Feature: Add recent filters drop-down to the message browser by mgaffigan · Pull Request #279 · OpenIntegrationEngine/engine

mgaffigan · 2026-03-29T04:18:54Z

Adds a recent button to the message browser pane. Allows restoration of the last 10 searches on the channel.

Closes #273

github-actions · 2026-03-29T04:24:27Z

Test Results

112 files 216 suites 7m 2s ⏱️
654 tests 654 ✅ 0 💤 0 ❌
1 308 runs 1 308 ✅ 0 💤 0 ❌

Results for commit d3ebbde.

♻️ This comment has been updated with latest results.

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds a “Recent…” drop-down to the Message Browser so users can quickly re-apply the last ~10 searches per channel, backed by persisted client preferences. To support MRU de-duplication and display text, the shared MessageFilter model gains equality logic and a new criteria-oriented string formatter.

Changes:

Add client-side storage for per-channel recent message filters (persisted in user preferences) and a “Recent…” UI button to restore them.
Add applyFilter(...) plumbing to push a saved MessageFilter back into the advanced filter UI.
Enhance shared filter model objects with equals/hashCode and add new test coverage around equality / criteria formatting.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 7 out of 7 changed files in this pull request and generated 5 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
server/test/com/mirth/connect/model/MessageFilterModelTest.java	Adds unit tests covering `MessageFilter` equality, emptiness semantics, and criteria-string output.
server/src/com/mirth/connect/model/filters/elements/MetaDataSearchElement.java	Implements `equals`/`hashCode` for metadata search elements (enables deep equality in filters).
server/src/com/mirth/connect/model/filters/elements/ContentSearchElement.java	Implements `equals`/`hashCode` for content search elements (enables deep equality in filters).
server/src/com/mirth/connect/model/filters/MessageFilter.java	Adds deep equality + `isEmpty()`, and introduces a criteria-style `toString(Map, padding, includeEmptyCriteria)` used by the client.
client/src/com/mirth/connect/client/ui/browsers/message/MessageBrowserRecentFilterStore.java	New preference-backed store for MRU `MessageFilter` lists per channel.
client/src/com/mirth/connect/client/ui/browsers/message/MessageBrowserAdvancedFilter.java	Adds `applyFilter(...)` to restore advanced selections from a saved `MessageFilter`.
client/src/com/mirth/connect/client/ui/browsers/message/MessageBrowser.java	Adds “Recent…” button/menu, saves filters on search, and reuses `MessageFilter.toString(...)` for the criteria pane.

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Copilot · 2026-03-29T21:24:13Z

+    public List<MessageFilter> getRecentFilters() {
+        try {
+            String serialized = Preferences.userNodeForPackage(Mirth.class).get(prefKey, "");
+            if (StringUtils.isBlank(serialized)) return List.of();
+
+            return (List<MessageFilter>) ObjectXMLSerializer.getInstance().deserialize(serialized, List.class);
+        } catch (Exception e) {
+            // Fail quietly if the stored filters cannot be deserialized for any reason.
+            e.printStackTrace();
+            return List.of();


getRecentFilters() deserializes into a raw List.class and then unchecked-casts to List<MessageFilter>. If the stored preference value is corrupted or from a different version, elements may not actually be MessageFilter instances, leading to runtime failures later (e.g., when iterating in restoreRecentFilter()). Consider validating the deserialized value/type (ensure it’s a List and that each element is a MessageFilter) before returning it, otherwise return an empty list / clear the preference key.

This is the first version. That's future me's problem.

new ArrayList<>()

@kpalang, not sure what you are referring to by that.

NicoPiel · 2026-03-29T22:53:56Z

Great feature. Will look at the code as soon as I am able to.

jonbartels

Pretty nice! Left two comments for improvements to property handling and maybe a simpler data structure

pacmano1 · 2026-05-26T16:04:21Z

This feature may leave PII and PHI locally on a workstaiton. So in its current storage format, it's a no for me.

pacmano1

Can leave PII/PHI on local workstation. Storage format needs to be changed.

gibson9583 · 2026-05-26T16:06:27Z

This feature may leave PII and PHI locally on a workstaiton. So in its current storage format, it's a no for me.

agree that PII/PHI is a risk. Perhaps we should rethink how this works? While it may negate how useful this is, perhaps this is cleared on user logout? If thats the case, maybe we then dont cache by channelId but rather global so user doesnt have to build the cache on every channel.

pacmano1 · 2026-05-26T16:06:56Z

This feature may leave PII and PHI locally on a workstaiton. So in its current storage format, it's a no for me.

agree that PII/PHI is a risk. Perhaps we should rethink how this works? While it may negate how useful this is, perhaps this is cleared on user logout? If thats the case, maybe we then dont cache by channelId but rather global so user doesnt have to build the cache on every channel.

admin session can be terminated without logout.

mgaffigan · 2026-05-26T16:20:49Z

@pacmano1 / @gibson9583

This feature may leave PII and PHI locally on a workstaiton. So in its current storage format, it's a no for me.

agree that PII/PHI is a risk. Perhaps we should rethink how this works? While it may negate how useful this is, perhaps this is cleared on user logout? If thats the case, maybe we then dont cache by channelId but rather global so user doesnt have to build the cache on every channel.

I agree with the concern, but think storing any text search only in memory or in preferences is likely sufficient. I'll update the PR to address the unencrypted-local-storage of text searches.

gibson9583 · 2026-05-26T16:36:05Z

@pacmano1 / @gibson9583

This feature may leave PII and PHI locally on a workstaiton. So in its current storage format, it's a no for me.

agree that PII/PHI is a risk. Perhaps we should rethink how this works? While it may negate how useful this is, perhaps this is cleared on user logout? If thats the case, maybe we then dont cache by channelId but rather global so user doesnt have to build the cache on every channel.

I agree with the concern, but think storing any text search only in memory or in preferences is likely sufficient. I'll update the PR to address the unencrypted-local-storage of text searches.

in-memory is good with me. It doesnt need to survive client restart. Preferences is the only issue I can see because that is stored unencrypted and available to any process on server.

mgaffigan · 2026-05-26T17:19:36Z

@pacmano1 / @gibson9583, updated to use in-memory storage only. That's tantamount to the rest of the PHI which already resides in memory.

kpalang

Some suggestions and nitpicks, but overall a nice implementation.

Comments formatted as conventional comments.

kpalang · 2026-05-26T19:53:14Z

+    public List<MessageFilter> getRecentFilters() {
+        try {
+            String serialized = Preferences.userNodeForPackage(Mirth.class).get(prefKey, "");
+            if (StringUtils.isBlank(serialized)) return List.of();
+
+            return (List<MessageFilter>) ObjectXMLSerializer.getInstance().deserialize(serialized, List.class);
+        } catch (Exception e) {
+            // Fail quietly if the stored filters cannot be deserialized for any reason.
+            e.printStackTrace();
+            return List.of();


new ArrayList<>()

kpalang · 2026-06-30T08:01:37Z

+        }
+
+        if (value instanceof Calendar calendar) {
+            return new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss").format(calendar.getTime());


thought (non-blocking): I found this cool site with modern approaches to things in Java, and one of them is to use DateTimeFormatter instead of SimpleDateFormat.

kpalang

Approved.

I found one small improvement after the previous review, but it is small and I'm not gonna request a change for this.

Signed-off-by: Mitch Gaffigan <mitch.gaffigan@comcast.net>

mgaffigan changed the title ~~Feature/mru filters~~ Feature: Add recent filters drop-down to the message browser Mar 29, 2026

mgaffigan force-pushed the feature/mru-filters branch from 83970d3 to 2cb78d3 Compare March 29, 2026 21:12

mgaffigan requested a review from Copilot March 29, 2026 21:18

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mgaffigan force-pushed the feature/mru-filters branch from 2cb78d3 to b1cefe0 Compare March 29, 2026 22:25

mgaffigan marked this pull request as ready for review March 29, 2026 22:30

mgaffigan requested review from a team, NicoPiel, gibson9583, jonbartels, kayyagari, kpalang, ssrowe and tonygermano and removed request for a team March 29, 2026 22:31

jonbartels requested changes May 26, 2026

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Comment thread client/src/com/mirth/connect/client/ui/browsers/message/MessageBrowserRecentFilterStore.java

Comment thread client/src/com/mirth/connect/client/ui/browsers/message/MessageBrowserRecentFilterStore.java

pacmano1 self-requested a review May 26, 2026 16:02

pacmano1 requested changes May 26, 2026

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mgaffigan requested a review from pacmano1 May 26, 2026 17:18

kpalang requested changes May 26, 2026

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mgaffigan requested a review from kpalang May 26, 2026 21:16

This was referenced Jun 4, 2026

Make MAX_RECENT_FILTERS a configurable user preference #321

Open

Allow admins to default user preferences in mirth.properties #322

Open

jonbartels approved these changes Jun 4, 2026

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kpalang reviewed Jun 30, 2026

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kpalang approved these changes Jun 30, 2026

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mgaffigan added 5 commits June 30, 2026 05:17

Move toString to MessageFilter/out of MessageBrowser, add tests

956c095

Signed-off-by: Mitch Gaffigan <mitch.gaffigan@comcast.net>

Add MessageFilter.equals(MessageFilter) and tests

51a60fb

Signed-off-by: Mitch Gaffigan <mitch.gaffigan@comcast.net>

Add recent filters list to message browser

d7c647f

Signed-off-by: Mitch Gaffigan <mitch.gaffigan@comcast.net>

Avoid storing PHI to preferences

f25118c

Signed-off-by: Mitch Gaffigan <mitch.gaffigan@comcast.net>

Clean up some pre-Java 17 smell

d3ebbde

Signed-off-by: Mitch Gaffigan <mitch.gaffigan@comcast.net>

mgaffigan force-pushed the feature/mru-filters branch from c360924 to d3ebbde Compare June 30, 2026 10:17

mgaffigan requested a review from a team June 30, 2026 10:17

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