What’s New in List Search Simple Web Part R2.5?

New in List Search Simple Web Part R2.5

With its user-friendly, simple search interface, the List Simple Search Web Part makes it easy to find what you are looking for. Offering powerful search options allows you to target specific SharePoint lists and columns without you having to create indexes or search scopes. One of the limitations of previous versions is the drop-down controls used for Choice and Lookup search fields that do not allow tabbed navigation or selection using shortcut keys. This lack of accessibility may be a deal-breaker for organizations requiring Section 508 compliance. Thus, the primary purpose of this release is to improve usability, accessibility, and styling issues in the product. This article will show you how to use a basic keyboard for the Choice and Lookup search fields.

1. Keyboard Accessibility (Choice/Lookup Fields)

The latest release of Simple Search empowers you to do the following actions:

  • Moving between search fields (TAB/SHIFT+TAB)
  • Entering or deleting text input in fields (auto-complete based on input)
  • Selecting/de-selecting menu Items (ARROWS/SPACE/ENTER/BACK)
  • Submitting searches (ENTER)

2. SharePoint 2013 Search: Callout Preview Menu

In Release 2.5, Simple Search allows you to enable or disable the Callouts menu in search results for Document libraries, Asset libraries, Image libraries, and Pages libraries. This will improve your search experience and better align the product with the functionality of base SharePoint 2013.

 (Note: Callout Menu Requirement for SharePoint 2013 only)

3. Select List Views to Display Search Results

A common request we receive from our customers is the capability to select an existing list view at runtime to determine which columns will be displayed in the search results. Thus, in release 2.5, Simple Search provides users with an option in the web part settings that allows selecting a list view before triggering a search. Enabling “Display List View Selector” will surface the available list views in the search interface.

4. Highlight Terms in Search Results

You can now quickly locate relevant information at-a-glance, owing to callout previous menus and the capability to highlight search terms in the results. An option to enable or disable this feature will be available in the web part settings – Search terms will be highlighted in the search results if this option is enabled.

5. “Fill in” Choice Selection

In previous versions, if a choice column allowed “fill in” choices, the same choices were unavailable for selection in our control. In our latest release, Simple Search allows you to show your value with Choice (Fill-in) User-specified choices should be available for selection from the drop-down list.