The commands Find Next (usually key F3) and Find Previous (usually key Ctrl+F3) always work with the last search string and of course the last used find options from the Find command history and prior v21.10.0.1026 never from the Quick Find history.
In contrary, I experience this:
Select a word like foo. Press Ctrl+F, then Enter. Click on a different word like bar, one you had not searched for previously. Press Ctrl+F, then Alt+F3 or F3.
To my surprise, Alt+F3 or F3 search for foo instead of bar, although foo is not in the find history and bar is displayed as in the Quick Find window.
NB: Ctrl+RETURN works as expected.
Select another word near the end of the file, say ship, where there are no more occurrences of foo or bar towards the end of files.
Press Ctrl+F, then Shift+F3 (to select text to next occurrence).
To my second surprise, UE selects text up to positions I cannot explain.
Press ESC to close Quick Find.
Position the cursor again on the word ship. Press Shift+F3. The same surprise, UE selects text up to positions I cannot explain.
Do you have read also the next paragraph below the quoted paragraph?
Do you know that all search settings in configuration are only for the regular find?
The Quick Find is not customizable and always searches in entire file from top to bottom case-insensitive and without using a regular expression engine for the string displayed in Quick Find window.
I recommend not mixing Quick Find Next executed with key RETURN on Quick Find window having input focus with Regular Find Next executed with key F3 as well as Quick Find Prev executed with key Ctrl+RETURN on Quick Find window having input focus with Regular Find Prev executed with key Ctrl+F3. That is definitely always confusing for the user. There are no hotkeys to run Quick Find Next or Quick Find Prev with input focus currently set on document window.
About your first use case:
You have executed a Quick Find for the word foo at least once. Then you set caret to word bar. But you have not selected this word and therefore the configuration setting Find next/prev finds selected text (not last searched for text) is not effective on the next steps. You pressed Ctrl+F which results in bar getting taken over into Quick Find window. But you have not pressed RETURN or ENTER to run the Quick Find with that string. For that reason bar is displayed in Quick Find window, but highlighted are still all occurrences of foo and bar is not in recent find list at all. It is just displayed in Quick Find window for being searched next on using Quick Find or Regular Find on pressing once more Ctrl+F. So on pressing next F3 or Ctrl+F3 to use Regular Find Next[/b] or Regular Find Prev with no string selected, just caret positioned at word bar and all occurrences of foo still highlighted by Quick Find, UltraEdit searches downwards or upwards for last searched string which is foo.
About your second use case:
You selected the word ship and therefore the regular find configuration setting Find next/prev finds selected text (not last searched for text) becomes effective although that does not matter here as you have unchecked this setting. You pressed first Ctrl+F which takes over the selected word ship into Quick Find window, but without searching for that word as RETURN or ENTER is not pressed by you. Instead you press the hotkey for Shift+F3 to run Regular Find Next with selecting everything up to end of next found occurrence. But there is no next occurrence of the word ship up to bottom of the file.
You have enabled configuration setting Continue find at end of file and for that reason UltraEdit silently continues search from top of file and indeed finds one more occurrences of ship. I explain what happens next on an example. Last occurrence of ship is at beginning of line 21 in file. This word is selected with start position line 21 column 1 and end position line 21 column 6 on which the caret is blinking. The Find Next found the next occurrence of ship for example at line 6 column 1 and found string ends at line 6 column 6. So selected must be everything from line 21 column 6 to line 6 column 6. But there is already a selection from line 21 column 1 to line 21 column 6. Therefore the reverse selection first unselects everything from line 21 column 6 to line 21 column 1 and selects next from line 21 column 1 to line 6 column 6.
Yes, Shift+F3 with Continue find at end of file can result in a reverse selection from bottom to top because it is not possible to select everything from current position of caret in file to end of file and additionally everything from top of file to end of found string. Well, not possible is not correct, it would be possible with two selections as supported by UltraEdit on multi-selection feature enabled. But such a selection would be most likely not wanted by any user as I can't imagine any useful use case for such a two block selection.
So there is no issue here in both use cases in my point of view.
I must add that I use for myself never Quick Find. I have configured that Ctrl+F opens the regular Find. I have unchecked also Find next/prev finds selected text (not last searched for text) as it does not make a big difference to press Ctrl+F and RETURN to search downwards for the selected string or just F3 because of Ctrl+F and RETURN can be easier pressed with all 10 fingers over keyboard than F3. And Ctrl+F and next Alt+P to search for selected string upwards can be also faster executed by using my 10 fingers than pressing Ctrl+F3.
Best regards from an UC/UE/UES for Windows user from Austria
Hi Mofi,
first of all thank you for the thorough explanation.
Yes, I have read the quoted message to the end. I must admit, I got a bit confused after having read "always" and "and prior to .. never" in one sentence
The conclusion for me is: The usability of search features could still increase. Both Quick Find and Find dialog have pros and cons, and it is hard to get used to switching between them.
The bottlenecks I have:
German UE: Alt+V is still not unique inside the search dialog: does hide/show "search options", cannot be used to find previous occurrence ("Vorherige")
Ctrl+R, Enter does search instead of replace. This is not obvious for users of the dark themes (like Glitch) until I press Alt+N for Nächste.
Say, I stop using Quick Find. Then I could decide to pin the Find dialog in order to always have the search text displayed. (I like to have a look before pressing F3.)
Alt+Q does not move the focus back to the editor. So I press ESC – this hides the dialog and thus the search text gets hidden. Is there a key to use instead ESC? A button "Continue editing" with a shortcut key could be a WYSIWYG solution.
Hiding the "search options" does not make the Find dialog smaller – I have less place and need to scroll more often in the function list when that one is pinned below the search dialog.
The mouse wheel does not scroll the search dialog when its height is set smaller than initially.
I do not know if there is a feature wish list, so I wrote down them here.
There is no public feature wish list. Feature and enhancement requests and bug reports must be sent to IDM support by email.
See the first text file in attached ZIP file containing the email (subject and text) just sent by me to IDM support regarding to this issue.
Yes, it is first necessary to search for the entered string before a found occurrence can be replaced with button Replace (German: Ersetzen).
It is indeed a bit confusing on having button Replace enabled after opening the replace window. I think, the reason for button being enabled all the time is the fact that the window can be displayed all the time and UltraEdit cannot without lots of effort toggle the availability of this button depending on currently entered normal or regular expression search string matches the currently selected text in active file or inside a selection or in any opened file.
There was no button Replace prior UltraEdit v24.00, just Start and Replace all and pressing button Start resulted always in closing the floating Find and Replace window and showing instead the slim Replace window independent on configuration setting Show slim find dialog after start.
UltraEdit v24.00 introduced the feature to Optionally leave replace dialog open when doing step-by-step replace as written in file changes.txt in UltraEdit program files directory. I suppose this was feature was introduced according to feature requests by customers which wanted to have the replace window with all options disabled all the time on doing a step-by-step replace as other text editors have too.
My advice is regarding to this issue: Open Advanced - SettingsorConfiguration - Search - Miscellaneous and check the first option Show slim find dialog after start (German: Schmalen Suchdialog anzeigen). This disables the button Replace permanently and just button Start (German: Suchen) and Replace all (German: Alle ersetzen) are enabled for usage.
On using a toolbar/menu mode, right click on any toolbar, left click in opened context menu on last item Customize.... On first tab Commands select in left list last but one category Miscellaneous and drag from right list Search bar to an existing toolbar and click on button Close. It is of course also possible to first create a new toolbar by selecting second tab Toolbars in toolbar customization dialog and click there on New to add a new toolbar with a customized name and enable it. Position the custom toolbar where you want it and add Search bar to this toolbar.
The search bar displays always the last used find string (regular) as used by the Search bar and Ctrl+F3 and of course can be used to run a new find with the options set in Find and Replace window.
It is also possible to add the Search bar to a custom ribbon tab in a custom ribbon group on using ribbon mode. But I doubt that this makes much sense as the search bar is only visible when this ribbon tab is also active at the moment. This is the main problem with ribbon interface. There is always only a small set of commands available, those which are present in currently active ribbon tab. All commands often needed are always visible in toolbar/menu mode with appropriate toolbars. That is the main reason why I don't like the ribbon interface in any application. I have to permanently switch the active ribbon tab to get access to the command currently needed on not having assigned all commands often needed to hot keys for fast execution by key which I have done in UltraEdit. However, in ribbon mode click with right mouse button on ribbon, left click on context menu item Customize the ribbon..., select on second tab Customize Ribbon in right pane the last item Advanced and then click on button New Tab which adds a new custom ribbon tab and new custom ribbon group. Select the new custom tab and use button Rename to give this tab for example the name Search bar. Select the new custom group and click once again on button Rename and give the group a name like Search. Select on right side the new group, select on left side from list at top Commands not in the ribbon, select in commands list Search with the symbol showing a list box and click on button Add. Close the ribbon customization dialog with button OK.
The width of the Search bar can be customized at Advanced - SettingsorConfiguration - Toolbars / menus - Miscellaneous with setting Find box width (German: Breite des Suchfeldes).
There is no command to switch input focus between active file and search bar.
See the second text file in attached ZIP file containing the email (subject and text) just sent by me to IDM support regarding to this issue. Alt+Q is just for switching input focus between active file and Quick Find window.
It looks like you are using Find and Replace docked as view on right side of main application window. I suggest to double click on the title bar of this view to undock it and have it floating. Position the floating Find and Replace somewhere on right side on which as less as text of active file is covered by the floating window. The height of the floating window changes with toggling visibility of advanced find/replace options. The height of the docked window is never automatically adapted. The height and width of all docked windows must be always configured manually by the user.
It is right that the mouse wheel does not scroll vertical bar on using docked Find and Replace window with input focus set on this window and not in edit field for find or replace string. The mouse wheel scrolls the lines in find edit field if it has the input focus. But the mouse wheel does not scroll the lines in replace edit field on having input focus. I suggest to report these issues with scrolling appropriate vertical scroll bar depending on what has currently the focus on docked Find and Replace window to IDM support by email. I don't do that as I use never the docked Find and Replace window nor the mouse wheel and so these two issues do not bother me.
