alien.png Main window -- Search menu
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search menu.png
Figure 18. The search menu


All these options are ONLY available if the active child is an edit child!



search menu (find).png
Figure 19. The find dialog

The first item in the search menu is the find option. When you click that item, this dialog window will pop-up. You can enter your search command in here.

Search for  
Type the string you are searching for after this caption in the drop down edit box. You can drop down the box to select the most recent search strings.  
 
Case sensitivity  
If checked then the search will be executed with CASE SENSITIVITY, this means the string you are searching for will be LITERALLY in the text, with character case in mind.  
 
Whole words only  
Check this if you don't want CA3 to search for the string in a part of a word, so if this is checked, there's assumed that your search string is a complete word.  
 
Search from caret  
When checked, CA3 will begin its search from of the current cursor position, in stead of starting at the top of the file.  
 
Selected text only  
If checked, CA3 will only search for the search string in the part of the file that's selected.  
 
Direction  
Forward means search from somewhere till the end of the file, backward means search from somewhere till the beginning of the file.  
 
 
 
Another search feature in CA3 is the so called search in files search action.

search menu (find in files).png
Figure 20. The find in files dialog

Here it is... The two options (Case sensitive
and Whole words only) at the left are the same as in the default find dialog. The difference between this find dialog and the other one is quite big though.
The default find dialog only can search in the active edit child.

This find dialog however can search in three different ways:
 
All open files  
When checked, the search will be committed to all open edit childs.  
 
All files in project  
When checked, the search will be committed to all files in the project. There won't have to be a edit child open for this operation, though you HAVE to have a project available, as there will be searched in all files in the project in stead of open files.  
 
All open files and all files in project  
Combine the two listed above and you know what the dialog will search for when you start searching.  
 
When you start your search, all hits will be combined into one big list, and a window will be shown with all hits in it (see figure 21).


search menu (find in files result).png
Figure 21. Search result of search in files.

As you can see here, all hits are listed in this list. Notice that everywhere you look, you see the word 'call' in bold style. You've guessed it, that's the word where I was looking for. When you double click on a line, the corresponding file will be focussed or opened and the line where the search string has been found will be completely selected. The separate hits are divided into three parts. First it contains the filename between double quotes ( " ). After that you see the line where the string was found and last you see the complete line where the string was found.

Replace...
This dialog is similar to the find dialog. The difference is that this one can replace the found text string into another. The extra options in this dialog are self explaining, so no space wasted on that issue :) .


Find next
When you've searched for a string using the find dialog or the incremental search (explained after this) you can search for the same string again by the Find next option. It will start a 'new' search from of the first character AFTER the latest hit.


Find previous
See Find next, only difference is that it will search BACKWARDS in the file in stead of FORWARDS.




Incremental search

One of the most powerful (and probably new for you) search action is the Incremental search. Incremental search can be interpreted as type and search at once.
When you select this option, your edit child will look like the one in figure 21.

search menu (incremental).png
Figure 21. Incremental search in action

Here you see the incremental search in action. As you can see, the edit child has got a status bar in which you see 'Searching for:'. The concept is really easy. When the incremental search is enabled, just type, and the selection in the file will change to what you've typed. It's kind of hard to explain, just look at the figure. I've searched for 'call z,' and as you can see the first line found where call z, is in, is selected and showed.
The Find next
and Find previous options also work in conjunction with the incremental search.


Go to line number...

This last search action is a quite simple one. It opens a dialog where you can enter a line number and when you press OK, the line you've entered will be selected. That's all.