Request for a small improvement of the N++ status bar !

guy038

Hi Don and All,

Don, since the last v7.1 version, you’ve added the possibility to control the Smart highlighting mechanism, via the Find dialog. Nice !

So, by now, these two general options Match whole word only and Match case are taken in account by :

The four Find / Replace / Find in Files / Mark dialogs, of course !
The two Search - Find Next/Previous menu commands
The two Search - Select and Find Next/Previous menu commands
The Smart Highlighting feature, when the option Settings - Preferences - Highlighting - Use Find dialog settings is checked
The five Search - Mark All - Using Nth style menu commands

So I was wondering… if we could display the status of these two options, in the status bar ? I see two advantages to do so :

No need, anymore, to open the Find dialog, to verify, set or unset these options
The possibility to set / unset them, directly, in the status bar, by a mouse left-click, in the same way it does for the INS/OVR writing status ( Insert /overlay mode ), at the bottom right of the status bar

Does this change seems useful and sensible to someone ?

However, as it seems that no more free location exists, in that status bar, I suggest to modify the displaying of the EOL characters. Then, to get some more free space :

The string Windows (CR LF) could be, simply, shortened in CR LF
The string Unix (LF) could be, simply, shortened in LF
The string Macintosh (CR) could be, simply, shortened in CR

Thus, it will remain some place to add, for instance, the strings :

Find : W / C, if the Match whole word only and Match case options are, both set

Find : NW / C, if the Match case option is set, only

Find : W / NC, if the Match whole word only option is set, only

Find : NW / NC, if the Match whole word only and Match case options are, both unset

And any left click, on one of these two zones, would set/unset it ! Of course, any further call, to one of the four search/replace dialogs, should update the status of these two options !

Note that it’s just a displaying suggestion, which can be discussed !

Cheers,

guy038

Scott Sumner

guy038’s feature request should be a model for others:

IT WAS POLITE AND RESPECTFUL! You are much more likely to be taken seriously if you are nice and polite in your request than if you are not. This seems like common sense but it is amazing how many people suggesting features/changes are not.

IT WAS WELL-THOUGHT OUT! If you’re going to make a feature request, make sure you are knowledgeable about Notepad++ and how your suggested feature would impact it and the way others might use it. Don’t just say: “Feature request: one short sentence --boom: there it is!”. Provide details even if you are not what you’d consider an expert in software or user interface design–if your feature is a good one, the designers will refine that part.

That being said, I LIKE guy038’s feature request in general. Not remembering the way the Find dialog settings are at any given moment gives me problems almost daily (or even hourly?), and while this may not solve all of my problems, having visual indication of the way these two settings are configured constantly via the status bar would be a helpful aid.

AdrianHHH

This is a good idea from Guy. I often use the “Select and find next – Shift-F3” search command and wonder why nothing is found. Then I have to open the find window to check and update the find options.

Perhaps the search type of Normal or Extended or Regular expression could also be added to the status bar.

pnedev

+1 for Guy’s proposal

cmeriaux

Very good proposal guy.
When you speak to someone, use the @ to be sure he’ll get a notification.
@Don-HO

What about ! instead of N

Find : W / C, if the Match whole word only and Match case options are, both set
Find : !W / C, if the Match case option is set, only
Find : W / !C, if the Match whole word only option is set, only
Find : !W / !C, if the Match whole word only and Match case options are, both unset

Screen with good resolution have enough space to add a new field, we just have to reduce the language field.

Scott Sumner

@cmeriaux ,

Or perhaps, following your ordering:

+W / +C
-W / +C
+W / -C
-W / -C

Scott Sumner

@AdrianHHH ,

Why not throw the “wrap around” setting in there, too? :)

Jim Dailey

+1

Lets not forget N/E/R/D (Search Mode = Normal, Extended, Regex, Regex with ‘Dot’ matching Newline) while we’re at it!

And I suppose Direction should be there too.

Crazy idea to save space on the -W/!W/+W/W and -C/!C/+C/C ideas: Use upper case to mean selected and lower case for NOT selected:

WcPND would mean:

Whole word
Ignore case
wraP around
Normal
Down

pnedev

@JimDailey ,
If we are searching through the find dialog we can see the different search options in the dialog itself.
But the last used “Match case” and “Whole word” settings in that dialog are actually applicable to the direct search also (when you select a word and hit Ctrl-F3, without the find dialog). This is why it would be good to have those two search options visible in the status bar - because they are applicable also outside the find dialog. As long as both regular expression search and extended mode search are not reachable / usable without the help (outside the) find dialog then we won’t need those in the status bar. Am I missing something?
Do you agree?

BR

Scott Sumner

@pnedev ,

The “wrap around” setting is applicable to most search types “outside” the Find dialog. Technically, the “NERD” setting is as well, although that is much less of a use-case (example: Find dialog has regex selected, in editor window make a selection over the text “ab.de” in an editor tab and hit the shortcut key for “select and find next”…caret will jump to “abcde”).

Jim Dailey

@pnedev The NERD setting does seem to apply. If I highlight ExpectedLength[Index] and press Ctrl+F3, I find no match if Regex is checked, but I do find the next reference to the Indexth element of the ExpectedLength array if Regex is NOT checked.

cmeriaux

Guys,
we can’t add every option in the status bar. We should add only the most usefull : those proposed by @guy038

Jim Dailey

@cmeriaux I would say they are all equally useful: every one of them affects whether you find (or not) what you are looking for.

Scott Sumner

@Jim-Dailey

If you had something like “WcPND” in the status bar, it would certainly be space-efficient, but clicking on an individual letter to change its setting per guy038’s original proposal might be a bit challenging. :)

guy038

Hi All,

From all your posts and your helpful ideas, I imagined a very short expression, although easy to understand, which could be inserted in the status bar !

It would be composed of five capital letters, eventually separated by a space for a better reading ?

The first one would stand for the search mode ( N, E, R or A, as DOT matches Any character )
The second one would stand for the direction ( D for “Down” OR U for “Up” )
The third one would stand for the Whole word option ( W for “Whole Word” OR E for “Exact string” )
The fourth one would stand for the Match case option ( S for “Sensitive” OR I for “Insensitive” )
The fifth one would stand for the Wrap around option ( L for “Loop” from Bottom / Top OR E for “Ends” at bottom /top

The different combinations are listed, below :

| N | D | W | S | L |
| E | U | E | I | E |
| R |   |   |   |   |
| A |   |   |   |   |

I, already, verified that two adjacent letters are never identical !

Moreover, reading that letters, from left to right, is very easy to memorize, as it, quite, follows the natural way of speech ! Indeed, just look to my representation, below :

Search, with |N|ormal   mode, in a  |D|ownwards direction, for a  |W|hole Word   , in a  |S|ensitive   way and |L|oop from Bottom / Top
             |E|xtented          an |U|pwards   direction      an |E|xact String      an |I|nsensitive way     |E|nd  at
             |R|egular  
             |A|ny

So, for instance :

The string E U W I L would mean : Search, in Extended mode, in an Upwards direction, for a Whole word, in an Insensitive way, and Loop from the top
The string N D E S E would mean : Search, in Normal mode, in a Downwards direction, for an Exact string, in a Sensitive way and End at bottom
The string R D E I L would mean : Search, in Regular mode, in a Downwards direction, for an Exact string, in an Insensitive way and Loop from the bottom

May be, I think that it would be nicer to separate some letters with a dash ! From the three examples, above, I suggest the form :

E U - W I - L

N D - E S - E

R D - E I - L

The first part ( mode and direction options ) rather concerns the search process, itself
The second part ( Whole word and Match case options ) concerns, basically, the Find what zone
The final part ( Wrap around option ) concerns the action to perform, when the top /bottom of file is reached

… Any thought about my delirium ???

Cheers,

guy038

Jim Dailey

@guy038 Very nicely done, Guy.

pnedev

@Scott-Sumner and @Jim-Dailey ,

You are right - some other search options are also applicable outside the Find dialog.
My point is that the options that are valid outside the Find dialog are the ones that should be in the status bar.

@guy038 ,

Having that in mind, is Up / Down search direction option used outside Find dialog? I really don’t know because my typical search use case outside the Find dialog is selecting a word and using Ctrl-F3 shortcut (which does the search downwards while Shift-Ctrl-F3 does it upwards).
I would prefer @Jim-Dailey 's approach to the options that have only two states (for example Case sensitive (‘C’ and ‘c’), Whole Word (‘W’ and ‘w’)… etc.). This reduces the letter-abbreviations one needs to remember. The options that have more possible states are OK the way you are suggesting.
Personally I like the hyphen separation you propose.

BR

Scott Sumner

I think Direction is not relevant in this proposed feature. All of the commands that are affected when not using the Find dialog itself either have a Find Next or Find Previous distinction, or they work in both directions at once (e.g. Style 1 - 5, smart highlighting). My opinion: don’t include Direction

The search mode, while it can come into play, rarely does. So rarely, in fact, that it doesn’t really justify taking up status bar space for it. My opinion: don’t include Search Mode

Whole/partial words and case sensitive/insensitive, the status bar enhancement originally proposed, is solid. I think I agree with pnedev that uppercase (active) and lowercase (inactive) might be best. Something like: “Find: W c”, for example. Minimal space taken up and gets the job done.

I haven’t mentioned a wraparound option because I’m lukewarm about it. My opinion on wrap: no opinion… :)

Jim Dailey

Fortunately (or, perhaps, unfortunately in this case) we all have different use cases. While some people may never search for regular expressions, there are those of us who do. And when we switch between regex and normal searches, it affects the (Shift\+)?(Control\+)?F3 functionality every bit as much as case sensitivity or whole/partial word options.

It makes sense to me to handle everything affecting the search if there is room in the UI. If there isn’t room for all, then I will sadly admit that the mode is the one option that probably affects fewer people, because many users (many of them programmers!) fail to realize just how useful regex search/replace can be, not withstanding the excellent posts of @guy038 on the subject.

cmeriaux

The regexp option for (Shift+)?(Control+)?F3 should be deactivate. It don’t see how it can be used outside the search menu or if it can be, it’s only on few case.