Search box in Time Tables etc.

Hi,
I am missing a search function for objects in the time tables, MTBF/MTTR lists and other components with long lists. In these boxes you can only select the first character of the wanted object. A search function like in the tree editor would be great. I would also be greatful for showing the full path to the object , so I can distinguish objects by their container.

Nico,

Click on the "Find Objects" button on the side bar of the tree view, ortho view, or perspective view. This GUI allows you to narrow a search down by the category or group, class and container. It also displays the results in a path format so that you can distinguish one object from another. This should give you exactly what you are looking for.

Brandon

Hi Brandon,
I know that function, and it is very useful. But I am missing exactly this comfort in the MTTR/MTBF and TimeTables....

One of the classes you can select in the "Find Objects" tool is MTBFMTTR. This should give you all the MTBFMTTR objects in your model. You can also use the tree search in Edit>Find/Replace in Tree. The MTBFMTTR objects are in MAIN:/project/model/Tools/MTBFMTTR

What Nico Zahn is saying is that in the Time Table Parameters Window and the MTBF MTTR Parameters Window, it is difficult to find the objects you want to add from the listboxes in those respective GUIs.

In those listboxes, like other standard listboxes in windows, if you push the letter 'S' on the keyboard for example, it jumps straight to the first item in the list that starts with an S. If you push 'S' again, it goes to the next, and so on. You can even hold that key to have it keep jumping from one object that starts with that letter to the next. The issue with the listbox is that you can't search by name, just by first letter. If you have "processor2" and "rack7" in your list and you click 'P' then 'R', it highlights the Rack instead of the processor.

If the listbox widget worked the same way as the Attribute Hints GUI (Help > Attribute Hints), then it would be easier to find objects by name in a listbox list like the MTBFMTTR and the Time Tables.

In order to be able to search the listboxes in those GUIs by name, they would need to be alphabetized and given the LBS_SORT style. If they were alphabetized and given that style, you could search by name like the Attribute Hints GUI.

Right here is the place to comment on whether you would like to see that change made to those listboxes. If no one comments or cares, then it probably isn't worth it to change it. Currently, they are sorted by rank. They would be easier to search if they were sorted by name.

Anyone interested to see this changed?

Phil,

No, I'm not interested in alphabetizing the list. One thing that might help Nico is to have the path as part of the name instead of just the name.

Personally, I think that this is a great user development opportunity for someone. The reason for this is that I don't think that there is a high enough demand for this to get it very high up on the list of things to do for the Flexsim developers.

Brandon

Hi there,
so having the path would be nice, so I can find object in containers, also if they have the same name inside the container . (I have some user lib objects which are Visualtools with some objects inside them).

'One of the classes you can select in the "Find Objects" tool is MTBFMTTR. This should give you all the MTBFMTTR objects in your model. You can also use the tree search in Edit>Find/Replace in Tree. The MTBFMTTR objects are in MAIN:/project/model/Tools/MTBFMTTR'

Finding the object when I already added it to the MTTR/MTBF listbox is not an issue for me, I first need to add them to the listbox and this is impossible when I don´t have have the full path. I have some pretty big models and you can have hundeets of object starting with the same letter. I spend some time searching the right objects and adding them to the list.

So what excatly is a 'user development opportunity' ? I think feedback and suggestions for the guis which are standard in Flexsim is all a user can give and making the changes should be left to the developers.

Nico,

All suggestions for the developers are appreciated and the developers will make the changes that they deem necessary or valuable when they get around to them. The problem is that your suggestions may not make the top of the list as they don't occur for a majority of the users.

A user development opportunity is an opportunity for a user to make a suggested change to the GUI themselves and then post it in the user development section. This increases the chance that a change will be made to the software because it reduces the load on the developers.

I am not suggesting that you should or that you have to make this change yourself. Eventually I'm sure that the developers at Flexsim will get around to making the change, it just probably won't happen in the next release because they have already layed out the changes that they will be making for that release. So, I am only saying that if you or someone else sees this as a useful change and wants to increase the chance of it getting done in the next release then this would be something to get as far as you can and then post it in the user development section.

Brandon

This has kind of been discussed off-and-on among us here at Flexsim. I think there are a lot of instances of this "object members" widget, where you select objects in the model that you want to be members of some group, like an MTBF/MTTR or a time table. The widget can certainly be improved, maybe having more of a mix-in with the Find Objects widget, or maybe you could do it by selecting objects in the ortho view, and have an "Add Selected Objects" button. Anyway, as Brandon said, we just haven't had much time to think about it more, and it's not very high on the priority list.