PostOffice Syntax Editor Search and Replace

The dialog for searching and searching and replacing is displayed when a term is to be searched for or replaced. This dialog is made in such a way that it can be switched to the editor and back again while it is open, but the dialog remains displayed and becomes transparent when it is not active. This gives you the option of individually replacing search terms found in the editor during the search. The search dialog supports a history for the search terms and replacement terms, which is retained during the entire session in an editor. When the editor is closed and reopened, this history is deleted.

Please note that the options set for search and replace are saved and the next time you open the syntax editor they will be set as they were when you last searched or replaced.

View

The dialog contains the two input fields for the search and replacement term, which are displayed as a history combo box. Below this are the setting options in the Search options and Search mode group. On the right-hand side are the buttons for the functions, which are active depending on whether only search or search and replace is used.

Operation

The input can be operated as follows:

• Search for
  Enter the search term in this field. If you have highlighted a word or term in the text before calling up the search dialog, this will be adopted and entered as the search term. Each new entry in this field is saved as a history and can be seen in a selection box with the down arrow on the right-hand side of the input field, so you can quickly reuse previous search terms.

• Replace with
  Enter the replacement term for the search term in this field. If the dialog was only opened as a search dialog, this field is deactivated. As with the search field, a history is also created here for each replacement term.

The options are set as follows:

• Search backwards
  If this option is active, the system does not search forwards within the text, but upwards from the current cursor position.

• Search whole words only
  If this option is active, only whole words are searched for. If the search term applies to part of a word, this will not be found but only if it is a whole word separated by spaces or special characters.

• Case sensitive
  This option is activated by default. If it is active, the search is case-sensitive, i.e. the search term is only found if it is written in both upper and lower case.

• Start from the beginning at the end
  If this option is active, the search is not stopped at the end of the text and a message is displayed that nothing more has been found, but the search starts again from the beginning of the text.

• Normal search mode
  If this option is activated, the text is searched normally alphabetically for the search term with the set options.

• Regular expression search mode
  If this option is activated, the text is searched using a regular expression. Only search terms that match this regular expression are found.

Functions

• Search
  Searches for the search term in the text from the current cursor position. If nothing is found, a message dialog is displayed, otherwise the cursor position is positioned at the end of the search term found and this is highlighted. The dialog remains open and the next search term can be searched for using this function.

• Replace
  The search term is searched for in the same way as with the Search button and the found and selected text is replaced with the replacement text. The dialog remains open and the next search term can be replaced immediately.

• Replace all
  This function replaces all search terms found with the replacement term without displaying them individually. If this has been done, a message dialog is displayed with information on how many search terms have been replaced.

• Count
  This function counts all search terms in the text that were found with the set options. The number of search terms found is displayed in a message dialog.

• Close
  The search and replace dialog is closed.