Search problems [resolved]

[Spliff]

Thank you again so much for your help here, Kyle, problem solved!

And thank you indeed for considering my suggestion! In fact, not being able to search-and-replace (EDIT: beyond the current item) currently is the (one and only) "big fail" of UR, but in practical use, it's very rare that the user wants to "replace everywhere", so for practical means, if the user first does a "local search" (i.e. "this item and the subtree beneath it") in order to set up the scope for replace, and then gets some help, preventing the need for multiple, manual "open and close the local replace dialogue and go to the next in the list", this would a tremendous step forward.

That, with or even without a "global replace all within the list" within the "wrapper dialogue" for this, which should indeed be possible IF the user does use it correctly (understood that no "going back" will be possible):

Any "fully-automated" processing of the list (i.e. by consecutively applying the inner routine to all items within the list without user interaction) would presuppose "Match whole word only YES" and "Match case YES" and come with a "security dialogue" "Cannot be undone, do you want to proceed anyway?" or the like; whilst one or both of these "NO" would open the local "Replace dialogue" for any item in the list, but, as said before, this "inner" dialogue would automatically switch to the next item in the list whenever there is not any more (possible) replace within the current item (always top-down for the items in the list and for the occurrences within the items' contents).

In other words, in the first alternative, the "inner dialogue" would be served internally, and the user would only see the "outer dialogue", the "confirmation dialogue" and the "Done" message - here, with "whole word" and "match case", the user would take the risk of unwanted replacements (but could make a copy before, in case, of the whole subtree to be worked on), and in the second alternative, the user could change the settings ("whole word", "match case", "replace" or "replace all") for every item, but the "next" item, together with its replace dialogue, would appear automatically after more or less "manual" processing of the current item.

I think such an approach would be a very appealing solution for many a user, since "more or less global replaces" would, in almost all real cases, be upon whole words and case-sensitive anyway, or if not, the user could work manually upon the search results, one-by-one, but without the above-described fuss of manually switching between in case dozens of items to be processed.