Text Area Drop Down Boxes

[Deepak Chakravarthy]

Hello TIBCO community,

My visualizations use several drop down boxes in text areas. The values in the drop down boxes are columns from various tables. I only use certain columns as options. They work great until I add a new column to the table. The new column automatically shows u in the drop down box. If I change a column name in the table that shows up too. Its getting really annoying to clean it up each time as many people use my dashboard. Any thoughts on how to keep new columns from appearing in my drop down selections Thank you in advance for your help.

Deepak

[Gaia Paolini]

I tried to define a new calculated column and indeed it was added automatically to the drop down list.

 

Then I edited the drop down and clicked on the button 'Select Columns...' bottom right and selected the columns I was interested in.

 

Then I defined a new calculated column and this time it did not appear in the selection.

 

Maybe you using a different way to select the columns normally Can you give more information

[Deepak Chakravarthy]

Hi Gaia, thank you so much for the reply. There were no answers for such a long time that I stopped checking. I'm doing the same thing that you have described. I've only selectyed the columns that I am interested in, but each time I add a new column, it somehow ends up in the drop down list. Then I slect columns again and remove the new ones that have appeared. Frustrating! 

[Jose Leviaguirre]

Hello Deepak,

You can use a search expression. The same type of expressions you use when searching columns in the Filter Panel. For example,If you want to only search for columns of data type date, use dataType:Date

In your particular case, you want to hardcode the values in the "Selectable columns (limit through expression):" from the Property Contrlol Settings section like this:

Name::"Column 1" or Name::"Column 2"

 

 

Here is the complete reference:

 

 

 

 

Keyword

 

 

Example

 

 

Function

 

 

 

 

*

 

 

*ple

*ple*

 

 

Finds items with a word ending in ple.

Finds items where a word contains ple.

 

 

 

 

Quotation marks

 

 

"A Green Apple"

 

 

Finds items where the exact phrase A Green Apple is included.

(To find items starting with an exact phrase, you can add an asterisk inside the quote: "A Green Apple*".)

 

 

 

 

Double quotation marks

 

 

"9"" nails"

 

 

Finds items where the exact phrase 9" nails is included. Add a second double quote to escape a literal quote.

 

 

 

 

AND

 

 

Apple AND Fruit

 

 

Finds items with a word that starts with Apple and another word that starts with Fruit.

 

 

 

 

OR

 

 

Apple OR Banana

 

 

Finds items that include a word that starts with Apple or Banana.

 

 

 

 

NOT

 

 

Ban NOT *ana

 

 

Finds items that have a word that starts with Ban but does not end with ana. For example, Bangles and Banned would be found, but Banana would not.

 

 

 

 

( )

 

 

Apple and (Banana or Pear)

 

 

Used to group items in Boolean searches. See below for more information about searching for text within parentheses.

 

 

 

 

Quoted keywords

 

 

"and" "or" "not"

 

 

Finds strings that are protected keywords. Just typing and in the search field will not find anything since the word and is a protected keyword. If you need to search for the word "and", you must use quotation marks around it.

 

 

 

 

:

 

 

DataType:Integer

 

 

[Only applicable when searching for columns.]

The colon is used to search for attributes. In this example it finds columns where the column property DataType has a word that starts with Integer.

Almost any property can be used in the search, including custom properties. See Column Properties Descriptions for information about the available default column properties.

 

 

 

 

::

 

 

Name::Apple

 

 

 

 

 

DataType::Date

 

 

[Only applicable when searching for columns.]

Finds columns where the exact value of the property Name is Apple. In this example, a column named only Apple would match, but a column named Apple from Spain would not.

If you want to search for the Date data type, and not get any hits on DateTime columns, use :: instead of a single colon.

 

 

 

 

:10

 

 

[Only applicable when searching for columns.]

Finds columns with more than or equal to 10 unique values.

 

 

 

 

Null, Empty or not existing column property.

 

 

Tag:null or DistinctValueCount:null

 

 

 

Keywords:null

 

 

[Only applicable when searching for columns.]

Finds all columns with no Tags or if the column property DistinctValueCount does not exist.

 

Finds all columns with no keywords.

 

 

 

 

Reference: "Searching in TIBCO Spotifre" from the TIBCO client's help menu