The advanced search facility can be used to search any table using any form. With this software you can:

• Search any table

• Select any number of fields

• Display results in rows

• Display results in a format other than a plain row using your own design.

• Drill down to detailed record from search

• Add your own information before and after the search results are displayed.

• Control the captions displayed when data is displayed in a row.

• Page through the results when there are too many to fit on one page.
  

Example of a Row Display

In the example below, data is displayed as a row of information. This is the type of display created automatically. You can now click on the id number and obtain more detailed information about the record. The number 1 and 2 at the bottom of the display show that there are additional results not shown on this page.

Detailed Information about one record
By clicking on id 7, the following is displayed. This is a listing of every field within record number 7.

Changing the look of the information
You may want control over how the columns and rows display.

You may want to control which fields are displayed per row and the captions at the top of the row.

Advanced Search Facility allows you to:

• Change the field order in the rows

• Determine which fields to display

• Change the captions on the row header

• Change the sort order

• Format individual fields with formatting such as currency, date, image and hyperlink

Site Specific Formatting

Advanced Search Facility allows you to replace the default row formatting with your own unique HTML formatting with no programming. You create your own HTML to display the information. This HTML is called a template. You can create four templates. All are all optional.

•  Template to replace the search rows

•  Template to replace the detailed information about one record

•  Template to add additional information before the results are displayed

•  Template to display additional information after the results are displayed

Getting Started Summary
To start using Advanced Search Facility, you need to do the following. These are explained in more detail below.

• Take an existing form and make minor modifications to it

• Paste in a few lines into your form. These are called configuration options and they tell the software what to search and how to display the information

• Tell the software the name of your table

• Tell the software the name and location of your database

Configuration Options

You need to tell the software what table you are search and what formatting options you want to use. This is done by pasting in the lines below into your form. 

These configuration options replace the complex database programming and data formatting that would be required without this software. These are described in the User's Guide. The only required option is shown below.

<input type=hidden name="config_displaytable" value="tablename">

Optional Configuration

<input type=hidden name="config_displayrecords" value="10">
<input type=hidden name="config_displayfields" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_displaysortfield" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_displaymatchtype" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_fieldexclude" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_displayheader" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_displaytrailer" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_displaylinkfield" value="">
<input type=hidden name="config_displayformat" value="">

Changing Your Form

Take any existing form that you have and change the ACTION field to afhsearch.asp.
For example:

<form method=Post action="afhsearch.asp">

Changing the Form Field names
The field names to be search must match the exact field names in the database table. You may need to alter some name fields in the form.

Defining the database

In most cases the table and database will need to be defined. This is doing using the Advanced Form Handling Administration and editing the afhtables and afhdatabases tables. This is described in more detail in the User's Guide