Invert suggestions at formula write time - My Fields Should Be First, Not Last!

[brianscott]

Hello Alteryx Devs - 

When I got to write some scripting in the formula tool, my data stream properties should be the first to be suggested once a user starts typing a letter, not the last. 

uppercase(Ad -> gives me:

DateTimeAdd

FileAddPaths

PadLeft

PadRight

ReadRegistryString

[Address]

I think we would need a dedicated R macro to ascertain the chances anyone in is going to need [ReadRegistryString] before they need a column of their own data that starts with [Ad...]

Easy fix.  Makes a big difference.  

Thanks.

[StephenR]

And it needs to keep the fields first.  Sometimes halfway through typing a field it will change to a function just as I'm about to select the field.

[RachelW]

Thanks for submitting this idea. I'm trying to work through some of this logic in my head. What would you expect to happen if you had both [Address] and [StreetAddress]? Would they both at the top of the list even though StreetAddress would be a contains search result rather than a begins with search result? What about if there was a function that starts with the search terms? Would the column name that contains the search term be ahead of a function that begins with the search term? What if there were a bunch of column names that contained the search terms? 

Search logic can be complex and it's challenging to meet everyone's expectations. I'd love to hear other people's feedback too. As we add the new expression editor to more and more tools (Filter coming soon!), it's important that we make it easy to use. 

[StephenR]

What I would like to see is if searching address: [Add... would pull up [Address] then [StreetAddress] then FileAddPaths(Path1, Path2) etc.  I am auto-completing fields a lot more often than formulas.  Or, perhaps searching for anything starting with [ would prioritize fields and without it would prioritize formulas.

[brianscott]

@RachelW - 

> What would you expect to happen if you had both [Address] and [StreetAddress]? 

Have them both show up in the same order they do relative to each other, but above everything that isn't a data property of the data stream.  i.e., 

[Address]

[StreetAddress]

DateTimeAdd

FileAddPaths

PadLeft

PadRight

ReadRegistryString

> Would the column name that contains the search term be ahead of a function that begins with the search term?

My vote is yes, I like the grouping of data stream properties and functions as demarcated as it is now, just want them reversed.  

> What if there were a bunch of column names that contained the search terms? 

Still better than a bunch of functions that contain search terms, which is what we have now.  

Thanks for putting my idea under consideration!

brian

[patrick_digan]

@RachelW I'm jumping in to offer my two cents. Suppose I have a dataset and want to find a variable that has "age" in it. I would type "[" then "a" then "g". I like how as soon as I type "[" in, it gives me all my fields. I like how the "a" narrows the list. I like that the "g" narrows that list. I don't like that the "g" also brings in functions and moves my fields to the bottom. I feel like the bracket at the beginning should signal that I want a field. If I were just typing in ag (without the beginning bracket), then that would be different and I would understand.

[Claje]

Just came here to voice the same opinion as @patrick_digan, I think being able to open a bracket and have that prioritize fields/constants throughout typing would be great.  The search already does this when you start with a bracket and a character, so enforcing this behavior would be great even if after a few characters it starts to suggest functions as well, although in this case I would like functions to come BELOW the list of fields.

While I'm suggesting improvements to how searching for fields "should" work...  Right now even if I include a bracket (implying that I want to pull in a field), as soon as I have to enter a space into a field name (which unfortunately does come up), all the suggestions go away.  I'd love it for one of two things to happen
A) If I have a bracket open, search assumes I probably want a field and keeps adding to my search, even through a space.

B) There is some way for me to "force" a space into the search, maybe via an escape character of some sort?

An excessive example, but honestly not far from some data I've had to work with

[RachelW]

Thanks so much for the additional feedback on this idea post. Your feedback helps me better understand how you are using the autocomplete in the expression editor. We'll take a look at this and see if we can improve upon the searching. 

[RachelW]

We've made some improvements to the order that you'll see autocomplete results. You can find the improvements in 2018.2. Thanks for submitting this idea!

[jdrummey]

Hi, I'm using 2018.2 and I'm not seeing this feature request implemented as requested (making sure that fields always show up first).

The only change that I'm seeing is that if I do start with the [ for the field reference then Alteryx does only show fields & constants, which is certainly helpful. However this idea was asking for fields to always prioritized whether or not we start with [ and I'm not seeing that implemented.

Here's a workflow with a Generate Rows tool creating a RowCount field. When I type in r the first thing I see is the functions, not the fields:

Then when I add an "o" I'm still seeing functions:

Am I missing something here?

Jonathan