Locating and Selecting Items in the Instance Lists

LANSA Composer

Locating and Selecting Items in the Instance Lists

The Instance Lists and the associated Find support provide a great deal of flexibility to find items that you wish to work with.  This section provides an overview of the features in the following sections:

Organization of the Instance Lists

Selecting a Current Item to Work With

Pinning or Unpinning the Instance Lists

Finding Items Using the Quick Find Box

Finding items Using the Find window

Using Working Lists

 

Organization of the Instance Lists

Several lists are available (depending on the definition type selected in the Navigator) that are organized in various ways, providing a very flexible means of locating and selecting the items with which you wish to work.  For example:

  • The Recent tab shows items (of the current type) of recent interest in two groups:

- the Recently visited group shows items that you have recently displayed in the LANSA Composer client at this computer.  Whenever you make an item the "current" item, the item will move to the top of this group.

- the Recently modified group shows items that have been recently created or modified on the LANSA Composer server (that is, at any client computer).

 

  • The Working lists tab shows one or more working lists of items that you can build yourself by adding items that appear on other tabs.
  • When you use the Find or Quick Find features, the matching items will be shown in the Find results tab.  (The Find results tab is not shown until you perform a find.)
  • The All <items> tab shows all the available items in alphabetical groups.

 

 

Depending on the type of definition you are working with, additional tabs may be available.  For example, when working with Activities, an Activities by group tab is shown.

While the input focus is on the instance lists, you can press Alt+PageUp and Alt+PageDown keyboard shortcuts to quickly switch between the available tabs.  Of course, you can also click on the tabs with your mouse.

 

Selecting a Current Item to Work With

The item that is currently selected (the "current" item) is identified in the instance lists in bold and with a different (right-arrow) icon.

 

Note that the "current" item may not always be present in the particular instance list you are working with.  In this case it is not specifically identified in that list, but you can still identify it by looking at the bar above the command handler area.

 

To work with an item that you have located in the Instance Lists, you need to make it the "current" item.

By default you do this by simply selecting it (click it with the mouse or use the up and down arrow keys until the desired item is select).

If you prefer, you can configure LANSA Composer such that an item becomes the "current" item only after you select it and press Enter, or after you double-click the item.  To do this, right-click in the instance lists, select Options from the popup menu, and then select Set current item immediately to select or deselect this option.

 

Either way, when you make a new item the current item, information relating to the item will be shown in the command handler area. 

 

Pinning or Unpinning the Instance Lists

When they are first shown, the Instance Lists will be pinned open.  This means they permanently occupy space above the command handlers.  In this state, you can resize the instance lists by clicking and dragging in the space between the instance lists and the command handler area.

The pinned open state is indicated by this button in the tool buttons to the left of the instance lists:

 

If you wish, you can unpin the instance lists to free up more space on your screen for information shown in the command handler area.  To do this, click the pin button (or use the corresponding context menu item).  The instance lists will be removed from the screen, leaving only this visible:

 

In this unpinned state, you can temporarily display the instance lists at any time by using the Ctrl+F11 keyboard shortcut or by clicking this button:

 

When you display the instance lists in an unpinned state, they will be automatically hidden again as soon as the input focus moves away from the instance lists, for example, if you click in the Navigator or in the command handler areas or if you switch to another application.

To pin the instance lists open, click the pin button again.

 

Finding Items Using the Quick Find Box

If you know part or all of the name or description of an item you wish to work with, you can find it very quickly using the Quick Find box.

To access the Quick Find box, use the Ctrl+Shift+F keyboard shortcut or click in the Quick Find box:

 

Type some text that you expect to find in the names or descriptions of the items you wish to locate and press Enter.  Any matching items will be displayed on the Find results tab.

 

If only one item matched, then it will be automatically selected as the "current" item and the details will be shown in the command handler area.

 

Finding items Using the Find window

You can use the Find window to find items using a more extensive set of search criteria than just the name and description.

To access the Find window, use the Ctrl+ F keyboard shortcut or click this button::

 

The Find window provides a text search similar to Quick Find, but also provides a range of other search criteria in groups that you can expand and collapse according to your requirements and interest.

 

The groups of search criteria vary a little depending on the type of definition you are working with.  For example, when working with Activities, a group is provided to allow you to find activities that belong to a specified activity group.

If you specify more than one search criterion, they must all be satisfied in order for an item to be matched.

When you have specified your search criteria, click the Find button.  Any matching items will be displayed on the Find results tab.

 

Using Working Lists

You can build your own static working lists of items of interest to you.  These working lists are stored only on your computer.

To add a selected item (or items) to a working list, click this button in the tool buttons to the left of the instance lists:

LANSA Composer lets you choose an existing working list to add the item(s) to, or you can specify the name for a new working list.

Note:  The working list names are common across all LANSA Composer's definition types.  So if you create a new working list name for Activities, then the same working list name will be added to the Working lists tab for Trading Partners and other definition types.

To display your working lists and the items contained in them, click the Working lists tab:

 

For further options to maintain your working lists, including options to remove items and delete lists, use the context (right-click) menu at the Working lists tab.