Creating a selector for elements on a Grid/Graph

You can create a selector that allows a user to choose which elements to display in a Grid/Graph. These elements can be from an attribute, a custom group, or a consolidation on the Grid/Graph.

The default style of the selector is set to Drop-down and the Show All option is cleared, although you can change these defaults.

You can choose to either automatically maintain the targets of attribute and metric selectors, or manually define these targets:

If targets are automatically maintained in the layout, attribute and metric selectors automatically target all Grid/Graphs and panel stacks that are in the same panel or document section as the selector.
If targets are not automatically maintained, you must manually select the targets when you create all types of selectors.

For more information on automatically maintaining targets, including instructions to enable or disable it, see Automatically maintaining targets for selectors.

You can choose to either include or exclude the selected elements from the target Grid/Graph by default. For examples, see Determining whether the selector includes or excludes data: Selection type. Steps to define the default behavior are included below.

Prerequisites

A Grid/Graph must already exist in the document, so it can be defined as the target of the selector. If targets are automatically maintained, and you add a Grid/Graph to the same document section or panel after creating the selector, the Grid/Graph is automatically added as a target.

To create a selector for elements in a Grid/Graph

Open the document in Design or Editable Mode.
Right-click the attribute name (not an attribute element) in the Grid/Graph to use as the target of the selector, and select Create Selector Control. A selector is created just above the Grid/Graph. The selected attribute is the source, the selected Grid/Graph is the target, and the Action Type is set to Select Element.
If the targets are not automatically maintained, you must manually specify the target of the selector, as described below:
1. Right-click the selector and choose Select Target. The Select Target dialog box is displayed.
2. Click the Grid/Graph, panel stack, or selector to use as the target. The sizing handles of the target are displayed. To select multiple targets, press CTRL and click each control to select it.
3. Click the Select Target icon . The controls you selected are added as targets of the selector.
Right-click the new selector, then select Properties. The Properties and Formatting dialog box is displayed.
From the left, click Selector.
Select an attribute, custom group, or consolidation in the Source field. The elements of the Source are displayed as items in the selector.
From the Selection Type drop-down list, select one of the following:
- To use the selector to include data for selected values, select Include.
- To use the selector to exclude data for selected values, select Exclude.

By default, autosubmission is enabled, which means that once a user chooses an item in the selector, the target immediately updates without any additional user interaction. For steps to disable it, see Controlling how data updates: Autosubmit.

Now that you have created the selector, you can modify properties, such as multiple selections and simultaneous display of selector items, and format the selector.