Pressing Return to Find in the Find panel

[MikeTO]

On macOS, if you type a word into the Find field of the Find and Replace panel and then press Return, Publisher will find the text.

But if you type a word into the Find field, press tab, type a word into the Replace field, and then press Return, Publisher will do nothing. The Return key only works as a shortcut for find from the Find field. Return as a shortcut is supposed to be the shortcut for the default action button for the entire window so it should work from either field.

Return works as expected in MS Word which has a similar Find and Replace panel.

[DWright]

I do not think that this is a bug as after you press return on the Find field to populate the found list when you press return on the replace field it will replace the selected word and then move to the next word where you will have to press return again to replace the word and you will then need to manually do this for each word.

I will check with our QA team to double check if this is the expected behaviour when using the return key.

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, DWright said:

I do not think that this is a bug as after you press return on the Find field to populate the found list when you press return on the replace field it will replace the selected word and then move to the next word where you will have to press return again to replace the word and you will then need to manually do this for each word.

Oh, I see what you mean. You're right, it's not a bug. Sorry about that.

I did some checks and Affinity is doing it the Apple way, not the Microsoft way, and I'm just used to how it works in MS Office.

[Oufti]

5 hours ago, DWright said:

after you press return on the Find field to populate the found list[,] when you press return on the replace field[,] it will replace the selected word and then move to the next word where you will have to press return again to replace the word and you will then need to manually do this for each word.

This is not exactly what I observe. (Sorry, I can't do a video for this, since it's a lot about keyboard operations and I can't record that.)

At first, it behaves like you said but I can't press Return twice (instead of clicking the relative button) to redo the action. 

A. Find field + Return

In a new document with a text frame and some text in:

1. Enter a letter in the Find field
2. Press Return — it populates the results field and selects the first next result found after the current insertion point or after the line highlighted in the results field. OK so far.
3. If you press Return a second time, it will replace the selected text by a return carriage (i.e. it creates a new paragraph). That's logical, but not exactly what you said above.

 

B. Replace field + Return

Empty all fields and start again for a second test, this time using also the Replace field: 

1. Enter a letter in the Find field (say U)
2. Press immediately Tab to insert also a letter in the Replace field (say V)
3. Press Return — Nothing happens.
   As @MikeTO, I would have thought that it will replace the first found result and select the next one?

So not loosing hope, I did first what I did before, explicitly validating the Find field with a Return (or clicking on the Find button):

1. Then, once the Results field is populated with U results, click in the Replace field
2. Validate its content by a return. — That's OK: it replaces the first found result and selects the next one.
3. Press Return a second time — As in the Find test, it will replace the selected text by a return carriage (i.e. it creates a new paragraph).

The point is we should click every time in the Replace field to be able to use Return to validate replacing, so it's not of a great use… So easy to click once on the Replace button.
But it still is a pity when you cannot use only keyboard for certain things… 

[Edit: As @MikeTO says here under, if focus was not lost from the F&R panel to the profit of the text frame it could perhaps be possible to use keyboard to validate, or not, each instance…?]

++++++++++++

By the side, there is another more disturbing thing:

Modifying the Find field without validating it after an initial search results in replacing older search results, not doing what's shown in the F&R fields.

1. Type a letter (say search for A) in the Find field and validate by pressing return or the Find button
2. Change the content of the Find field (say type U) without validating it (so the field indicates the new searched letter, let's say U, but results displayed in the results column under are still those previously found for A),
3. Click, or tab, directly into the Replace field
4. Type in V and validate the Replace (by a return or clicking on the Replace button)
5. Last searched A is replaced by a V
6. Every time you click on Replace button, next A will be replaced by V — even it the fields indicate we are searching for U to be replaced by V, not the previously searched A. 

This is perhaps sometimes helpful not to loose the previous results; the behaviour is understandable; but it's at least disconcerting… 

Workaround is to click on Find before clicking on Replace, at least if anything's possibly changed (and never forget to…)
Perhaps could kind of a warning be helpful? [Edit: Or just having the results updated?]

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by Oufti

[MikeTO]

Oh you're right, there is an issue.

Although Apple and Microsoft apps handle Return somewhat differently, when you tab from Find to Replace with either of them they present search results automatically and snap the page view. With Affinity, nothing happens when I tab from Find to Replace and then when I press Return it won't do anything because there are no search results. Return as a shortcut for Replace only works when there are valid search results.

You have to tab back to Find and press Return to get search results but then you can't tab to Replace because focus has been transferred to the document window. So you have to click in Replace and press Return, in which case you might as well have used the mouse.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

You have to tab back to Find and press Return to get search results

If you want search results, click Find, or stay in the Find field and press Return there.

Then, when you have search results and have verified that your search term worked as you wanted it to, enter the data in the Replace field and press Return/Enter.

[MikeTO]

26 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

If you want search results, click Find, or stay in the Find field and press Return there.

Then, when you have search results and have verified that your search term worked as you wanted it to, enter the data in the Replace field and press Return/Enter.

What I'm asking for is a way to enter the Find and Replace strings and then see the search results. Currently you must enter the find and replace strings and tab back to Find and then press Return to see the results. Neither Apple or Microsoft work this way.

I suggest that tabbing from Find to Replace should perform the search and display results like in both Apple and Microsoft apps.

[Oufti]

52 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

If you want search results, click Find

When I want to Replace, I suppose that it will be searched for what I have asked, without having to confirm evidence (i.e. clicking Find).
But Replace and Replace all buttons are greyed out until I click Find. So UI is coherent, but UX not practical…
— And the fact that results are not updated can be very confusing when doing successive searches, as shown in my video. 

In most other softwares, leaving the modified Find field (by clicking elsewhere or tabbing to the next field) confirms that its content is what you want to be found. You can directly use replace or replace all. 

 

52 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Then, when you have search results and have verified that your search term worked as you wanted it to, enter the data in the Replace field and press Return/Enter.

I'd like to be able to do all of this, my fingers left on the keyboard as much as possible… Even for multiple successive replacements.

I do a lot of semi automatic F&R, like: replace double paragraphs by pilcrow, replace paragraph by space, replace pilcrow by paragraph, and again and again until you have no double paragraph anymore…
I don't need an extra check each time, but I like to use Tab and Return in this process.  

[walt.farrell]

18 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

I suggest that tabbing from Find to Replace should perform the search and display results like in both Apple and Microsoft apps.

I don't have any Microsoft apps that behave that way, though I do have at least one 3rd-party app for Windows that does.

Mostly, though, a tab from Replace goes to the Find button, where a Return/Enter finds the first occurrenct. That does not happen, at least in 2.2.0. There, a Tab from Replace goes to Scope, and from there goes back to the search field, skipping over the action buttons. Perhaps that's the real problem?

[MikeTO]

14 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I don't have any Microsoft apps that behave that way, though I do have at least one 3rd-party app for Windows that does.

I was wrong, Apple's suite, MS Office and Google Docs search when you pause typing into Find - I just didn't pause long enough when testing MS Word. I think MS used to do it on tab, probably before hardware got so fast. I think if Affinity searched when we paused typing into Find we might be very happy about it but I'd love it on tab.

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Mostly, though, a tab from Replace goes to the Find button, where a Return/Enter finds the first occurrenct. That does not happen, at least in 2.2.0. There, a Tab from Replace goes to Scope, and from there goes back to the search field, skipping over the action buttons. Perhaps that's the real problem?

Ah, that's why this isn't a big deal for Windows users. On macOS we can't tab to buttons without turning on the accessibility features.

The addition of Scope didn't change anything on macOS so 2.2 works the same as 2.1.