Intro

The smart filter bar uses annotations to create a filter bar. It’s a wrapper that analyzes a given OData service and renders a filter bar based on the content defined by the service. For example, the OData service determines whether a field is visible on the filter bar, and whether it supports type-ahead and value help. To configure more settings or overwrite the settings from the OData service, the developer can set additional annotations in an external document (metadata.xml).

The developer can use annotation properties in the classes [external_only]ControlConfiguration and GroupConfiguration to adapt the filter bar for the purposes of the app.

These annotations let you:

• Determine the type of control (for example, whether a field is shown as a multi-input field or as a date picker)
• Enable the autocomplete suggestions feature
• Enable the value help dialog
• Overwrite settings from the OData service
• Set custom filter groups
• Add custom fields
• Access all settings for the underlying filter bar

You can also use all the configuration options described here in the smart filter bar for the list report SAP Fiori element.

Usage

Use the smart filter bar if:

• An OData service is available.
• You want to develop quickly and efficiently.

Do not use the smart filter bar if:

• You need to make extensive changes to the filter bar.

Components

You can use the annotation properties listed below to influence how filters are rendered in the expanded filter bar and in the filter dialog.

Expanded Filter Bar

Filter Dialog

Recently entered values

The smart filter bar provides a history of recently entered values in the smart filter field. When focusing a field, an app can provide a small amount of recently used values. They are shown below the recommended items, which could appear at the same time. All values are shown if the drop-down is opened. Start typing will work like before, where the recently used values are filtered accordingly.

IN / OUT Parameter

In the smart filter bar, a drop-down or suggestion list can only contain a sub-set of items in case a dependent filter is set (IN parameter). It is also possible that selecting a value in a drop-down or suggestion list fills the current plus additional filter fields (OUT parameter).

Data Types

The smart filter bar analyzes and interprets the metadata provided by the OData service. This allows you to create complex UI entities, and to automatically add fields offered by the OData service to the filter bar as editable input fields. (Note that only fields marked with sap:filterable are added automatically.)

The tables below tell you which input controls are used for the key data types. 

General Data Types

Filter Bar-Specific Data Types

Guidelines

Reduced set of table columns for the tabular suggestion

You have the option to define different columns in the table of the Value Help Dialog and the suggestion list of the Smart Filter Bar.

In the , each parameter can be statically annotated as important using the <code>Importance</code> annotation with EnumMember set to High:

<Annotation Term="com.sap.vocabularies.UI.v1.Importance"
        EnumMember="com.sap.vocabularies.UI.v1.ImportanceType/High" />

In the suggestion list only the important parameters are displayed as columns, while in the table of the Value Help Dialog all of the parameters are displayed.

The Importance annotation is optional – if omitted all of the parameters are displayed in both table of the Value Help Dialog and the suggestion list of the Smart Filter Bar.

Formatting option for negative numbers

A new OData type NumericText improves the display-format=”NonNegative” of numeric fields. All values containing only 0, for example, „0“, „00“, „000“ etc., are interpreted and displayed as empty.

Resources