How to start a search automatically

kaifuzi

@PeterJones @Alan-Kilborn I did it, thanks a lot for your help!!!
I use FindWindow and FindWindowEx to get window handles which I need, then I use SendMessage to control them, with NPPM_MENUCOMMAND I can open Find dialog.

kaifuzi

@Alan-Kilborn @PeterJones In fact, I sitll have a small issue. When I use ShellExexute to open a file by Notepad++, I don’t know when it’s ready, I mean I can get the handle of Notepad++. So I use a loop to wait, once the handle value of Notepad++ is greater than 0, then I think Notepad++ it’s ready, then I can start search. I’m not sure is there any other best way.

Alan Kilborn

@kaifuzi said in How to start a search automatically:

I did it, thanks a lot for your help!!!

Well, that’s good.
It is sort of tradition to provide more details in the form of code about your working solution, for those that read this later wanting to do the same or a similar thing.
Not mandatory, though.

kaifuzi

@Alan-Kilborn Yes, that’s good, I will post my code in there. I did it in VB.net, same for C#.

kaifuzi

Public Sub NppFindAllInCurDoc(ByVal fileFullPath As String, ByVal searchString As String)
    Dim i As Integer = 0
    Dim hNppWnd As IntPtr = IntPtr.Zero
    While CInt(hNppWnd) = 0
        hNppWnd = FindWindow("Notepad++", fileFullPath & " - Notepad++")  'Notepad++ handle
        i += 1
        If i > 10 ^ 5 Then
            MsgBox("Timeout!" & Environment.NewLine & "Please run this command again.", MsgBoxStyle.Exclamation, "Warning")
            Exit While
        End If
    End While

    If CInt(hNppWnd) > 0 Then
        'Open find dialog
        SendMessage(hNppWnd, NppMessage.NPPM_MENUCOMMAND, 0, New IntPtr(NppCmdID.IDM_SEARCH_FIND))
        'Get find dialog
        Dim hFindWnd As IntPtr = IntPtr.Zero
        Dim hChildWnd As IntPtr = IntPtr.Zero
        hFindWnd = FindWindow("#32770", "Find")  'Find dialog handle
        hChildWnd = FindWindowEx(hFindWnd, IntPtr.Zero, "ComboBox", vbNullString)
        hChildWnd = FindWindowEx(hChildWnd, IntPtr.Zero, "Edit", vbNullString)
        SendMessage(hChildWnd, WindowMessage.WM_SETTEXT, 0, searchString)
        'Start search
        hChildWnd = FindWindowEx(hFindWnd, IntPtr.Zero, "Button", "Find All in Current &Document")
        SendMessage(hChildWnd, WindowMessage.BM_CLICK, 0, IntPtr.Zero)
    End If
End Sub

Alan Kilborn

@kaifuzi said in How to start a search automatically:

When I use ShellExexute to open a file by Notepad++, I don’t know when it’s ready, I mean I can get the handle of Notepad++. So I use a loop to wait, once the handle value of Notepad++ is greater than 0, then I think Notepad++ it’s ready, then I can start search.

It appears from your code that you found a solution to this?

kaifuzi

@Alan-Kilborn Yes, in my code, I use a loop to wait the Notepad++ handle. But I don’t think this is a good solution:

Dim hNppWnd As IntPtr = IntPtr.Zero
While CInt(hNppWnd) = 0
    hNppWnd = FindWindow("Notepad++", fileFullPath & " - Notepad++")  'Notepad++ handle
    i += 1
    If i > 10 ^ 5 Then
        MsgBox("Timeout!" & Environment.NewLine & "Please run this command again.", MsgBoxStyle.Exclamation, "Warning")
        Exit While
    End If
End While

PeterJones

@kaifuzi ,

I use a loop to wait the Notepad++ handle. But I don’t think this is a good solution

Waiting for a handle is not bad practice. In the Perl Win32::GuiTest library previously mentioned, two of the commonly-used wrapper functions are WaitWindow and WaitWindowLike, which wrap around the FindWindow interface, like you’ve done. That’s really the best way to make sure the Window exists after you’ve created it.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a similar “it exists, but is it ready for me?” call. Sometimes, I’ve found that trying to edit the text or launch menus immediately after the window exists will intermittently fail; in those cases, I add a 100ms or 1s delay (normally, what I’m automating in Notepad++ isn’t time critical; one second difference doesn’t matter).

So I think wait-for-hwnd is a good first step; if that’s not sufficient, wait a bit after you have the handle before trying to do something with it.

kaifuzi

@PeterJones Thanks for your suggestion! Yes, for now, waiting the handle it’s enought for me. But I will try WaitWindow funciton.

PeterJones

@kaifuzi said in How to start a search automatically:

I will try WaitWindow funciton.

I don’t think they exist in the raw win32 api. I think they are just wrappers in that specific Perl library. But if you can find them for your library, great.

kaifuzi

@PeterJones Yes, you are right, there is no function WaitWindow and WaitWindowLike in raw win32 api. Then before I have better solution, I will use loop to wait handle.

dinkumoil

@kaifuzi

The whole approach to remotely control Notepad++ via a VB or C# program seems to take too much effort and is not very reliable. Thus, I would like to recommend using the tool grepWin for searching (download it from >> here <<). It provides subfolder recursion, regular expression search (and replace), folder exclusion by pattern and filtering by file type, size and time stamp.

This tool integrates itself into the Windows Explorer files and folders context menu, can also be started via command line/batch script (providing a lot of command line options) and can be configured to start Notepad++ or any other text editor by double-clicking its search results. It is even possible to place the cursor in Notepad++ at a certain search result using the appropriate Npp command line options.

Alan Kilborn

@kaifuzi

One more note about your code.
I notice that you do not set up ALL of the controls on the Find window before running your search.
It could be dangerous (i.e. wrong results) in certain circumstances, e.g. Match case checkbox is set one way but logically the user of your code thinks it is set the other way.
So you may want to add more code to specify the settings on other parameters that may affect your search.
Just an FYI.

Alan Kilborn

@dinkumoil said in How to start a search automatically:

I would like to recommend using the tool grepWin for searching

A nice thing about this is that grepWin uses the Boost regex engine, just like Notepad++, so if you are very familiar with doing “advanced” searching with regular expressions in Notepad++, you’d feel very familiar with doing it in grepWin.

Alan Kilborn

@dinkumoil said in How to start a search automatically:

(grepWin) can be configured to start Notepad++ or any other text editor by double-clicking its search results. It is even possible to place the cursor in Notepad++ at a certain search result using the appropriate Npp command line options.

I took a deeper look into this, and I didn’t see how to configure these two things as described. Can you elaborate, @dinkumoil ? Note that the double-clicking might be straightforward using a file association, but I don’t like those and would hope that there is another way.

I do realize that this isn’t a grepWin support forum, but we are talking about “integration” with Notepad++, so I think it is OK.

Alan Kilborn

@Alan-Kilborn said in How to start a search automatically:

I took a deeper look into this, and I didn’t see how to configure these two things as described.

@dinkumoil

Never mind; I see it now.
It could have been I was using an older version at first where this wasn’t supported. (Or I just missed it)
On the latest (2.0.4) now and this configuration is available by pressing the Settings button on the grepWin UI.
Nothing about it in the Help stuff that I saw, though.

It can only be configured to jump to the line of the match; having a column jump would make this truly useful.

pbarney

@kaifuzi Another approach that might provide more flexibility is to use a third-party macro program like AutoHotKey, which is a standard for power users. You can create macros that can automate things in any program you use, including the operating system.

Not sure if links are allowed here, but it should be pretty easy to find. There are a million different examples on the web for how to do something like this, but I think your task would be incredibly easy.

dinkumoil

@Alan-Kilborn

Nice to hear that you were successful to configure grepWin in a way that it integrates with Notepad++.

Indeed, I was too “enthusiastic” about grepWin in my statement above ;-). Sadly it provides no means to navigate to the column of a search result.

dinkumoil

@pbarney said in How to start a search automatically:

Not sure if links are allowed here

Yes, they are - as long as the links point to valuable content connected with the topic of the issue. You can even use the Markdown syntax for embedding links into floating text.

This is a [link to Npp's homepage](https://notepad-plus-plus.org/).

becomes

This is a link to Npp’s homepage.

Victorel Petrovich

I’m in a similar need as OP. My use case is: I have a chrome extension (“External Application Launcher” ) that can trigger any other local application to open, with arguments being several possibilities: the current html address , title, and or selection of text.
I would like to be able to select several words, then have that extension call Notepad++ with the reference of the current html file, AND current selection, so that Notepad can open the html file (for editing) AT THE RIGHT PLACE.