Back to the "Search Builder" I mentioned on Wednesday. I asked what the logic should be to build a SELECT string based on a user's choice of fields and values (expecting a simple(ish) answer) and was re-assured to see that there isn't a simple way to achieve this.

Based on your feedback and that of the customer I've revised the Search Builder to cater for bracketed search terms. Quite a few of you suggested there be some way of the user wrapping groups of criteria inside open and close brackets. The customer agrees this (along with user training) is the way to go.

The thing that troubled me was how to allow this in a logical and user-friendly way. In the end I think I've come up with a nice and simple interface. See below:

Notice the grey ("knocked back") brackets to the sides of each "filter". Hover over them and you'll see they're clickable. Click one and it turns black to denote it's enabled. As you're doing this note how the search query is rebuilding itself at the bottom.

All that's missing is some rudimentary error-checking to make there are as many close brackets as open and vice-versa.

How Did I Do This?

The best solutions are always the simple ones. All I did here was add two part-hidden CheckBox elements. The brackets you see are the labels to the checkbox. When you click them it's selects the checkbox. You just can't see it.

The Flex code (MXML) to do this looks like:

The GridItem is the equivalent of a TD in HTML. By setting the "cell" to a width of 10 pixels we've hidden the checkbox as it's only wide enough to show the label (which is set to appear to the left of the checkbox.

Note also that I've used the CheckBox's color property bind to its selected state. If it's ticked it's black, otherwise it's light grey.

Bettering It

What do you think? Is this the best approach? It certainly seems like it could build any combination of criteria in any way you could ever want it to. You can nest bracket-terms as deep as you like.

Feedback welcome.