Search & Replace

The Search & Replace window is a powerful way of finding actions and also changing text in a number of actions at once, regardless of which property the text occurs in. Launch the Search & Replace window from the Edit menu, or with the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F.

Searching Options

Search

Enter the search term to be searched for.

Case sensitive

If selected, BOOK will not match book.

Whole word

The search string must not appear as part of another word: book will not match mybook.

Regular expression

If selected, the search term becomes a regular expression. For example, b.*k would match book.

Search Script Events

If selected, the text of script events on actions is also searched. This is important if renaming a variable, for instance.

Replace Options

To replace matches, first perform a search as above.

Replace

The string that search matches will be replaced with.

None

No replacements can be made. Functions as a sort of "safety catch".

Replace

Replacements will be made as normal.

Insert before

Replacement text is added before the search text.

Insert after

Replacement text is added after the search text.

Delete

Search term is replaced with nothing.

Substitute regular expression matches

If using the "regular expression" search option, use this option to allow subexpressions to be substituted

Example of using regular expression substitution:

  • Search for "rm (.*).txt" with Regular Expression flag on.
  • Replace with "del $1.xml" with Substitute Regular Expression Matches flag on.
  • A match such as "delete file.txt" will be replaced with "del file.xml"

Controls

Search

Press <Enter> or click the Search button to search for your specified term. For each match, the Target, action, property and value are shown. A single action usually matches several times, because the string is contained in the title, the log title, and so forth.

Double-click on a match to highlight the action in the Design & Debug window. You can then use the keyboard shortcuts F3 and Shift+F3 to move forward and backward through matches.

Stop

Aborts the search, if it is taking too long.

Clear

Removes search results.

Replace Selected

Select the matches you wish to replace first. The replacements are made, and the matches removed from the list.

Replace All

All matches are replaced at once.