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Searching in DPE Web Applications

Search controls

You can search/sort using a search bar and Facet Search which can be combined in most areas of DPE Web Applications.

Facet Search

The Facet Search is a powerful and user-friendly search functionality that simultaneously displays the count of matches fitting to a potential search in parenthesis on the right side of each filter . These numbers are adapted dynamically as more filters are selected.

  • Multiple filters can be combined together to narrow down the search to a minimum.
  • Simply select the checkbox next to a filter (e.g. "Last hour" below) in order to filter the related list according to it.
  • The number next to an unchecked filter displays the number of potential results if this filter were applied.
  • The filters of each criterion (e.g. "Level" below) are ordered according to the number of potential results.
  • You have for each Facet Search a given list of available criteria.
  • e.g. below with the log facet search, has the criteria Created, Level, Category, Computer, User, Component.

The list of available search fields is available when hovering over the search bar.

Example with the log search bar. See the searchable areas (=search fields) and which default search areas are part of the default search in the tooltip below.

Search bar syntax

Examples for a search with fields available in log entries (message and level fields):

  1. Single / Multiple words: e.g. "hot summer" finds matches with hot or summer anywhere in their metadata.
  2. Specify search field: e.g. "message:summer" searches in the message field for "summer"
  3. Logical combinations: "+" signifies a logical AND and "-" a logical AND NOT. e.g. "message:hot +level:bug -summer" will show log entries, that are bugs with hot in the message, but without summer anywhere in the metadata.

See Available Binding Values in Content Manager for a list of searchable areas in ContentManager.


In addition, Content Manager search optionally allows to use the values true and false instead of the value 1 and 0, e.g. "ready:true" instead of "ready:1".

Search bar History

  • The search bar remembers the last 20 search phrases used.
  • Open the search bar history
    • by pressing CRSR-down within the input box.
    • by pressing the drop down button.


  • Search Bar History depends on license "DPE2".

To separate the autocompletion's key words and history's words, there can be icons on left side of the available option.

  • History icon designating the elements already searched
  • Keywords icon designating the words proposed by the site for CM, whereas it symbolizes a parameter key for Parameters in admin area.

Search bar Shortcuts

  • Escape (ESC):
    • If the drop down is open, the shortcut will close it.
    • If the drop down is already close, the shortcut will clear the field and refresh the content of Content Manager

Standard Search (SQL)

  • Search is case-insensitive. Searching for "hello" will also find "Hello".
  • Search is pattern-based, search does not care about words in a text. 
  • The wildcard character "*" is added in front and after the search phrase automatically, so a search for "in" would also find "making".
  • The basic syntax for parts in a search line is as follows: [ |+|-][area:]pattern.

Logical Combinations of Search Parts

  • By default all parts in a search line are combined using logical OR, e.g. "obama bush" searches for items matching "obama" or "bush".
  • A "+" (plus sign) in front of a part adds it to the search using a logical AND, e.g. "obama + bush" searches for items matching "obama" and "bush".
  • A "-"  (minus sign) in front of a part excludes it from the search (logical AND NOT), e.g. "obama - bush" searches for items matching "obama" and not "bush".
  • Some search fields support the character "#" as a bracketed logical OR, e.g. "obama + bush#clinton" searches for items matching "obama" and ("bush" or "clinton").

Restrict Search to Areas

A search text is searched in all default search areas. By specifying an area you can limit the search, e.g. "title:obama" searches only in the title metadata field. The areas available depend on the specific search page. The available areas are displayed in the tooltip of a search field.

Placeholders

The wildcard for any number of characters is "*", for example searching for "s*r" will find "star" and "sir".

Quotes

Quotes are used to search for white space and some of the characters used in the search syntax, e.g. the space character, the plus and minus sign and the colon. They are also needed to disable the automatic addition of wildcards at the beginning and end of the word, e.g. without quotes searching for "auto" will search for "*auto*" while ""auto"" will search for exactly the text "auto".

Special Characters

Special characters must be escaped before one can search for them:

CharacterEscape Sequence
*|*
|||
"|"

Date/Time Values And Ranges

Areas that contain date/time values can be searched. The name of the area is mandatory, e.g. "CreateDate:17.11.2020".

Supported date formats:

  • dot notation: dd.mm.yyyy or d.m.yyyy or d.mm.yyyy or dd.m.yyyy or mm.yyyy or m.yyyy
  • slash notation: mm/dd/yyyy or m/d/yyyy or mm/d/yyyy or m/dd/yyyy or mm/yyyy or m/yyyy 
  • year only: yyyy

Supported time formats: hh:mm or h:mm or hh:mm:ss or h:mm:ss

Between the field name and the date do NOT enter a space character, otherwise the search is invalid. A space NEEDS to be between the date and time. In that case the whole time segment needs to be surrounded by quotation marks, e.g. Started:21.6.2020 or Started:"21.6.2020 8:00-9:00" or Created:06/21/2020.

Examples:

DescriptionSyntaxExample
Search for a specific datearea:dateCreateDate:17.11.2020
Search for a date rangearea:date1-date2CreateDate:17.11.2020-21.11.2020
Search for a specific date/time rangearea:"date1 time1-date2 time2"CreateDate:"17.11.2020 09:00-21.11.2020 10:00"
Search for a specific date/time rangearea:"date time1-time2"CreateDate:"17.11.2020 09:00-10:00"
Search for a specific yeararea:yearCreateDate:2020 (equals CreateDate:"01.01.2020-31.12.2020")
Search for a specific montharea:dateCreateDate:01.2020 (equals CreateDate:"01.01.2020-31.01.2020")

Fulltext Search (Elasticsearch)

Only available within Content Manager

  • Search is, by default, word-based, i.e. a text is broken into words and some characters are filtered out according to Elasticsearch configuration. The same tokenizing and filtering is applied for the search phrase
  • By putting the search text into quotes and optionally using wild card characters you can also search for text patterns (instead of using the word-based index), e.g. title:"*2023*" or "*2.9.*"
  • Search is, by default, searching in all metadata fields
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