Vue Grid: Provided Filters

This section describes the functionality common to all filters that are provided by the grid.

The grid provides four filters out of the box: three Simple Filters (Text, Number and Date), and an advanced Set Filter which is available in the Enterprise version of the grid.

Follow the links below to learn more about each specific filter:

The rest of this section will cover concepts that are common to every provided filter.

Structure of Provided Filters

The diagram below outlines the structure of the filters. Each box represents a filter type with the functions listed in it. For example, all provided filters have button logic, but only the Date filter has a Date Comparator or a Date Picker.

Provided Filter UI

Each provided filter is displayed in a UI with optional buttons at the bottom.

Provided Filter Params

All of the provided filters have the following parameters:

`buttons`	Specifies the buttons to be shown in the filter, in the order they should be displayed in. The options are: `'apply'`: If the Apply button is present, the filter is only applied after the user hits the Apply button. `'clear'`: The Clear button will clear the (form) details of the filter without removing any active filters on the column. `'reset'`: The Reset button will clear the details of the filter and any active filters on that column. `'cancel'`: The Cancel button will discard any changes that have been made to the filter in the UI, restoring the applied model.
`closeOnApply`	If the Apply button is present, the filter popup will be closed immediately when the Apply or Reset button is clicked if this is set to `true`.
`debounceMs`	By default the Text and Number filters will debounce by 500ms. This is because these filters have text field inputs, so time is given to the user to type items in before the input is formatted and the filtering applied. The Set and Date will execute immediately (no debounce). To override these defaults, set `debounceMs` to the number of milliseconds to debounce by.
`newRowsAction`	This property is for when using the Client Side Row Model only. When set to `'clear'`, updating the data in the grid by calling `api.setRowData()` (or updating the `rowData` property if bound by a framework) will clear (reset) the filter. If you instead set this to `'keep'`, the grid will keep its currently set filter when the data is updated. Default: `'clear'`

Provided Filter API

Provided Filters provide the following methods:

`isFilterActive()`	Returns `true` if the filter is currently active, otherwise `false`.
`getModel()`	Returns a model representing the current state of the filter, or `null` if the filter is not active.
`setModel(model)`	Sets the state of the filter using the supplied model. Providing `null` as the model will de-activate the filter.
`getModelFromUi()`	Returns the filter model from the UI. If changes have been made to the UI but not yet applied, this model will reflect those changes.
`applyModel()`	Applies the model shown in the UI (so that `getModel()` will now return what was in the UI when `applyModel()` was called).

Apply, Clear, Reset and Cancel Buttons

Each of the provided filters can optionally include Apply, Clear, Reset and Cancel buttons.

When the Apply button is used, the filter is only applied once the Apply button is pressed. This is useful if the filtering operation will take a long time because the dataset is large, or if using server-side filtering (thus preventing unnecessary calls to the server).

The Clear button clears just the filter UI, whereas the Reset button clears the filter UI and removes any active filters for that column.

The Cancel button will discard any changes that have been made in the UI, restoring the state of the filter to match the applied model.

The buttons will be displayed in the order they are specified in the buttons array.

The example below demonstrates using the different buttons. It also demonstrates the relationship between the buttons and filter events. Note the following:

The Athlete and Age columns have filters with Apply and Reset buttons, but different orders.
The Country column has a filter with Apply and Clear buttons.
The Year column has a filter with Apply and Cancel buttons.
The Age and Year columns have closeOnApply set to true, so the filter popup will be closed immediately when the filter is applied, reset or cancelled.
onFilterModified is called when the filter changes regardless of whether the Apply button is present.
onFilterChanged is called only after a new filter is applied.
Looking at the console, it can be noted when a filter is changed, the result of getModel() and getModelFromUi() are different. The first reflects the active filter, while the second reflects what is in the UI (and not yet applied).

Example: Buttons and Filter Events

Applying the UI Model

Provided filters maintain a separate model representing what is shown in the UI, which might change without having yet been applied, for example when an Apply button is present and the user has made changes in the UI but not yet clicked Apply. Calling getModelFromUi() will always return a model representing the current UI, whereas getModel() will return the applied model that is currently being used for filtering.

If any changes are made in the UI when the Apply button is active, or via other API methods whether the Apply button is active or not, you must call filterInstance.applyModel() if you want to ensure the UI is applied.

Applying the model is then typically followed by calling gridApi.onFilterChanged() to tell the grid to re-run the filtering.

// Get a reference to the 'name' filter instance
const filterInstance = this.gridApi.getFilterInstance('name'); 

// Apply the model to ensure any changes in the UI or via API methods are recognised
filterInstance.applyModel();

// Tell grid to run filter operation again
this.gridApi.onFilterChanged();

If no call is made to filterInstance.applyModel() then the filter UI will show any changes that have been made, but they won't be reflected in the filter model and therefore won't be reflected in the filtering. This will appear as if the user never hit the Apply button (regardless of whether the Apply button is active or not).