Selecting and Filtering Data

Microreact offers two methods to interact with data entries in a project: selecting and filtering. This page describes how to use these two methods.

Selecting vs Filtering

Selecting data is using one panel to highlight the related marks in other panels, while leaving all the unselected marks still visible. Filtering data limits the visible marks on all panels, hiding the other marks. See Summary of panel actions below to learn how different panels can be used to select or filter the dashboard.

What is Data Selection

Selecting data allows you to highlight some data entries without hiding the entries which are not selected. When an entry is within the selection, a halo is usually rendered around it, while entries that are not within the selection are rendered normally.

Entries selected in one panel will be selected in the other panels, as shown by halos on most panels and by checked check boxes in data table panels.

What is Data Filtering

Filtering allows you to temporarily hide some data entries from all panels in a project.

When a single filter is applied, only data entries which are within the applied filter are shown, and entries which are outside the filter are hidden.

When multiple filters are applied, then data entries which are within all filters are shown (i.e. the intersection of all filters is used).

Data can be filtered using a Data-slicer, using the "Search and filter" bar at the top, or by interacting with panels in the ways described below.

Search-and-filter bar

Typing in the top search-and-filter bar will filter the data across all columns in the metadata. If any row contains the typed value in any column, then it will remain visible on all panels. If something is typed here that is not reflected in any of the columns of a row, then that row gets filtered out and hidden from the panels.

The number (e.g. "21 of 50") on the right side of the bar reflects how many rows are showing (e.g. 21) and how many rows there are in total (50) in the unfiltered metadata file.

Resetting Filters

The easiest way to reset filters and get back to visualising the full dataset is to click on the filter icon in the Search (Filter) bar and select "Reset All Filters"

Note that there are tree settings that may be filtering your data behind-the-scenes, even after using "Reset Tree Filter" or "Reset All Filters". To reset the tree, right-click on the tree panel whitespace and select "Redraw original tree". If you are the author of the Microreact project, you can also change the setting for "Hide x data entries without matching tree leaves", which effectively uses the tree as the source of truth and hides any metadata rows that are not found in the tree.

Check for hidden tree filters

Summary of panel actions

Panel	Selecting data	Filtering data	See also
Data tables	Data entries can be selected using the checkboxes to the left of each row	Data entries can be filtered (by individual values or by condition) from the data column header menu. Data can also be filtered by using a data slicer panel	Filtering and sorting in data table
Trees	Individual entries can be selected by clicking on individual leaf nodes. Multiple entries can be selected by holding Ctrl/Cmd button and clicking on leaves. A range can be selected by clicking on the first leaf, then holding the Shift key while clicking on another leaf.	Clicking on a subtree filters out data entries which are not in the subtree. The same filter is applied when right clicking on a subtree and choosing View Subtree. You can also apply a filter on a tree by using the lasso tool. You can exclude metadata rows from the panels by applying the "Hide x data entries without matching tree leaves" in the Edit Panel: Tree menu.	Filtering via a tree
Maps	Clicking on a map marker selects all entries at that location. Multiple markers can be selected by holding Ctrl/Cmd button and clicking on markers.	You can apply a filter on a map by using the lasso tool. You can also apply a filter using the viewport filter button.	Filtering via a map
Timeline	Clicking on a timeline bar selects all entries in that bar. Multiple bars can be selected by holding Ctrl/Cmd button and clicking on markers.	You can apply a filter on a timeline by sliding the endpoint markers on either side of the timeline.	Filtering via a timeline
Legend	Clicking on a value (or ctrl-clicking or cmd-clicking multiple values) in the legend will select related marks and rows across all panels	N/A
Search-and-filter bar	N/A	The search-and-filter bar (magnifying glass) can filter to an exact or partial match to data in all columns.