2 improvements!
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- When a “Find” window pops up, you enter ‘a’ with both the selection box “Match Whole Word Only” and the selection box “Match Case” checked, press the button “Find Next”, all ‘a’, ‘A’ appearing in any words will become colored of green and whole ‘A’ will show a slightly different green color indicating they are selected.
The correct operation should be that only the whole ‘A’ should be in green color and others are not color changed. In other words, only strings which is fully in an agreement with the selections should be colored.
It causes inconvenient consequences, but not an error.
- Please add an additional method to guide users to brow through all opened files.
The current method uses a file name line to list all opened file names. The method is wonderful and useful when one has to find a word in all opened files: a search result window is popped up, and one can click a hit line in the search result window and the hit line will be immediately shown in the main window. Wonderful!!!
But when a user is editing code that occupies most of the process the above method shows 3 shortcomings:
a. It occupies a precious extra line space to show seldom-used all other opened file information.
b. When the number of opened files exceeds 8, one must continuously press the left or right icon to shift file names in and out. When a project has more than 10 files to edit, it is a real headache!
c. File names in file items are gray colored and their texts except for the currently opened file are difficult to recognize.A suggestion to add 2nd method.
Add a pulldown file window where all opened files are shown, so when one hopes to switch from the currently opened file to another opened file, what he needs to do is to press a new icon (to be added), the pulldown file window will be open showing all opened file names; when a new file is selected, the pulldown file window will disappear and the newly selected file will be the current file occupying full edit window.The system can switch 2 methods by necessity:
a) when a user wants to determine where a word is in any opened files, it can show file names using the original method. If the search window is closed, the opened file name line can disappear and the user can use the new 2nd method to switch between 2 opened files.If this suggestion is proved to be executed, a better execution option is suggested:
All files in the opened file name window can be freely moved up or down, even empty lines can be added to let users group files in the window. -
For 1, you mean this effect?:
If so, you are confusing two features of Notepad++.
Note that at this point, you haven’t actually done any “Find” yet (Find doesn’t use the light-green color).Smart Highlighting is the feature that uses the light-green coloring.
It becomes active when some text is selected (which is what happens if your caret is on some text when you invoke Find).
Smart Hightlighting behavior options are set in the Preferences here:
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For 2, it is hard to sort out what you are meaning.
Maybe the best I can do is to address “b” and “c”:
b. When the number of opened files exceeds 8, one must continuously press the left or right icon to shift file names in and out. When a project has more than 10 files to edit, it is a real headache!
I think you are meaning the file tab bar even though a lot of your post addresses the Search results window.
Anyway, you can turn on a multiline tab bar here:
c. File names in file items are gray colored and their texts except for the currently opened file are difficult to recognize.
Try changing this setting:
For the rest, unless someone else reading can interpret it, I think you’ll have to come back and attempt to make what you are saying clearer; perhaps add some marked-up screenshots?
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I talked about the situation after “Find Next” key in Find Window is pressed!
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This post is deleted! -
@Alan-Kilborn Thank you for your response! Great!
Your response resolved my problem 2c). Your response also gave me a chance to more clearly express my problem 2.If I select in preference --> General --> Tab Bar --> Hide, no Tab bar is shown. Excellent! That is what I really want during my coding as shown below
Now it generates a problem: How to fast switch from the current file to the next opened file when Tab Bar is selected at “Hide mode”?
I suggest a new method.
That provides a fast icon (icon name assuming “List all opened file names”) in the above selection so one can click the icon “List all opened file names” and all opened file names are listed in a new window; after a selection is made in the new window the newly selected file becomes the current main file. -
@W-TX said in 2 improvements!:
I talked about the situation after “Find Next” key in Find Window is pressed!
It’s true, you did – but I was trying to say that you see the effect you complained about, even before running a search.
But even after Find Next, the effect is the same:- the find will select (grey background) the exact match (for example, whole-word, matched-case)
- the Smart Highlighting effect will highlight (light green background) according to the settings I showed (which may or may not be the same as the Find settings)
So, you can definitely have a mix of the grey and light-green coloring.
If you don’t like the light-green, you can turn off Smart Highlighting by unticking its Enable.
Maybe best to do for your case would be to tell Smart Hightlighting to Use Find dialog settings so that you won’t have a difference.
I suggest a new method.
That provides a fast icon (icon name assuming “List all opened file names”) in the above selection so one can click the icon “List all opened file names” and all opened file names are listed in a new window; after a selection is made in the new window the newly selected file becomes the current main file.There is at least one plugin that makes this easy.
Look for the plugin called Navigate To -
@Alan-Kilborn said in 2 improvements!:
Look for the plugin called Navigate To
But…if you want to stay “native” to Notepad++, I think maybe also the Ctrl+Tab “doc switcher” meets your need?
When you press Ctrl+Tab you get a popup list of all tabs in the middle of your window, and choosing a different tab is just a matter of continuing to press Ctrl+Tab until the one you want gets hightlighted, and then you release the keys.
It looks like this:
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@Alan-Kilborn Your “Ctrl+Tab” method works differently from mine; pressing “Ctrl+Tab” in my case it switches to the first file, and then back and forth, no list tables you show appears. My version is:
Notepad++ v7.9.5 (32-bit)
Build time : Mar 21 2021 - 02:09:07
Path : C:\Program Files (x86)\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Home (64-bit)
OS Version : 2004
OS Build : 19041.928
Current ANSI codepage : 1252
Plugins : ComparePlugin.dll mimeTools.dll NppConverter.dll NppExport.dllI want to add plugin Navigate as you suggest, but I don’t know how to download it. Please help.
Smart highlighting function works excellent, and I find that check Setting --> Preference --> Highlighting --> Use Find Find Dialog Seeting resolves my problem!
So now I have 1 problem to be resolved: Download Navigate plugin.
Thank.
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@W-TX said in 2 improvements!:
Your “Ctrl+Tab” method works differently from mine; pressing “Ctrl+Tab” in my case it switches to the first file, and then back and forth, no list tables you show appears.
You might want to check this setting, although I believe it should be enabled by default:
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@Alan-Kilborn It is the default setting and I do not change it.
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So I discovered something odd.
“Ctrl+Tab” seems to also be defined in the Shortcut Mapper:
Your “Ctrl+Tab” seems to be working like the one from Shortcut Mapper, and not like mine.
Sorry, I don’t know why this is. :-(
Maybe if you unmap it in Shortcut Mapper it would then work like mine to give you the yellowish popup list of tabs?
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@Alan-Kilborn said in 2 improvements!:
So I discovered something odd.
“Ctrl+Tab” seems to also be defined in the Shortcut Mapper:
Your “Ctrl+Tab” seems to be working like the one from Shortcut Mapper, and not like mine.
Maybe if you unmap it in Shortcut Mapper it would then work like mine to give you the yellowish popup list of tabs?I don’t think so… at least, not for me. Mine works like yours. If I unmap it in Shortcut Mapper, then Ctrl+TAB does not pull up the document switcher.
If I switch the shortcut to something like Ctrl+F12, then Ctrl+F12 pulls up the document switcher, but I have to hold down Ctrl and switch to Ctrl+TAB to cycle through (or Ctrl+arrows to control the up/down direction)
In case you weren’t aware, you have to continue to hold Ctrl down after initiating the Ctrl+TAB, otherwise it will “drop” the document-switcher popup. Maybe you’re just letting go of the Ctrl too quickly on your machine. (I see it pop up, even if I’m going fast. But maybe you are faster or your display is slower.) maybe you could show us the equivalent screenshot to what @Alan-Kilborn shared – but after clicking on the
Switch to next documententry, and including the whole dialog, so we can see if conflicts are shown…
vs
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@Alan-Kilborn Thank you!
The problem seems to be fully resolved by using the following method which I accidentally come across.
I check the “Show Document List” box, a full document list is shown on the left side of the main edit window, and the full document window can be expanded or contracted as one wants. So I now can fully hide the document window; if I want to use it, I can expand it, select the next document, and hide it again.
The only improvement I hope for the document window is that one can divide the file list into groups by dragging files up or down and insert blank lines among groups.
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@PeterJones Thank you.
I now know why my “Next Document” function works differently from yours.
I have enabled “Sticky Key” in my Windows 10 OS. So if I want to enter “Ctrl+Tab”, I have to press the “Ctrl” key and the “Tab” key sequentially. And if I hold the “Ctrl” key and continuously press the “Tab” key I get the same effects like yours.
I feel that Notepad++ is the best code editor!
I like it very much!
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Now I know how to open the “Doc Switch” panel.
On the upright corner of the panel, there is an ‘X’ button to close the panel. I tried to click the ‘X’ button and purposely closed the panel. I viewed the “View” item to try to reopen it but failed. I checked “Shortcut Map”, and cannot find any command to open the “Doc Switch” panel.
If I can find a command to reopen the “Doc Switch” panel, I don’t have to drag it to open or hide it. After switching files, I can just close it and later reopen it. by a shortcut. If the command does not have a shortcut, I can redefine one.
Help!
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@W-TX said in 2 improvements!:
I viewed the “View” item to try to reopen it but failed. I checked “Shortcut Map”, and cannot find any command to open the “Doc Switch” panel.
Items that are controlled by a setting in the Preferences dialog don’t usually also have an entry in View menu or Shortcut Mapper. Sorry. You are expected to control that panel in the Preferences dialog.
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Hello, @w-tx, @alan-kilborn, @peterjones and All,
@w-tx, you said, in a previous post :
Now it generates a problem: How to fast switch from the current file to the next opened file when Tab Bar is selected at “Hide mode”?
Very easy :
When the Tab bar is hidden ( option
Settings > PReferences... > General > Tab bar > Hide) instead of using theCtrl + Tab/Ctrl + Shift + Tabmethod, just activate :-
The
Ctrl + Page Upshortcut to switch to the previous tab -
The
Ctrl + Page Downshortcut to switch to the next tab
Best Regards,
guy038
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@guy038 said in 2 improvements!:
How to fast switch from the current file to the next opened file…
Another quick way to do this:
A lot of mice have “forward” and “back” buttons.
When these buttons are actuated when Notepad++ has focus (any part of Notepad++, not just the editing area), it will perform the switch to the next/previous tab. -
I purposely create a new topic about the topic we have discussed here. After discussing I clearly know what I want and how to enhance the Doc Switch panel functions.
