Improving Find / Replace

[cacycle]

I'm regularly using TextPad and find it a great program! But there are still a few things I'd like to have improved for the Search / Replace functions:

1) Clicking away those "Cannot find ..." messages is kind of annoying.

Why not adding a small message line to the Find windows instead of those popups?

2) Searching the whole text is cumbersome, you have to search twice, change the directions in between, and to click away two messages

Why not adding a 'Find All' button to search from the beginning of the document or, alternatively, allow a "circle mode" search which jumps to the start when the end has been reached, possibly through a separate "Search All" button or a new checkbox.

Another possibility would be to have an "Find Up" and a "Find down" button instead of two checkboxes and the "Find Next" button.

I do miss a type-ahead search as it is discussed in another thread (http://textpad.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4319) But the proposed changes would more or less serve the same purpose.

[Tim Rushing]

2) Searching the whole text is cumbersome, you have to search twice, change the directions in between, and to click away two messages

Why not adding a 'Find All' button to search from the beginning of the document or, alternatively, allow a "circle mode" search which jumps to the start when the end has been reached, possibly through a separate "Search All" button or a new checkbox.

This feature is already there. That is what the "Wrap Searches" checkbox does.[/quote]

[cacycle]

Oops... Why is it labeled that cryptic? But that was only a part of my suggestion

Some more thoughts: the "search passed the end of file" message is displayed in the status bar. I think a message field in the Find panel would be a better place for messages like this because 1) I usually have the status bar disabled and 2) your eyes are focusing the Find panel where the cursor resides over the buttons, a status bar message will probably pass without notice.

[gracefool]

No, I think it should go in the status bar, since that's what it's for. Why should the find window have it's own status bar? That's just weird.

Wrap search isn't cryptic, to me. A newbie user who doesn't know what "wrap" means can soon find out in the help documentation.

My vote is "significant interest" in getting rid of those "cannot find" message boxes, and replacing them with a status bar message.

[gkokmdam]

Putting it in the statusbar is better since a lot of people (I hope) use the short-cut-keys to run "find next" and then (nicely) the find dialog is not shown...

[Bob Hansen]

i would prefer windows vs. status bar because some other tools I use to automate TextPad rely on Window Names to make decisions. It would be too hard to ID a message change in a status bar.

[cacycle]

After 'testing' the Wrap Searches for a few days I do now usually switch it off because it is very difficult to recognize the jump back to the start / end. I just takes too long to search the same file several times

It would be very nice to have something more visible as an 'overflow' indicator. Maybe something unusual like colouring the Find button red for a second or a 1 sec temporary popup.

[CyberSlug]

Fix for #1 using the free scripting tool AutoIt. Visit its friendly support forum
Code can be modified for desired behavior....

Code: Select all

; AutoIt 3.0.100 Script
; Automatically gets rid of "Cannot Find" dialogs in TextPad
;  and puts the info in TextPad's statusBar.
; This script automatically terminates when TextPad closes.
;
Opt("WinWaitDelay", 100)  ;100 milliseconds; increase if problems
While WinExists("TextPad")
   sleep(50) ;milliseconds, decrease if have problems
   If WinActive("TextPad", "Cannot find")  Then
      $message = WinGetText("TextPad", "Cannot find")
      $message = StringTrimLeft($message, 3) ;remove 'OK ' from message
      ControlClick("TextPad", "Cannot find", "OK", "left")
      ControlGetText("TextPad", "", "HSStatusBar1")
      ControlSetText("TextPad", "", "HSStatusBar1", $message)
   EndIf
WEnd
Exit

[cacycle]

After thinking about it for a while I would suggest the following behaviour for searches 'overflowing' back to the start / end:

- The Find Next button is pressed.

- A popup message appears: 'Text not found, next find will continue at start / end".

- This popup will disappear with the next keystroke / mouseclick.

- If the next action is pressing the Find Next button, the search will continue at the start / end.

This way one gets notified about the 'overflow', one does not have to click OK, and the 'Wrap searches' checkbox would not be needed. This solution would be far superior to status bar texts or acoustic signals.