Advanced Search doesn't use Simple Search properties

[bengrah]

Hi everyone.

I've just ran into a slight issue with Advanced Search that to be honest, may not really be an issue. In Alfresco Explorer you can use the Simple Search bar (just the basic search bar in the top right hand corner of Alfresco Explorer) to search through results based on a query that is a custom property. For example, if you put something like the following in your web-client-config-custom.xml file:

<config>
      <client>
         <simple-search-additional-attributes>
            <qname>{http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}description</qname>
            <qname>{http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}title</qname>
         </simple-search-additional-attributes>
      </client>
   </config>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Then you can just say, search for a contract number and it'll appear in the result set. I clicked on Advanced Search, thinking that the same functionality would be used for the Look for search bar in Advanced Search, however it wasn't. Looking into this, the only way it seems I can search on my custom properties, is by defining them within web-client-config-custom.xml as follows:

   <config evaluator="string-compare" condition="Advanced Search">
      <advanced-search>
         <content-types>
         </content-types>
         <custom-properties>
            <meta-data aspect="app:simpleworkflow" property="app:approveStep" />
         </custom-properties>
      </advanced-search>
   </config>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

However, this results in a new labelled text bar appears where I can input data that will be used to search directly on the property. This would be fine, but obviously over years of using the system you may have tens or hundreds of data models on the go. And it isn't feasible to have tens or hundreds of search bars within Advanced Search that each just search on a single property.

So I'm asking, is there any way to make the "Look for" search bar in Advanced Search, just search on properties much like Simple Search bar can be customised to do?

[bengrah]

I say that this might not be an issue, since I'd expect any Advanced Search screen be able to break down the process of searching into parts which when used give a more customisable search query and result set. But I just don't see how feasible it is to have loads of text bars relating to one property each, over time it'd be a nightmare to main and navigate through.