In this blog I am going to focus on a specific set of options available for the Graphical Query tool that affect the number of rows that can be seen in the output area.  The best approach to take when trying out these changes is to pick a graphical query you are working on and try out each option to give you an idea of the effect it will have. Let's take a look at these options. 

First go to Setup, Usage, Reports, Graphical Query tool (GESALT) to load the form. We will be looking in the Advanced area so click on the Advanced option to get to that section.

We will be looking at the Number of Lines, Maximum lines, No of fixed columns, and Maximum lines fields. 

The Number of lines field is used to limit the number of records that will be displayed in the output area. By default, this field is blank which actually limits the output to 100, even if the query results contain more rows. This is done to help reduce the chance of performance issues. So, if you want to have more lines displayed, enter a value in this field.  

So, for example if I change the Number of Lines field to 50, validate, run, then click on the Search button, the output will show 50 lines. Likewise, with 150. 

Next let's look at the Maximum lines field.  The Maximum lines field also specifies how many rows of data will be returned. It is similar to using a SET ROWCOUNT 4 statement in a T-SQL query, that would only 4 rows. But there is no guarantee that the XX lines returned are the first XX in the sort order. In our example, if I set the value to 100, I will get an informational message saying the maximum number of lines exceeded.  This is saying that there are more actual rows of data that the query could have returned.  This option may be useful in some type of testing capacity. Otherwise, having this message appear may confuse the X3 users into thinking there is some type of problem.  I recommend leaving this field blank.

The No of fixed columns field allows you to set x number of columns to be fixed or frozen. That is, x number of columns will not scroll out of view when you use the scroll bar to look for additional columns offscreen on the right. For example, I have included images of the output when no value has been entered, followed by 2, followed by 4. 

As you can see, in the first image, there are no columns so if you were to scroll to the right, the first column would eventually not be visible.  In the second image, we have made the first two columns fixed. They would remain in place as we scrolled over to the right.  The same idea in the third image except now we have four fixed columns.

Maximum times specifies the length of the duration (in seconds) to occur. So, if the value entered is 2, then after 2 seconds the search will be stopped to avoid waiting for a long time. If you think a given result set will be large and should be limited by time, this is the option to use.

I hope these examples help explain the options a little better. You may need to try a few different combinations to get the results the way you want.  Remember, that you can click on each field and select Help(Esc + F1) to see more details about the field.