As of Curator version 3.5.1, you have the ability to perform advanced searches in Clip Link and view saved searches, for overview of all of the search capabilities please see How to search within the Curator

Advanced Search

To access Clip Link's advanced search functionality, click on the advanced search icon () in the search bar to expand it.

From here, you can click Add term to focus your search more specifically on selected metadata terms, or click Add group to create a grouped search.

Clicking Add term allows you to select from a list of metadata terms stored within Clip Link.

Slightly different choices will be available to you depending on the metadata term you have selected.

For example, if you select the Rating term from the drop-down list, three drop-downs will appear for this term. 

The left-hand drop-down displays the term you have selected - from here, you can change your selection.

The middle drop-down allows you to select an operator - in this case of an enumeration (Enum type metadata), you can select from Is, Has any value, Is not, and Has no value.

If you have selected Is or Is not, the right-hand drop-down will then display a list of available rating values for you to choose from in order to narrow down your search.

Adding a group allows you to create grouped search criteria containing multiple terms. A set of grouped search criteria will be contained within a box on the screen.

When you have added multiple search terms to a group, a drop-down at the top of the grouped search criteria will appear.

This allows you to specify whether the search will include only results matching ALL of the criteria you have specified here (with And selected), or whether it can display search results matching just one of the terms you have specified within the group (with Or selected).

Grouped searches will be nested underneath any search criteria you enter by selecting Add term - this criteria can be thought of as a group that exists inside a bracket or parentheses. You can drag your grouped search to move it using the icon at the top right of the box containing that group ().

NOTE: It is useful to try to keep your search query as simple as possible, as a large number of nested groups may lead to an overly complex search query, allowing more room for error.

You can add multiple metadata terms and use different operators for each term/group.

To remove a term from your search query or group, click the X to the right of that term (). To remove a group, select Remove group from the bottom of the box surrounding the group. To remove all of the search criteria you have added for the advanced search, click Clear all.

Please note that when performing an advanced search for DateTime metadata (e.g. Created Date, Modified Date, etc) with a known value range search should be performed by setting Is Between / Is Not Between from the dropdown menu in most cases. 

This is because it is not currently possible to set seconds in the values to search for (even though 00 seconds will appear in the accepted value box above). It is only currently possible to search against a Date and HH:MM at 00 seconds and an exact search for DateTime (Is Exactly, Is Not) can only be used in the cases where searched for DateTime does not contain seconds (or is exactly 00 seconds). 

Saved searches

The saved searches drop-down can be accessed by clicking on the saved searches icon (). This drop-down displays a scrollable list of previously saved searches, as well as pinned searches and a button allowing you to quickly filter your results by the newest assets.

Clicking on one of the saved search entries in the list will filter the results displayed in Clip Link accordingly.

To save a search execute a search build of any of the possible elements, see How to search within Curator, once the search results are displayed, click Save current search at the bottom of the saved search drop-down. A pop-up will appear, requesting a search name and description.

NOTE: As it is possible for more than one user to save an identically-named search, it is useful to add a description to any search query you save where appropriate in order to help identify that saved search in the list. Saved search descriptions are visible as a tooltip when hovering over that search.

To delete a saved search, click the delete icon to the right of that entry (). A pop-up will then appear asking you to confirm you want to delete the saved search.

Please note that you will only be able to delete saved searches you have created unless you are logged in as a system administrator. Any saved searches you are unable to delete will have a greyed out delete icon to the right of them.

Clicking the Prev or Next buttons beneath the list of saved searches allows you to switch between different pages of saved search entries (where multiple pages exist).

Any saved searches that have been added to your favourites will be differentiated from other saved searches in the list by the highlighted green star icon to the left of the search entry (). To add a saved search from the list to your favourites or remove a saved search from your favourites, simply click on the star icon to the left of that search.

You can filter by your saved searches or favourites clicking on one of the options at the top of the list. The option you have selected will then be highlighted in green.

The Pinned Searches section of the drop-down displays the newest assets by default. Clicking Newest assets will filter Clip Link's search results so that the newest assets are displayed first.

The site administrator can also configure pinned searches to display custom search criteria, if desired.

To do this, pinned searches will need to be enabled via the web.config file. Please refer to this article for more information on enabling pinned searches.