The main use of filters is for searching. An OBO-Edit search checks every term in the ontology to see if it matches the given filter. When the search is complete, a list of matching terms is displayed to the user.
The OBO-Edit search panel looks like this:
To do a search, first use the filter designer to create the filter you want to use. Then click the "Search" button.
When the search is complete, a list of results will appear and a new tab will be added to the search interface:
The search results appear at the top of the tab. To sort the search results, click the header at the top of search column.
Click a search result to select it. If "Autoselect" is clicked, the search result will automatically be selected in the primary ontology editor panel (it is possible to specify a different ontology editor panel where search results will be selected; see below). The search results panel looks different depending on whether you've done a term search or a link search (see below for more information).
There are a number of controls at the bottom of the results panel:
Term search results consist of a list of matching terms. Each term's name and id is listed:
Link search results consist of a list of matching links. For each link, the child id, child name, type id, parent id, and parent name are listed:
Each line represents a single link.
If both "Term filtering" and "Link filtering" are enabled, the current term search AND the current link search will be performed when the "Search" button is pressed. Two sets of search results will appear when the search is completed.
As noted earlier, if a search result is clicked and the autoselect box is checked, or the "Select terms" button is pressed, the search result is selected in the ontology editor panel.
The shortest path to the search result is always selected.
Normally, search results are selected in the primary ontology editor panel (see The ontology editor panel for information about designating the primary ontology editor panel). Search results can be selected in a different ontology editor panel by dragging the search button onto the desired ontology editor panel instead of clicking the buttons.