SearchAttributesTask control

In this topic

• About the SearchAttributesTask control
• Using the control
• Members

About the SearchAttributesTask control

Using the control

1. To use the SearchAttributesTask control, add supporting controls to the page. Set up a Web application with MapResourceManager and Map controls. Add a TaskManager, menu, and TaskResults control. At runtime, the TaskResults control displays the results of the SearchAttributesTask. You can then interact with the results to change map extent, display selected features, or re-execute the task. 
2. To add a SearchAttributesTask control, in Visual Studio, open the prepared Web form in design mode, select the Toolbox panel, and expand the ArcGIS Web Controls tab. Drag and drop a SearchAttributesTask control into the TaskManager control. See the following screen shot that shows the page in Visual Studio:
   
   
   
3. To set properties for the SearchAttributesTask control, in design mode, click the SearchAttributesTask control, which shows the smart tag arrow in the upper-right corner of the control (shows the verbs associated with the control). See the following screen shot:
   
   
   
1. Buddy the task control with the TaskResults control to display the results of a task. Click the Choose Task Results container verb on the preceding screen shot to modify the TaskResultsContainers property. The BuddyControl Collection Editor dialog box appears. Click Add to add an item and select the ID of the TaskResults control you want to display in the task results. See the following screen shot:
   
   
   
2. To configure the task, click Choose Search Fields on the smart tag menu to edit search attribute properties. The Search Attributes Properties dialog box appears displaying three tabs (General, Settings, and Results). Use the settings on these tabs to change the visible content on the task at runtime, set the search fields, and customize the results that display. 
• General tab—Use to change the task control name as it appears in the ASP.NET Navigation control (for example, Menu), the button text on the button to execute the task, and Help tip text to provide assistance at runtime. 
  
  See the following screen shot that shows the Search Attributes Properties dialog box with the General tab selected: 
  
  
  
• Settings tab—Use to choose the fields you want to search. Select from a list of fields in feature layers in map resources. Only string fields can be searched. Each field in each layer is searched for the occurrence of a user provided string. 
  
  See the following screen shot that shows the Search Attributes Properties dialog box with the Settings tab selected:   
  
  
  
• Results tab—Use to define how the results of a query are returned and shown to the client. It works explicitly with the capabilities of a TaskResults control.  
• Limit search results to—Use to set the maximum number of records returned in the result. If more records are returned from a search, paging is enabled on the records rendered in the TaskResults container.  
• Group results by layer name in Results Panel—Select the check box to group results from a query in the TaskResults. If selected (the default), results from a query are contained in a parent node to display in the TaskResults. The parent node will have the same name as the queried layer and the number of records returned. If the check box is not selected, each result record is added to the TaskResults control independently. 
• Show attributes in Results Panel—Select this check box to show attributes for each returned record. If selected (the default), attributes for each returned record from a search display in the TaskResults control. If the check box is not selected, only the primary display field shows for each record node.
• Show MapTips—Choose to show MapTips on the results displayed on the map. If selected (the default), callouts for MapTips are available for graphic results on the map.
• Display Results Using—Choose one of the following formats to display results: 
• Layer formatting—Defined for the map resource item that contains the queried layer is used by default. 
• Custom formatting—You can choose to customize the format (symbology, fields, and attribute display) of results. 
• Layer—Use to select a layer type from the drop-down list.
• Symbols tab—Use to define the default and highlight symbol for results generated by the query. Click the Draw with or Highlight with button to change the symbol. When results are generated from search layers at runtime, features will render in the Web browser using the default (Draw with) symbol. When the mouse cursor hovers over a feature, the highlight symbol (Highlight with) appears. The layer's feature type determines the options to change the symbol.
  
See the following screen shot that shows the Search Attributes Properties dialog box with the Results and Symbols tab selected:



• Fields tab—Shows the fields in the search layer. Click the Primary display field drop-down arrow to select the primary display field for attribute tables. This area can be used to describe the contents of a record and is set to a field that contains an intuitive, preferably unique value to identify an attribute. Select a check box next to each field to set the field's visibility. You can also edit the text in the Alias field if you do not want to use the original field name. Results generated from searching a layer contains only visible fields and uses field aliases to define column names. 
  
  The Primary display field will be used to define the node text for each record shown in a TaskResults control. For data sources that do not provide field settings, all fields are visible by default and the alias is the same as the field name. The Primary display field is set to the first string field with "name" in it. If this field is not found, the first string field is used. If there are no string fields, the first numeric field is used. 
  
  See the following screen shot that shows the Fields tab:
  
  
  
• Records tab—Displays the tabular format of results shown in the Web browser at runtime. Record display properties for the query layer can be used to show results in a TaskResults control or in a MapTips callout window. By default, visible fields are included in the record display as name value pairs and the title is the primary display field.
  
  To customize the record display, click the Custom formatting radio button. The Title and Contents sections on the dialog box are now editable. The Contents section provides a rich text editor to modify font style and color, or to add fields, hyperlinks, tables, or images. Edits are stored as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) style content to render in the Web browser at runtime. To view the HTML content that will be used to format layer results, click the HTML radio button on the bottom of the dialog box. The raw HTML content displays in the Contents window. Any valid content to render in a Web browser can be added, including HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) definitions, and JavaScript.
  
  See the following screen shot that shows the Records tab:
  
  
  
3. Set the Visible property to false so the SearchAttributesTask control does not immediately display at runtime. When the menu item that is generated by the output is clicked from the TaskManager, the task control displays.
4. Run the application and execute the task. At runtime, click the My Search Attributes Task menu item. The SearchAttributesTask dialog box appears. Type a string value you expect to be in the selected search fields, then click Find. 
   
   The following screen shot shows the task searching the US States layer for state names that contain the text "New." When a task is executed at runtime, the TaskResults control displays an animated .gif to indicate that the task is working. Click Cancel to exit the task before it completes. The arrow indicates the location of the task execution indicator in the TaskResults control.
   
   

5. When SearchAttributesTask execution completes, the results are returned in the TaskResults control in a tree view. You can expand and collapse the branches of the results collection to view result items. If attributes are returned, you can expand its node to view feature attribute values. If the check box next to a feature node is selected, the feature will be selected on the map (by default, all are selected). If you hover the cursor over the feature node in the TaskResults control or the feature on the map, the feature will be highlighted. The following screen shot shows the mouse cursor hovering over the New Mexico feature node in the TaskResults control, which highlights the state of New Mexico on the map.
   
   
   
6. To use the context menu on the result items, right-click the result items. The context menu appears with the following options:
• Zoom to—Zooms to the result item on the map.
• Pan to—Pans the map to center on the result item.
• Remove—Eliminates the result item from the task results list.
  
  See the following screen shot:
  
  
  
7. To use the context menu on the task results, right-click to display the context menu. The context menu appears with the following options:
• Rerun task—Executes the same task again and updates this task result collection.
• Remove—Eliminates this task results collection from the TaskResults control.
  
  See the following screen shot: 
  
  

Members

See Also:

• ESRI.ArcGIS.ADF.Tasks.dll