Admin generator, filters and I18n

Three easy steps

1) configure function
Add an input for each field you want to include in your filter

$this->widgetSchema['name'] = new sfWidgetFormFilterInput(array('with_empty' => false)); 
$this->validatorSchema['name'] = new sfValidatorPass(array('required' => false));

2) add a query modification when filtering for that field
I've done it for Doctrine. Pay atention to the method name addFIELDColumnQuery.

public function addNameColumnQuery(Doctrine_Query $query, $field, $values) 
{ 
if (is_array($values) && isset($values['text']) && '' != $values['text']) 
{ 
$query->leftJoin('r.Translation t') 
// ->andWhere('t.lang = ?', $especify_one_language) // or it will search in all of them 
->andWhere('CONCAT(t.name, t.shortname) like ?', '%' . $values['text'] . '%'); 
} 
}

3) Add your searching fields

public function getFields() 
{ 
return parent::getFields() + array('name' => 'Text'); 
}

From: http://oldforum.symfony-project.org/index.php/t/24350/