The first option is very simple. Choosing the Search by name menu item we will get a small window. Here we can give a word to search for and press the Search button. After performing the search the Monitor will open the Full view tab in the left panel and will search for the first program element the name of which begins with the word we have given. If none of the source components begin with that string, we get a notification that our search was unsuccessful. We can close the window by pressing the Cancel button.
The second item in the Search menu gives us a wide range of possibilities to search in the results of the analysis. By accessing on of the submenus of the Search by metric value menu we get a new window in the center of the screen. We can perform a Global search or a Sub-tree search just like in case of changes (if you are not familiar with these options please refer to the description of the Changes... menu in Section 3.3.2). This window is someway similar to the previous ones, but let us walk through its different parts.
In the top left part of the window we can set the Search criteria in a combo box. This criteria can vary on a wide range of options. We can search for exact values with Equal or we can ommit a single value with Not equal. We can also search for elements that have metric values Near a number or values Between two numbers that we have given. There are further possibilities to look for elements that have a metric value Less than or Greater than a number or to look for the number of Top or Bottom elements. Beneath this combo box we can give the number (or numbers in case of Between) that will be the criteria of the search.
If we have already performed some searches, we can choose to Refine the last search results. This meens that we will use the results of our last search and we will combine them with the results of our new search. This can be set by checking the checkbox in the left part of the window and by choosing one of the two radio button options. The Common subset option means that we will combine the results of two searches only leaving the program elements that are the common results of the searches, the Extend option means that we will simply add the results of the new search to those of the old one.
Still on the left side of the window there is a group of checkboxes labeled Filter. Here we can set the kinds of program elements to be included in the search (note that some of the boxes can be disabled if they do not share the metric selected on the right side). We can choose to inlude namespaces, classes, structs, methods, etc.
On the right side of the window we can select the metric that we would like to search for. We can only select one metric at the same time. If we need to search for more than one metric value, we can perform multiple searches and combine the results of our searches. The metric groups are presented in a tree view and the different branches can be opened by left clicking on the small sign beside the check box of the metric group (for a detailed description of the metrics please refer to Appendixes A-D).
Under the metrics box there are three radio buttons. Here we can select one of three options. We can treat the metric values in a regular fashion - Regular. The other option is to divide each metric value by the logical lines of code value of the same program element - Relative to size (divided by lLOC). This second option normalizes the metric values with the size of the element. The third option is not to use the metric values in their common sence but to calculate the difference between the values of metrics measured during the current and the previous analysis - Deviation from the previous measurement. This will give us the rate did a metric value has grown or dropped at.
When we have set all the options in the desired way, we can push the Search button to perform the search. The results will appear in the Search results tab of the left panel. We can close the window by pressing the Cancel button.