F4 Search - Default Search Method

When you press <F4-Select> the system allows you to enter search filters based on the prime-index of the database, any set secondary indexes on the database and, if Premier, any set extra search items. For example if searching on the Sales Accounts database you can enter account code, account name and possibly telephone numbers and/or contact names.

When searching on a secondary index or extra selection item then the search is usually in ‘contains’ mode where if the search text exists anywhere in the selected item the record is listed for selection. If you want to list only records where the selected item starts with the entered search text you could press the <F7-Option> key within the search screen to swap to ‘starts with’ searches but this only applies as a one-time setting and reverts to contains searches on next search. In addition you can globally switch the search items to ‘starts with’ mode via the CONFIG sign-on User Preferences parameter screen so that searches are always in ‘starts with’ mode except if use the <F7-Option> key to swap to ‘contains’ search for the current search.

New options have been added to the database structure settings to enable the system to set a default search method per database selection item.

Against each Extra Selection Item and for secondary index items extra prompts have been added for the F4-Search Default where can leave blank to apply the global default setting or can set specifically to ‘S’ for Starts With searches or ‘C’ for contains searches.