Best of Both Worlds: Adding a search to a filter
October 21st, 2008 by Rich Armstrong
Here at Fog Creek, we use searches a lot. Almost to a fault, I would say. Searches are so flexible that once we find a search that we like, we just bookmark the results page and use that to see the exact view we want. But filters are still pretty good. They allow you to see the exact columns you want, allow you to limit the number of rows returned, among other things.
What a lot of people don't know is that you can mix searches into filters. I make frequent use of the color:blue search term, which shows me only things that I haven't looked at since they've changed. It's a great way of staying on top of what's going on in a given area. Filters only allow you to check the box that specifies "Only items viewed by me" and not it's reverse. However, you can simply add "color:blue" to the "Search for" field and voila!: only the freshest cases.
Unread Inbox: All cases in Inbox opened in the last month containing color:blue
I also use negatives in the "Search for" box. I have a lot of documentation that I intend to write (this is a drop in the ocean), but the customer comes first, so I don't want my eventual goals interfering with providing great customer service. I want to exclude documentation from my main view of cases assigned to me. I don't want to become myopic and only look at, say, the Inbox project. What happens if someone assigns me a FogBugz case? So, I add "-area:doc" to my main saved filter. It removes everything that I'm procrastinating (in favor of making you, the customer, happy), and allows me to see only the stuff I want.
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