Overview

The Auto-Complete tool helps user to find data using defined providers and displays choices when the user starts typing.

If there is no implementation for data lookup, the user interface simply remembers values that were entered before.

If there is a data lookup implementation available, whenever a value need to be entered, CSS offers assistance by listing possible choices. When typing "T" in a PV auto-completed field for instance, the 10 first PV names starting by T will be displayed with an indicator of xxx matching items by provider. It allows wildcards * and ?.

Another behavior which has to be implement by site specific providers is the top proposals. The Auto-Complete tool displays on top a list of most reliable proposals. If this list contains only one result, the field will be automatically completed.

Usage

Start typing and the popup will appears automatically. You can force it using ctrl + space. Some special characters are allowed:

Preferences

Each auto-completed field comes with a type. The type allows users to define a specific behavior for auto-completed fields. Each type handles an ordered provider list and a number of maximum displayed results per provider. If no provider is defined for a type, the history with a default maximum number of displayed results will be taken. If no maximum displayed results is defined for a provider, the one defined by the default_max_results preference will be used.

Preferences must be defined using the following pattern:
providers.TYPE=provider_name[,max_results];provider_name[,max_results]...
providers.ANOTHER_TYPE=provider_name[,max_results];provider_name[,max_results]...

Example:
default_max_results=10
providers.PV=History; DB Files; SDD Database
providers.LogentrySearch=Logbook,10; History,10

Providers results will be displayed in the same order as specified in the preference.

Tip: The auto-complete history can be cleared manually. All you have to do is to delete the following file: [workspace_dir]/.metadata/.plugins/org.csstudio.autocomplete.ui/dialog_settings.xml