Exploring Octopart’s Powerful Search Filters

You may notice something different about our search results pages on occasion: Our filters are periodically redesigned to improve usability and make them more intuitive. Here’s a rundown of our current search views and filters.

Two Views to Choose From: Price View and Specs View 

Whenever you perform a search on Octopart, you’ll be taken to one of two search results views: Price View or Specs View. See Figures 1 and 2.With each view, at the top of the page, you will see text links for part sub-categories that can be chosen. You will also see a Show Filters selector button at the top right of the page, which usually defaults to Off. You can switch between Price View and Specs View by clicking on the appropriate tab.

Figure 1 – Price & Availability (Price) view with Show Filters off

Figure 2 – Part Specifications (Specs) view with Show Filters off

In the Price & Availability view, there are sorting options and filtering options available at the top of the search results list. Sorting can be performed by relevance, price, or availability. 

With the Part Specifications view, you’ll see a grid with relevant specifications and other information related to each product, including Market, Supply Chain, Physical and Technical data. See Figure 2. Be sure to look at the bottom of the product-specs grid and use the horizontal scroll bar to see all the part specifications.

Powerful, Detailed Filters

With the Show Filters button at the top right of the screen selected to On, you will be presented with a series of detailed parametric filters below the top row of product sub-category filters. These filters will include parameters such as Distributor, Manufacturer, RoHS compliance, Maximum and Minimum Operating Temperatures, and more. See Figure 3.

Figure 3 – Part Specifications (Specs) view with Show Filters toggled on

The parametric filter options displayed will be based on your search results. For example, if you are looking for a capacitor, you likely aren’t concerned about filtering on the number of pins, for instance, so you won’t see that filter.

The filters shown after clicking the Show Filters button will bring up the most commonly used (and most relevant) filters related to your particular query. However, there are additional filters that can be added to the parametric filter list by clicking the Add New Filter button. This will bring up a list of technical specifications that can be used as filters for parts results. The button will bring up the Add New Filter dialog, which is shown below in Figure 4.

Figure 4 – Add New Filter dialog 

For some components, such as integrated circuits, the list of available filters can quite significant with very detailed specifications available for filtering. As new filters are enabled, they will appear within the list of parametric filter options at the top of the search results.

We hope you find our regularly updated search capabilities and filters useful. We will continue to evaluate, evolve and improve our filters and GUI on an ongoing basis so the Octopart search engine becomes more useful and intuitive for you. 

Give our redesigned filters a try for yourself, and let us know what you think by dropping us a line at contact@octopart.com.