Highlighting all occurrences of a part of a word

jgauntz · Apr 27, 2015#12015-04-27T12:49+00:00

I have a text file that I have opened using UltraEdit Version 22. I would like to know if there is a way to highlight part of a word. For example, if I had the following word encyclopedia and only wanted to highlight "cyc". I have tried selecting "cyc" with my mouse and then clicking Highlight all selected, but it ends up highlighting the entire work "encyclopedia" rather than only the selected text "cyc".

Any help is greatly appreciated.

MickRC3 · Apr 27, 2015#22015-04-27T14:16+00:00

I found this a while ago when I wanted to mark a particular grouping of words.

If you did a find with highlight all items found then all of the characters in the find will highlight and only those characters. But the behavior of the "Highlight All Selected" menu item is not the same. The intended function of this menu item is to turn off highlighted text from a find but it also can be used to highlight text.

If you click on "Highlight All Selected" (or use the shortcut CTRL+.) the behavior is to highlight the word where the cursor located (text selected or not selected makes no difference). It goes from the current cursor location to the first preceding delimiter and to the first following delimiter. So not only can you not highlight part of a word, you can't highlight a group of words.

Mofi · Apr 27, 2015#32015-04-27T17:56+00:00

After Mick has explained well why you get with clicking on View - Highlight All Selected what you see, here are the two methods to get the behavior you want with UE v22.0 or a previous version of UltraEdit.

Run a Quick Find to get the entered characters highlighted independent on being a complete word or part of a word.
Run a Find with advanced option Highlight all items found being checked.

jgauntz · Apr 27, 2015#42015-04-27T23:37+00:00

Was really hoping that it would be as easy as selecting the characters and choosing highlight.

Mofi · Apr 28, 2015#52015-04-28T05:15+00:00

jgauntz, please send an enhancement request email to IDM support asking for enhancing command Highlight All Selected to use current selection for highlighting if there is one and nothing is highlighted at the moment instead of discarding the selection, selecting the word at caret position and highlighting all occurrences of the word. I have done this already on 2013-08-01, but most likely I was the only one who requested this enhancement and therefore the priority for implementation is still very low. The more users request an enhancement or feature the higher becomes the priority.

Jun 08, 2015#62015-06-08T17:56+00:00

The behavior of command Highlight All Selected was enhanced in UE v22.10.0.10 and is now as follows:

The command toggles off highlighting of found strings if there are found strings currently highlighted (unmodified behavior).
The command selects the word at current position in file if no highlighting is active and there is no selection and highlights all strings containing the selected word case-sensitive (unmodified behavior).
The command searches case-sensitive for all occurrences of current selection and highlights them if no highlighting is active and there is a selection (new behavior).

jgauntz, this command works now with UE v22.10 as you have requested (and I also 2 years ago).

Jan 31, 2021#72021-01-31T16:27+00:00

There are offered since UltraEdit for Windows v28.00 and UEStudio v21.00 at Advanced - Settings or Configuration - Search - Advanced for Highlight all occurrences of selected word the configuration settings:

Match case
Match whole word only
- ... when selection is whole word only

The highlighting can be done also configurable with just double clicking on a word or with double clicking on a word with additionally holding Shift key. It is also possible to configure that double clicking on a word does not trigger highlighting of all occurrences of the selected word at all.

The settings give a user the full control on which strings are highlighted on double clicking a word without or with Shift hold or executing the command Highlighted all selected from ribbon/menu View or on pressing Ctrl+. without or with having something currently selected and no strings currently highlighted.