example if I wanted to choose all name starting with SMI for example
and then include only those born between 1915 and 1918
OR between 1905 and 1911
YOUR PRETTY MUCH STYMIED.

I started in computing back in the 1980’s where relational databases had a lot of extremely powerful AND OR and IF THEN ELSE STATEMENTS and I oh so miss that in modern products

4

Agreed. SQL and RAD tools have all that and so much more. There is no reason for Knack not to have that as well. Hopefully they are homing in that now as we speak.

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