Incremental Search / Type-ahead Find

[Jacob Carpenter]

Searching the suggestions revealed one item matching "Incremental AND Search" [message]. Since this useful feature is not necessarily well-known, I figured I'd describe it:

Incremental Search / Type-ahead Find (as its known in Mozilla/Firebird) is a search that's only activated with a shorcut (Default: Ctrl+I in Visual Studio 02/03; '/' in Mozilla/Firebird). There's no dialog to fill in. You just start typing. As what you type matches in the document, the match starts selecting (and is scrolled into view if necessary). Once you've typed all you want to match, F3/Shift-F3 (for the aforementioned applications) cycle through the matches. If what you've typed ceases to match in the current document, there's usually a notification (in the statusbar, accompanied by some audio cue, too).

This feature is very useful for quickly locating things (function/variable definitions, a given xml element, that one id throwing the error, etc.) that you don't need wildcards/regular expressions to match.

If more description is needed on this feature, I'd be happy to supply it, but I'd also recommend trying it out in VisualStudio 2K2/2K3 (if you have it) or Mozilla/Firebird (which are free downloads [link], if you don't).

Jacob.

[MiddleOfNowhere]

Excellent idea. Opera 7 has a similar "Find in page" feature - couldn't live without it.

I'd love to see this in TextPad.

[jhmagnus]

Very useful, I would also like to see it in TextPad.

[dhayduk]

Agreed. This is the one feature that I miss most from Emacs. Just hotkey and start typing...

[kaimiddleton]

I think you have a great idea here. Why don't you edit your original post to add a poll and let's see how much action we can generate here. Remember that a poll should have five options in it (basically ranging from yes definitely (the top one) to "whatever" (the middle one) to no, definitely not on the bottom).

[jhmagnus]

I vote for this!

[fthomas]

Incremental search is a very nice feature: since I found it on emacs, I've difficulties to live without. Hopefully, Microsoft implemented it in its Visual Studio.

It's definitively a great feature, that I can vote for.

[david12kw]

Yes, this is such a cool way to search. It's the one thing I really miss from Emacs.

[MarkusB]

The incremental search is really a very good function. I like to get such a feature in TextPad.

[roror]

i can vote for it too

[gracefool]

Added this to Grand Unification Theory.

[matthewlock]

I would also like to cast my vote for incremental search. After using Visual Studio .NET and Firefox I can't live without it!

[geek_girl]

I vote for this also. I'm considering switching over to emacs mainly because of this feature. Hopefully it will get added soon, because I'd prefer not to switch!

[Bob Hansen]

Kind of expensive, I think it was $50 when I got it some time ago.

But if you must have it now.....try Ultima Shell
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UltimaShell is a comprehensive enhancement and tool box for MS windows. It autocompletes words/phrases, autoexpands shorthands in any applications on MS Windows. It auto-learns new words while you type. It provides libraries for up to 10 western languages and most popular programming languages. UltimaShell supports multiple clipboard with appending mode copy and stored clipboard history file. URL aliasing enables you to access long and frequently used URL (web address / program / document / directory) by short alias. Embedded editing brings various text-processing functions to any standalone editors. Built-in commands provide great convenience for quick access to search engine, browser nagivation and computer management, etc. Quick-run dialog helps you run programs, open files and browse web sites with least trouble. UltimaShell includes handy shortcuts to shut down, log off, reboot computer, dial up, hang up, IE favourites, etc.