Searching

ajj3085 posted on Friday, September 08, 2006

Everybody's favorite topic!

So, we've purchased the Infragistics control suite, and I'm moving my application to have a similar look and feel to Outlook 2003. 

Similar to O2k3, I'm going to have a Search Folders, where users can save common searches.  I already have Find functionality; my business object's ContactList exposes a Criteria class publicly.  The GetContactList method accepts this criteria class.  The Find form raises a FindComplete event which the main form listens to and is used to pass the results back to the main form. 

I'd like to add a check box to this form to allow the user to save the query, which will save the criteria. 

I'm thinking that I should add another event to the FindForm, SaveQuery, which the main form can listen for and use to save the query.. somehow.

My bigger issue is this; where do I save the query?  Should I store it in the database?  Store it in the configuration file somewhere (via Settings)?  Is this another use case, and thus I need some more business objects to handle persisting of queries?

I'd love to hear from anyone that has done something similar.  One final note; the Search Folder on some nodes can contain queries for different lists.  For example, it can contain Contact searches AND Company searches.

Andy

RockfordLhotka replied on Friday, September 08, 2006

Do you want the user's saved searches to "follow" them from machine to machine? If so, the database is the logical solution.

Or do you want the more typical smart client experience, where this sort of thing is per-user and per-machine? In which case the special Application Data folder is the right location - or you could use IsolatedStorage, which is perhaps even simpler.

ajj3085 replied on Friday, September 08, 2006

I'd like to go the 'more typical' route, so if its per user / per machine, that's the method I'll pursue.

Either way, is a business object needed?  Part of me says yes, but another part says saving searches is purely a UI artificate.. although a similar web UI down the road may expose something similar..

Thanks for the feedback

ChristianPena replied on Friday, September 08, 2006

Don't forget to give them the ability to remove searches from their list to avoid clutter.

ajj3085 replied on Friday, September 08, 2006

Oh defainately.  I wouldn't be adding searches either unless they explicitely told the app to do so.

RangerGuy replied on Monday, September 11, 2006

If your users can move from machine to machine....I would think they would expect see the same settings. Kinda of like a roaming profile. I would save the criteria in the DB. That way further down the road you could utilize it with the web app as well. The user creates a query on the web client and the next time they log in to the windows client they have the same query and vise versa.. kind of a cool feature. We purchaced the Infragistics suite as well :) Haven't done much with it yet... but were really excited to use them.