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Before the advent of FileMaker’s Quick Find, finding a value across multiple fields required you to create a series of find requests and enter the search text in the fields to search. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to search all fields (including merge fields) on a layout for anything that matches the entered text? The new Quick Find does exactly that!
When in browse mode, you’ll see a search field on the right side of the status area. This is where you will enter your search text. To disable Quick Finds for a layout, uncheck the ‘Enable Quick Find’ box in the Layout Setup. Selected fields can be excluded from the Quick Find by unchecking the ‘Include Field for Quick Find’ checkbox in the Inspector.
Fields that are enabled for Quick Find will have a magnifying glass icon at the bottom right corner of the field:
- A gray magnifying glass means that the layout is disabled for Quick Find
- A green magnifying glass means that the field is searchable
- A yellow magnifying glass means that the field is searchable, but it might take longer to search as the field might be from a related table, an unstored calculation, or a field that cannot be indexed
This feature is great for most of us familiar with the ‘global search’ like in a search engine; however, since the search is more ‘relaxed’, more often than not, it will show you more records than the one you are looking for.
