3.12 Filtering information

Many tools have views which display information of some sort in the form of a list. Items in these lists may be selected, and you can usually perform operations on selected items (for instance, by means of the standard action commands, as described in Performing operations on selected objects).

Such lists are often very long, and there may be information displayed which you are not interested in. For instance, Common Lisp objects may contain a large number of slots, most of which are of no importance to your work.

Very often a list is accompanied by a Filter box which lets you hide such redundant information. Filter boxes consist of a pane into which you can type a string of text, as shown below, and are always positioned immediately above the list on which the Filter box operates.

Figure 3.5 Example Filter box

To use a Filter box, type in a text string and press Return , or click the button. Only those items that contain the specified string are displayed in the list--all the others are hidden from the display. The number of items that are listed is printed in the Matches area to the right of the Filter box.

To display all the items in a list once again, delete the string in the Filter box and press Return , or click the button.