Selecting records in Dynodex lets you pull out and view a "select" group of records that have something particular in common. For example, you might want to select all your "contacts in California", or all your "friends and family".
You can select records based on one or two criteria. For example, you can select all contacts in the state of California (one criteria: State=CA). Or, you can select all contacts that are in California and have the title of CEO (two criteria: State=CA and Title=CEO).
When you have selected a group of records, Dynodex works only with the selected group, and ignores the rest of the records. This means that when a selection is made, you can display, find, and print ONLY THE SELECTED RECORDS.
To turn off a selection, you must choose "Show Every Record", Cmd-E.
If you need to select a certain group of records frequently, you can save the settings for that selection under the "Frequent Selections" pop-up menu. Just choose the selection from the pop-up menu and bypass the "Select Records" dialog. You can store up to 32 different "Frequent Selections".
Selecting records is very powerful:
• You can print a very specific address book or section of your address book. For example, if you want to print a directory of your personal contacts, you must select all records with "Key 1"="friend". If you want to print just the "B" section of your address book, you must select all records with "First Line Starts With B". If you're going on a business trip to Boston, you can select all records with "City=Boston" and print those records as a contact list for your trip.
• You can extract marketing information by selecting records that have a certain Title, Profession, or gender, or come from a specific City, State, or Country.
The "Select Records" Dialog:
• Field 1: Define the information that records have to meet to be selected. For example, if you want to select all your contacts in California, "Field 1" must read across "State=CA".
• Use Second Field: Check here if you want to further define the selection. You might want to include records that meet one criteria but not necessarily the other. (For example, if you want to select records that are from either CA or NY.) Or you might want to restrict the group to only those that meet both criteria. (For example, if you want to select records that are from CA AND have the Title of CEO).
• Field 2: Define the second set of criteria that records have to meet to be selected. For example, to select records that are from the state of CA and have Titles of CEO, "Field 2" must read across "Title=CEO".
• And: Restricts the selection to include only records that meet both "Field 1" and "Field 2" definitions.
• Or: Expands the selection to include any record that meets at least one of the "Field 1" and "Field 2" definitions.
• Select: Proceeds with the selection.
• Add to Menu: Adds the current selection to the "Frequent Selections" submenu. You must name a "Frequent Selection", such as "California Contacts".
• Help: Displays the "Help" dialog with the topic on "Select Records" highlighted and described.
What the operators mean:
• Starts with: The data in the specified field starts with the text string you type.
• Contains: The text you type is contained within part of the field. For example, "Business contains Mac" will select records that have a name with "Mac" in it (like "MacConnection", "MacWarehouse", "DynaMac", etc.).
• Is defined: The field you are selecting by has something entered into it.
• Is undefined: The field you are selecting by is empty.
• Is found within: The data in the specified field matches some part of the text string you type. For example, "State is found within NY CA MA" will select all records whose "State" field has either NY, CA, or MA.
You can tell if "Select Records" is enabled by:
• A check mark next to "Select Records" in the menu.
• A quarter of the pie icon is missing.
• In the "About Dynodex" dialog, the "Current Selection" is followed by: a selection name with the number of records in the selection, a slash "/", and the number of total records in the file.
• The "Just Names" and "All Fields" lists show a different number to the left of the slash "/" (e.g. 89/150 Records).
To select non-related records, use the "Mark" command. (See "Mark".)
