Here are screenshots from the latest version of RFil.

Setup Menu: (see description below the screenshot)

Above is the new Setup menu - here you can add, edit, or delete the reports available for filtering.

Here are some of the features on this screen:

• The "Pop" button in the upper right for automatically populating all report info when you first setup RFil 5 in the database.
• Custom Report Names - give your reports any "alias" name you'd like - better than "rpt.."!
• A dropdown list of all reports for adding or changing them later.
• The "<- Get" button which automatically retrieves the recordsource.
• Checkbox options for how RFil should populate value dropdown lists for this report.

Custom Filtering Menu:

The above screenshot shows the primary report filtering tool in RFil 5 - the Custom Filtering Menu. On this form, you can create, run, and manage filters for your reports. There are dropdown lists for reports, saved filters, fields, expressions, and values. You can use both AND and OR logic with multiple criteria, similar to Filter by Form. The filtered report can be previewed, directly printed, or you can get the record count. There's also a textbox to display the formatted SQL WHERE clause.

Here are the main enhancements to this menu:

• Filters can be created, run, edited, saved, renamed, copied, and deleted all from this menu.
• Filters and their contents are saved in a table; more efficient than saving as queries, and with few restrictions on filter names.
• Multiple criteria can use up to 4 levels of OR logic each containing 6 levels of AND logic - a total of 24 maximum criteria pieces in one filter.
• SQL WHERE clause can be viewed.
• Value dropdown lists are dynamically generated from real values, but there are new options for populating value lists from hard-coded values, SQL strings, and saved queries, and a new option for controlling the AutoExpand behavior. Many of these features are related to the Value Dropdown Contents menu described below.

Value Dropdown Contents Menu:

The new screen above is used to customize where the real "values" in the value dropdowns come from, and to override the default behavior for other fields on the report. In addition to dynamic values found in the recordsource, you can specify a hard-coded value list, or an SQL string, or a saved query to populate the values for any field. This can greatly speed up filter editing on large or client/server databases.

Query-Based Report Filtering Menu:

The screen above is the second method of report filtering in RFil, the Query-Based Filtering Menu. This technique is very different from the Custom menu - this uses regular Access queries as filters, and filter design is done in the standard Access query grid. This menu is used to create, run, and manage these filters. This menu is little changed from earlier versions, with some rearrangement of controls, and a new report described below.

Filter Documentation Reports:

The above screenshot is a sample of the new Custom Filter Report - it documents details on the saved Custom filters, with report info, filter names, and the criteria.

Above is a sample of the new Query-Based Report, showing details on all query-based filters for each report, with an optional section showing the SQL WHERE clause.

Download RFil 5.02 for Access 97: Download 97 zip (182k)