Find and Replace panel improvements

[MikeTO]

A few suggestions for Find and Replace.

Maintain panel settings between documents - If you search for text, tab to another document, and tab back, the Find and Replace fields and the selected formatting will be blank. The search results will not be cleared but the selected result will be deselected and the list will be scrolled to the top. This can be annoying if you're halfway through hundreds of results and have now lost your place. I understand that Publisher had to refresh the panel for the second document, but if it can restore the results it would be nice if it could restore at least the selected result, if not the find and replace queries.

Scope - it would be nice if "To End of Document" and "To End of Story" could be added to Scope.

Formatting (gear) icon - It's named Formatting in the tooltip but includes non-formatting options for match case, whole words, and regular expression like the similar gear icon in MS Word. The formatting options are specific to the document but the non-formatting ones are app-wide and sticky. Maybe it would be clearer with the non-formatting options moved to the panel menu? Or perhaps make them visible options because I'm always leaving one of them on and then the next day I stare at the screen in confusion when Find doesn't work as expected. If not, they might be better as sticky just for the session rather than saved permanently.

Clear formatting - Perhaps an X icon could be added to the right of the formatting text to clear it just like for clearing the find and replace text?

Clear Recent Finds/Replaces - Perhaps rename to Clear Recent, or Clear History (like BBEdit) to avoid pluralizing find and replace?

Formatting attributes - They run off the edge of the panel instead of wrapping [EDIT: macOS only]. Also, the blank space above could be reduced so there's already space for 2 lines of text. [EDIT: macOS only] - Windows screenshot on right from bbrother added Oct 21, 2024.

 

Edited October 21, 2024 by MikeTO
added Mac vs. Windows notes and screenshot

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, MikeTO said:

Scope - it would be nice if "To End of Document" and "To End of Story" could be added to Scope.

In other words, to avoid finding behind the current cursor position (as Document and Story would do) and only searching forward?

If that's what you mean, couldn't it also be useful when searching on the current page, selection, etc.?

[MikeTO]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

In other words, to avoid finding behind the current cursor position (as Document and Story would do) and only searching forward?

If that's what you mean, couldn't it also be useful when searching on the current page, selection, etc.?

Yes, although searching the current page/spread is a pretty limited use case. I guess it could be implemented as a separate option from Scope, search forward only.

This really just came up because I keep losing my place in the search results when tabbing between two documents. Yes, searching again highlights the next occurrence but I find it unsettling and always check a couple of occurrences back in case I missed something. If that issue was fixed, searching forward only would be less of an issue.

[SueC]

I would like to amplify MikeTO's requested improvements to the Find Replace panel tool. It needs to be MUCH more robust please! I would really like to have our common search parameters saveable in a pop up menu. Also some GREP (regular expression) hints in a pop up, or the ability to save them. And getting the search parameters to clear is super needed. I had a hard time doing that. There just didn't seem to be a way .... to remove a style... I got multiple character styles applied on the next replace action and I had a heck of a time trying to remove them. No Style was applied along with italic and I didn't really want either!

I often (always) get manuscripts with no proper styles applied and in fonts I don't have, but I try to search on whatever format is there in order to blanket apply the appropriate ¶ and character styles as a starting point. This save SO MUCH time when doing books. 

Related: Having a way to search for colors and change them globally would also help with efficiency. Maybe there is a way and I just don't know it yet.

 

[MikeTO]

2 minutes ago, SueC said:

And getting the search parameters to clear is super needed. I had a hard time doing that. There just didn't seem to be a way .... to remove a style...

Click the Gear icon to the right of Find or Replace and choose Reset Format to clear the search format or style. Click the X icon on the right side of the Find or Replace text field to clear the search text.

I've covered Find and Replace in detail in the next version of my free manual which should be available soon.

Cheers

[SueC]

Again! THANK YOU! So much to learn. After using ID for 20 years and Quark before that, I figured it would be a piece of cake. But I guess I'm too old a dog! Actually, it is making sense, mostly. And I think I will pick it up soon, but making assumptions base on what I was used to is proving dangerous. I know I'll be able to pretty much replicate previous styles of work, but how I get there may be very different.

I am most afraid of doing a lot of work then having a huge file get corrupted, then not knowing how to recover. There is no IDML equivalent—is there?

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, SueC said:

There is no IDML equivalent—is there?

No, nothing like that.

[five3141two]

Hello,
as an improvement of "find and replace" it would be great to have the option to search in a book, not only in the chapters (=separate files). 
I would like to create a glossary for the whole book and mark text passages in the index in the different chapters without having to search in each file separately. Some of my books have more than 15 or 20 chapters ...
Thank you.

[walt.farrell]

34 minutes ago, five3141two said:

I would like to create a glossary for the whole book and mark text passages in the index in the different chapters without having to search in each file separately.

That sounds like a good idea, but that's usually done via the Index panel, not Find and Replace, isn't it?

[five3141two]

On 1/7/2024 at 11:33 PM, walt.farrell said:

That sounds like a good idea, but that's usually done via the Index panel, not Find and Replace, isn't it?

To be honest: I found the "Find in document" option after your post. Thank you.
May request is then expanded to the index panel: the option to search in all chapters (documents) used in a book.

Now I have to open each chapter / document and do the search for every topic. I work on on a book with scripts, some of them dating back to 2012. There are quite a lot terms I want to add to the index but I dont know in which script it was mentioned. So by now: open and find, find, find ... open and find, find, find ... 

[garrettm30]

On 10/21/2023 at 1:37 PM, MikeTO said:

Clear formatting - Perhaps an X icon could be added to the right of the formatting text to clear it just like for clearing the find and replace text?

 

I am a heavy user of Find and Replace. All of the suggestions are good. A simple X to clear formatting would be my top request of this list. I find myself seeking to reduce clicks as my wrist wears out. For some reason I am often aware of that extra click in that context.

[ttl]

One suggestion for a little improvement: it would be useful to have ability to quick insert of selected text also to "Replace with" field, not only to "Find".

Now when any text is selected and "Find…" is selected from "Text" menu/context menu or (better and more practical/quicker) used keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F, the selected text is automaticaly inserted into "Find" field of "Find and Replace" dialog. It would be nice to have same possibility also for "Replace with" field, i.e. to have it as app function which can have keyboard shortcut assigned with, so filling of "Replace with" field could be done quickly from keyboard.

The function could be named "Replace" and located:

• in main "Text" menu below "Find Previous" item
• in context menu (right click over selected text) below "Find…" item

That function would actually do identical action as "Find…" with exception that it would insert selected text into "Replace with" field instead of "Find".

[MikeTO]

I realize you're suggesting a second command so that's a neat idea. It would be really easy to do with a script once scripting is selected and then you could assign a keyboard shortcut to it if you liked. In the meantime, if you're good at the keyboard shortcuts, just type Cmd+C, Cmd+F, Cmd+V - I've done that so many times over the decades that it's like breathing.

FWIW, the macOS standard for Find (which Serif, Adobe and Microsoft ignore) is to pre-fill the Find field with the current search text for macOS. If you search for "test" in TextEdit, "test" will be pre-filled in Notes, Pages, and Numbers, and in third party apps such as BBEdit and  IA Writer. It's probably something that Serif should consider.

[walt.farrell]

Just now, MikeTO said:

In the meantime, if you're good at the keyboard shortcuts, just type Cmd+C, Cmd+F, Cmd+V

But you left out a step that may be required: clearing the Find field, which the Cmd+F will have populated.

[MikeTO]

8 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

But you left out a step that may be required: clearing the Find field, which the Cmd+F will have populated.

That's unnecessary, at least on macOS. Pressing Cmd+F always selects the text in the Find panel, regardless of its previous state. Does this not work on Windows?

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

That's unnecessary, at least on macOS. Pressing Cmd+F always selects the text in the Find panel, regardless of its previous state. Does this not work on Windows?

Yes, but what I said was you need to clear the Find field. True, it's only one more keypress at that point, but as the OP doesn't seem to want the Find field filled in, it's needed.

So the sequence they need for your approach is, I think: Cmd+C, Cmd+F, Delete, tab or click to the Replace field, Cmd+V.

[MikeTO]

5 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Yes, but what I said was you need to clear the Find field. True, it's only one more keypress at that point, but as the OP doesn't seem to want the Find field filled in, it's needed.

So the sequence they need for your approach is, I think: Cmd+C, Cmd+F, Delete, tab or click to the Replace field, Cmd+V.

Oh I misread what was suggested, I thought the OP wanted the Find field pre-filled. And of course it actually does that, I didn't check to see if it does. I really need another cup of tea before I try to do anything productive.

[Old Bruce]

In BBEdit the sequence is Command + E to fill the Find with selected text and it is Option + Command + E to fill the Replace. Command + F simply brings up the Find and Replace dialog, and what was there before is still there.

[ttl]

@Old Bruce Yes, a (modificable) shortcut for filling of Replace with field with selected text would be fully sufficient. Adding it as a function to app/context menu as I proposed is not necessary in case, that this new feature (shortcut) would be documented in updated online help and mentioned in app update's new features list.

Having ability to quick fill of Replace with selected text si very useful and I am using it (together with fill of Find) very often in InDesign.

I think that adding this ability to Affinity apps shouldn't be a big problem as Ctrl + F/Apple + F (in default) already fills the Find field.

 

On 1/17/2024 at 5:05 PM, walt.farrell said:

So the sequence they need for your approach is, I think: Cmd+C, Cmd+F, Delete, tab or click to the Replace field, Cmd+V.

And from this is clear, that it is far from ideal for intesive use/optimal work.

[tcdaly]

+1

Feature request: after a find operation, a button or menu item to completely clear the search terms and results, resetting the panel back to a blank, default state.

[tcdaly]

In the 'Find and replace' panel, when you double-click a search result, the matched text is highlighted in the document body with a grey background.  However, in text-heavy documents, it can still be hard to see the highlighted text, because grey doesn't stand out much.  Could an option be added to application settings to customise the matched text highlight colour?  I'd like to use yellow, for example.

[MikeTO]

19 minutes ago, tcdaly said:

In the 'Find and replace' panel, when you double-click a search result, the matched text is highlighted in the document body with a grey background.  However, in text-heavy documents, it can still be hard to see the highlighted text, because grey doesn't stand out much.  Could an option be added to application settings to customise the matched text highlight colour?  I'd like to use yellow, for example.

+1

This has been requested many times but it bears repeating. Tip: When I can't find the search result on a page, I click on the result above it, zoom in really close, and then click on the desired result again. Then I don't have to scan an entire spread of dense text looking for the selection.

[tcdaly]

3 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

+1

This has been requested many times but it bears repeating. Tip: When I can't find the search result on a page, I click on the result above it, zoom in really close, and then click on the desired result again. Then I don't have to scan an entire spread of dense text looking for the selection.

Thank you @MikeTO, good to know I'm not the only one that has this problem!

[Juhani]

I too wish for some Find and Replace command improvements.

In InDesign I have saved out "Bold to Bold Style" and "Italic to Italic Style" Find and Replace commands, which allows me to very quickly convert local adjustments (bolds and italics) to character styles. Is there any other way to do this in Publisher than selecting "Find: Format: Bold" and "Replace: Character Style: Strong" for each and every text I import?

[MikeTO]

10 hours ago, Juhani said:

In InDesign I have saved out "Bold to Bold Style" and "Italic to Italic Style" Find and Replace commands, which allows me to very quickly convert local adjustments (bolds and italics) to character styles. Is there any other way to do this in Publisher than selecting "Find: Format: Bold" and "Replace: Character Style: Strong" for each and every text I import?

That's the only way to do it if the source text doesn't have text styles.