Defining filters

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Filters let you control the data that is displayed in a module by including or excluding objects. You can define filters based on attributes, links, objects, and columns.

About this task

You can set up simple filters, where you use a single filter condition. You can filter on:

  • The contents of every attribute of type Text or String.
  • The Object Heading number.
  • The contents of any column, whether it is a traceability column or any other custom column created by DXL.
  • The value of a single attribute of any type.
  • The basis of whether the object has links.
  • The basis of whether the object has external links.
    Note: To filter on external links, you must be using a IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS (DOORS) 9.4 or later database server, and the server must be configured to exclude DOORS 9.0, 9.1, 9.2, and 9.3 clients. To exclude these clients, set the minimum client version on the General tab of the Database Properties window to 9.4.
  • The basis of whether the object is either the current object or a leaf object.

    An object is a leaf object if it does not have any children.

You can combine simple filters to create complex filters. You can also specify filter options that control what is displayed. For example, you can control whether only the objects that match your filter are displayed, or whether their ancestors or descendants are displayed too.

Procedure

  1. In the module window, click Tools > Filter > Define.
  2. Use the Attributes, Links, External Links, Objects, or Columns tabs to define the simple filter that you want to apply to the module. To apply the filter, click Apply.
  3. To create an advanced filter, define a simple filter condition, click Advanced, and then click Add.
    The filter condition is added to the Rules list.
  4. Combine the filter rules in the Rules pane. Selecting two or more, and then click either And, Or or Not to combine them.
  5. When you have defined your filter, select it and click Apply. Information about how the filter has affected the objects in the module is displayed in Statistics. To return to the module, click OK or Close.

What to do next

To filter the module explorer select View > Apply Filtering to Explorer. Objects that are excluded from the filter are disabled in the module explorer.

Select View > Show > Filter to turn the filter on and off. This option shows the results of the last filter. It does not reapply the filter.

For example, you filter a module to show only the objects that have a high priority. Object 13 has a high priority, so it is displayed on your screen. You turn filtering off, and then edit object 13 and change its priority to medium. When you turn the filter back on, you still see object 13 because it matched the filter when you first applied the filter.

To filter the data using the current values, you must reapply the filter. To reapply the filter, use Filter > Reapply on the Tools menu.