The enhancements to Control described in this document are as follows:

A modification was made to simplify the Explorer Toolbar and reposition some of the actions.

A summary line was added to Control (optionally) that will provide aggregate totals for the numeric columns.

These display options will be saved with the column-chooser column information and restored when Explorer is re-opened.

Explorer Toolbar

The top menu of the Explorer is reworked and simplified (cleaned-up) to provide many of the options through the use of an Options drop-down menu.

The menu options in the Options drop-down are:

  • Auto-Search
  • Show Group Header
  • Show Totals Bar
  • Show Advanced Criteria Selection
  • Show Detail Screen
  • Save Grid Columns
  • Save Screen Layout
  • Reset Grid and Screen Layout

Most of these options (except Show Totals Bar and Reset Grid and Screen Layout) already existed and were simply moved to the options drop-down from other places on the toolbar. They were removed from the toolbar providing a much cleaner display. The Load All button was moved to the far right. A subset of these options is also accessible by a right-click on the explorer itself, under a menu item labelled “Explorer Options.”

The options are covered in the following sections.

The Auto-Search label on the options menu is used to indicate if the menu will automatically search when new search criteria is entered. A checkbox label is used to indicate if it is enabled or not.

New Functionality: When this option is changed, the user option is updated immediately, persisting the change for future use.

The Show Group Header label on the options menu is used to indicate if the explorer shows the Group Heading. A checkbox label corresponds to whether the grouping header is visible or not. Choosing this option will toggle the visibility of this header.

On the Explorer Right-click menu, the option to Enable Grouping was relocated to a sub-menu of Explorer Options.

New Functionality: The Show Totals Bar label on the options menu is used to indicate if the explorer shows the Total Bar. A checkbox label corresponds to whether the totals bar is visible or not. Choosing this option will toggle the visibility of the totals bar.

If the Show Total Bar is selected when not all entries are being viewed, this message should be displayed:

Attention: Because the data is not fully loaded, any grouping, filtering, or summary totals will only be applied to this result set. (as shown below)

The option to Show Totals Bar is also found when you right-click on an Explorer, on a sub-menu of Explorer Options.

Details for the working of the totals bar are found later in this document.

The Show Advanced Criteria Selection label on the options menu is used to switch the basic search criteria for the advanced criteria selection. A checkbox label is used to indicate if it is enabled or not. Choosing this option will toggle the visibility of this section.

The Show Details Screen label on the options menu will toggle the visibility of the Detail Screen. A checkbox label is used to indicate if it is visible or not. Choosing this option will toggle the visibility of this section.

The Save Grid Columns label on the options menu is an action that is used to save the Grid and Column layout. This option was available by right-clicking on the Explorer but will be relocated beneath the Explorer Options action on that menu.

The Save Screen Layout label on the options menu is an action that is used to save the overall screen layout. This option was available by clicking a button in the top right of Explorer screen, but that button was removed as part of this implementation.

New Functionality: Previously, there was no way to remove the user's filters, columns and screen settings and revert her back to the default value. The Reset Grid and Screen Layout does this, reverting the user to the default explorer settings for new users.

New Functionality: The load more button is an implementation of a “paging” idea. When this is clicked, the number of records loaded should be increased by the lesser of 20 records, and the amount of records currently visible in one page. This will increase the records displayed by the amount currently shown up until the value goes above 35. At that point it will only display an additional 35 records per button press.

The load all button is moved to the far right of the explorer toolbar. No new functionality is added to it.

In order to provide the options for dashboard instruments, the following changes to the right-click menu in Explorer were added.

These actions perform the same functionality as the Options drop-down on the Explorer toolbar.

Explorer Totals Bar

The Explorer Totals Bar is a new tool for displaying aggregate totals for numeric columns in all Explorers.

The totals bar is displayed when the user clicks on the option Show Totals Bar in the options menu at the top of the Explorer screen. This reveals a gray bar as the last row in the Explorer. (If grouping is enabled, the totals bar is shown for each group.)

The text on the totals bar tells the user: Right-click in this row beneath a column to see total options for that column.

When the user clicks, the menu displayed will depend on the data type of the column.

For numeric columns, they will see the following totals menu:

Hide

Show Count

Show Sum

Show Average

Show Largest

Show Smallest

For text datatypes, they will see the following totals menu:

Hide

Show Count

For other datatypes, no menu should be shown.

The settings of what to show will be persisted and stored with the column chooser columns, so you can turn off and on the Totals bar, and all of your setting will still remain.

The total bar settings will be saved with the column chooser settings and re-loaded upon restoration of the explorer screen.

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