I haven't paid much attention to the Quick Find feature until now, so perhaps I am missing something: shouldn't clearing the search text box cancel the find and show all records?

I thought this feature was supposed to resemble OS X Spotlight - well, that's how Spotlight works. But in Filemaker clearing the box seems to be an absolute non-event - so you cannot even use it to trigger a script.

Yes, and you can't even capture the keystrokes either. Quickfind needs a little more refinement.

Not so fast:

http://www.seedcode.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=SearchResults.QuickFindIn11

Hey, Tom: what exactly am I looking for there?

Yes, and you can't even capture the keystrokes either. Quickfind needs a little more refinement.

With a "roll your own" QuickFind field you can capture keystrokes. I don't know about the default in th tool bar. I capture Return to disallow it . . . I force the user to use Enter.

RW

Hey, Tom: what exactly am I looking for there?

The article explains how to run your own find script from the Quick Find field. The technique uses custom menus rather than a script trigger.

I guess I am still missing your point. I have no issue with the built-in find action. My complaint is that clearing the Quick Find field should result in Show All Records. I don't see how this can be solved using custom menus.

If you clear the field and hit Enter, you can run your own script to show all records.

If I clear the field and hit Enter, nothing happens.

Thanks for your patience, I stand corrected. I thought I had successfully done this in the past, but I tried it again and see now that it doesn't work, Quick Find is never invoked if the QF box is empty.

The best I could come up with is to script something like:

Set Variable( $find ; Get ( QuickFindText ) )

If( $find = "=" or $find = "*" or $find = "?" )

// show all, do something, etc.

and train users to use one of those options.

And for anyone interested,

$find = " " // (space)

does not work.

The best I could come up with is to use my own field. So it's not rounded, shoot me...