Fields now available in Find and Replace

[Ash]

Apps: Publisher
Platforms: macOS, Windows and iPad

In Find and Replace fields are now available from the drop down. This will also include any custom text fields you have set up, therefore making it easy to replace many instances of a text string within your document with a custom text field for example.

In addition, as was requested during the previous beta, we have now added the option to ‘Convert Text to Field…’ from the right click menu when you have a text selection.

[Intuos5]

Just so that I understand it correctly, the Find and Replace update means that you overwrite a field with the replacement text, meaning, you won't edit the field itself?

[AdamW]

Yes, for the purposes of Find & Replace a field is treated as single entity, so you can, for instance, search for all instances of a field and change local formatting, or replace the field with another field, or replace found regular text with a particular field.

[Seneca]

This is really great.

If only we could save our search and replace options that would really be great. My work is such that I need to find and replace the same text over and over again. Saving frequently searched regular expressions fields would be awesome.

[MikeTO]

Very nice, thanks!

I was wondering about filler text since I was exploring it the other day and it's a type of field, or at least it's a field for the purposes of the Highlight Fields command. I don't use it much these days but when I did the fear was always that you'd release something without remembering to replace it. So I was thinking about how I'd go about finding filler text in Publisher. In the old days I just searched for "lorem" but you can't do that with Affinity's automatic filler text. Nor can you search for it as a field. And there isn't a preflight warning. I think I'd rather have it as a preflight warning but even just being able to search for it with Find and Replace mightx be nice.

 

[Return]

I tried the S&F for fields and it shows a customfield tag which can be found.
If you search for a second custom field it shows another customfield tag but which is which?
Shouldn't the name of the customfield be shown in the dropdown?
 

 

 

[walt.farrell]

I tried a Find for a <Running Header> field and it found only the first two occurrences. And one of those was on the phantom page to the left of page 1 in a Facing Pages document. It would not find the other field occurrences on page 2 or 3.

Affects both Mac and Windows. Haven't tried on iPad.

rh-find.afpub

 

[Return]

Same here with your file so it's back to the drawing board for this feature I guess.

[MikeTO]

48 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I tried a Find for a <Running Header> field and it found only the first two occurrences. And one of those was on the phantom page to the left of page 1 in a Facing Pages document. It would not find the other field occurrences on page 2 or 3.

It didn't find it on page 2 and a phantom on page 1, it's finding them on the master pages.

I think this is correct and it's working the same way as regular text search. If I type "abc" on a master page on which 100 pages are based, it will find it only once, on the master.

[walt.farrell]

6 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

It didn't find it on page 2 and a phantom on page 1, it's finding them on the master pages.

No, it's actually finding on Page 1 and Page 2 (but not Page 3). If I scroll down so Page 2/3 are in view, and click Find, the view moves to Page 1 with the RH field highlighted. And if I click Find again, the view moves to Page 2 with the RH field highlighted. And a 3rd Find goes back to Page 1 again.

It wasn't doing that earlier (but earlier I was on Windows, and now I'm at my Mac), but I don't think I tried this exact situation.

So perhaps it is finding the first document-page occurrence for each of the RH fields on the Master Page, and not finding any of the other occurrences derived from that Master Page.

[MikeTO]

One minor Mac usability issue (and this isn't totally new with Fields because the Special Characters menu had the same issue).

1. Set the panel so the Find field doesn't have focus (search for something and then click the delete icon to clear the field)
2. Choose a field (or special character) from the popup menu
3. You can't click Find because it's disabled. You have to click into the Find field and press Tab or Return.

[Return]

Another thing is that after selecting a field tag and one searches for another text and come back to the search field and select the recent aka the tags, it will not find anything anymore as it would with text.
Probably intended as it is a tag and not text but it should either do the search based on that entry or delete the entry from the recents so that people are forced to use the tags option again.

 

[Affinity Info Bot]

An issue raised in this thread ("Find for Field doesn't find all occurrences") has now been reported to the developers by the testing team (Ref: AF-930). Thank you very much for reporting this issue to us.

[steday]

Another problem

Try to remplace a text with a field. It work but the problem is that it doesn't retain the custom name field in the list of field of the F&R panel (see attached). Problematic with a lot of custom field.

Edit : Mac desktop version.

[Jon P]

Thanks @steday there's an improvement already in relating to the names of custom fields

[Hangman]

On 10/25/2023 at 10:29 PM, walt.farrell said:

So perhaps it is finding the first document-page occurrence for each of the RH fields on the Master Page, and not finding any of the other occurrences derived from that Master Page.

That is indeed exactly what it's doing...

If you have say ten facing pages and then base each facing page on a different master it will find all instances of the running header only because each page uses a different master. It's the same issue with page numbers and other fields appearing on Master Pages...

[Hangman]

A couple of minor cosmetic differences between the Field Names in the Fields Panel and the Find and Replace Panel...

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[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Find and Replace can miss some instances of Running Header Fields" (REF: AF-930) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.3.0.2106".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[Andreas CH]

Da ging leider die Lokalisierung vergessen.

 

 

 

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Find and Replace panel - Fields tags remain untranslated" (REF: AF-1396) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.4.0.2185".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.

The feature will get localised during the 2.4 beta, as the translations for these fields are provided (only in French so far)
If you still experience this problem in the beta a few weeks time (later in January 2024) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[Serif Since v1]

When searching for a custom field, it does not work when "Match case" is turned on in the Find options. Only finds fields when "Match case" is turned off.

[Hangman]

5 hours ago, Serif Since v1 said:

When searching for a custom field, it does not work when "Match case" is turned on in the Find options. Only finds fields when "Match case" is turned off.

Can confirm this is indeed the case...

[Alfred]

9 hours ago, Serif Since v1 said:

When searching for a custom field, it does not work when "Match case" is turned on in the Find options. Only finds fields when "Match case" is turned off.

 

4 hours ago, Hangman said:

Can confirm this is indeed the case...

 

On 12/13/2023 at 4:57 PM, Serif Info Bot said:

please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us

 

[walt.farrell]

But has that problem even been reported previously, @Alfred? The instruction to tag the info bot applies only to bugs deemed fixed.

[Alfred]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

But has that problem even been reported previously, @Alfred? The instruction to tag the info bot applies only to bugs deemed fixed.

That’s a very good point, Walt! As a newly reported bug (albeit closely related to the current topic) the ‘match case’ issue really needs a thread of its own.