how to show all unique values in a column in a filter list to select from?

If you are looking for a way to easily get the distinct values in a range (in this case the range is a column) then you can use this Copy Distinct Automator Service (Dropbox download).

To install, double-click the .workflow package and if necessary click Open Anyway in System Preferences > Security & Privacy. This creates a Copy Distinct entry in your Numbers > Services menu.

Usage is similar to (but slightly different from) Excel:

1. Select the cells you want to extract the distinct values from.
2. Choose Copy Distinct from your Numbers > Services menu.
3. Click once in a destination cell, and command-v to paste.

SG

Not sure what you are saying here. Obviously you have to have a place to place the distinct values, whether in another column or in the same column. That's not really a drawback, just a fact of life.

I'm curious about what you mean by "multiple columns to dynamically select some records with specific criteria from different columns." If you can give a specific example of what you are trying to do, I there may be a solution. Are you trying to do something like Excel's filtering on multiple columns?

If you are you can click the disclosure triangle by the column letter to get a dropdown like this:

Similar to Excel.

SG