Bookmark by style

PhilBiggs

First post but a long time user.

I often use NP++ for reviewing logs and I find it very easy to right-click and style all occurrences of certain text (e.g., IP addresses) without having to use the search dialog each time.

What I was hoping to find is a way to bookmark all lines containing a specific style.

Is there a way to do this?

If not, could it be considered as an enhancement request?

Thanks

Alan Kilborn

@PhilBiggs said:

Is there a way to do this?

Not normally, no. But if you are willing to use the Pythonscript plugin, I’m sure we can get it accomplished. How about it?

I’m thinking of a modification to some scripting/ideas found in these places previously:

At first glance, these postings don’t work with “styles” but when you consider that (red)marking is just another “style”, you might start to see the applicability.

Anyway, if you come back, let me know your enthusiasm for a scripted solution.

could it be considered as an enhancement request?

It’s probably a bit “special need” to be put into core Notepad++, but you can always make a feature request if you want.

PhilBiggs

Thanks for your reply, Alan.

I take your point about it being a special need. In fact, it’s not something I need to do very often. I was just looking for a quicker (low click count) way to bookmark already identified lines, mostly so that I could then copy those and paste them into a new file for further examination/manipulation. After reading those other threads I can see that my use of Notepad++ is relatively unsophisticated.

I really appreciate your offer but I figured that if it was something others could see value in, then they could support the idea here - or tell me the solution already existed.

I certainly would not ask you to invest any of your time in producing a solution for my corner case.

Alan Kilborn

@PhilBiggs said:

I take your point about it being a special need

This part is funny because most people don’t understand why their feature request isn’t the most valuable thing on the planet. Sure, there are some great new feature requests, but most are made by people that just don’t get why only they are trying to do something a certain way…

I certainly would not ask you to invest any of your time in producing a solution for my corner case

Thanks for protecting my time! :)

But really, from those above links, it is really 90% written already. Here’s why, with some background:

Notepad++ has a feature where you can redmark text based upon a search expression. This is similar to what you do with “styling” text, except in your case the text is constant; it isn’t a variable expression like it can be with redmarking (and regular-expressions).

Often people want to be able to copy their marked search results to the clipboard, and often want to do so on a whole-line basis. It may surprise you to know that currently in Notepad++ there is no way to do the former, and the latter while possible has some limitations.

That limitation is that if a search expression results in matches that span multiple lines, only the FIRST line of the match is bookmarked. Thus for individuals that need to copy ALL of these matched lines (via Search > Bookmark > Copy Bookmarked Lines), they are out of luck.

So if we haven’t had a TL;DR and you are still with me, what the script found in one of the links above tries to do is to overcome this limitation by searching for all redmarked text and then bookmark all of the lines that have any redmarking on them at all. Well, since redmarking is just another type of “style” (indeed, in Notepad++ it is kind of a “sixth” style (see the last entry on the Search > Jump Up (or Down) menu), it truly is easy to extend the existing script to cover all styles.

I haven’t written the script yet, but I was thinking it might have a user-interface like this when you run it:

Imgur

What one would do is to select a style (or styles), like so:

Imgur

And click OK to execute.

Any thoughts from the OP or anyone else on this?

Alan Kilborn

Since I don’t use the highlight provided by Style #1 - #5 all that much, I went back to refamiliarize myself with how they work. I noticed something odd. If I highlight (select) some text and apply a style to it, the style highlighting will do matches in both full words and inside other words, see here:

Imgur

This made me suspicious so I opened the Find window and ticked Match whole words only and then cleared out my styling and then did it again. I got a different result:

Imgur

This sort of makes me uncomfortable. :P

Michael Vincent

Can that be remedied with the Settings=>Preferences=>Highlighting=>“Use Find dialog settings” checkbox being unchecked?

For instance when I do your experiment with that box unchecked and the above 2 boxes from that settings (Match Case, Match whole word only") checked, it performs as expected styling the only two “highlight” words, not the “highlighting” word. When I instead check the “Use Find dialog settings” checkbox, the above 2 checkboxes are automatically unchecked and in my Find dialog, they are unchecked as well and then styling performs as in your graphic (selecting all 3 instances, including the “highlight” portion of the “highlighting” word.

Cheers.

Alan Kilborn

@Michael-Vincent

Interesting.

Here’s what it looks like when I do my case #1 from above:

Imgur

And here’s for my case #2:

Imgur

Michael Vincent

I should note I have the “Enable” checkbox under “Smart Highlighting” always checked.

Alan Kilborn

@Michael-Vincent said:

I should note I have the “Enable” checkbox under “Smart Highlighting” always checked.

Yes, but I guess my point was that I DON’T and still the “styling” is following the Find settings anyway (of course “styling” isn’t “Smart Highlighting”… so maybe it is moot).

Alan Kilborn

Okay, then… well, here is the script I mentioned earlier; finished it over lunchtime today. Instructions for interacting with it are pretty much found in the two screenshots a bit up in this thread. Enjoy.

import re

def main():

    MARK_BOOKMARK = 24  # N++ normal bookmark marker number; identifier pulled from N++ source code

    # identifiers pulled from N++ source code:
    SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT1 = 25  # N++ style 1 indicator number
    SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT2 = 24  # N++ style 2 indicator number
    SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT3 = 23  # N++ style 3 indicator number
    SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT4 = 22  # N++ style 4 indicator number
    SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT5 = 21  # N++ style 5 indicator number
    SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE = 31  # N++ red-"mark" feature highlighting style indicator number

    def is_line_bookmarked(line_nbr): return (editor.markerGet(line_nbr) & (1 << MARK_BOOKMARK)) != 0

    def highlight_indicator_range_tups_generator(indicator_number):
        if editor.indicatorEnd(indicator_number, 0) == 0: return
        indicator_end_pos = 0  # set special value to key a check the first time thru the while loop
        while True:
            if indicator_end_pos == 0 and editor.indicatorValueAt(indicator_number, 0) == 1:
                indicator_start_pos = 0
            else:
                indicator_start_pos = editor.indicatorEnd(indicator_number, indicator_end_pos)
            indicator_end_pos = editor.indicatorEnd(indicator_number, indicator_start_pos)
            if indicator_start_pos == indicator_end_pos: break  # no more matches
            yield (indicator_start_pos, indicator_end_pos)

    user_input = notepad.prompt('Select style(s) you want to bookmark lines of:',
        '',
        '[   ] Style #1      [   ] Style #2\r\n[   ] Style #3      [   ] Style #4\r\n[   ] Style #5      [   ] Redmark\r\n\r\n[   ] CLEAR bookmarks instead of setting, for items chosen')
    if user_input == None: return
    if len(user_input) == 0: return
    user_input = re.sub(r'\s{4,}', '\r\n', user_input)
    ui_choices_list = user_input.splitlines()
    selected = ''
    for uic in ui_choices_list:
        m = re.search(r'\[([^]]+)\]', uic)
        if m and m.group(1) != ' ' * len(m.group(1)):
            selected += uic
    if len(selected) == 0: return

    indicator_number_list = []
    if '1' in selected: indicator_number_list.append(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT1)
    if '2' in selected: indicator_number_list.append(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT2)
    if '3' in selected: indicator_number_list.append(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT3)
    if '4' in selected: indicator_number_list.append(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT4)
    if '5' in selected: indicator_number_list.append(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE_EXT5)
    if 'red' in selected.lower(): indicator_number_list.append(SCE_UNIVERSAL_FOUND_STYLE)
    clearing_not_setting = True if 'clear' in selected.lower() else False

    at_least_1_match_of_style = False
    at_least_1_bookmark_change_made = False

    for indic_number in indicator_number_list:

        for (styled_start_pos, styled_end_pos) in highlight_indicator_range_tups_generator(indic_number):

            at_least_1_match_of_style = True

            bookmark_start_line = editor.lineFromPosition(styled_start_pos)
            bookmark_end_line = editor.lineFromPosition(styled_end_pos)

            for bm_line in range(bookmark_start_line, bookmark_end_line + 1):

                if clearing_not_setting:
                    if is_line_bookmarked(bm_line):
                        editor.markerDelete(bm_line, MARK_BOOKMARK)
                        at_least_1_bookmark_change_made = True
                else:
                    if not is_line_bookmarked(bm_line):
                        editor.markerAdd(bm_line, MARK_BOOKMARK)
                        at_least_1_bookmark_change_made = True

    if at_least_1_match_of_style:
        if at_least_1_bookmark_change_made:
            notepad.messageBox('Lines with selected style(s) have been {}bookmarked.'.format('un' if clearing_not_setting else ''), '')
        else:
            notepad.messageBox('No changes in bookmarks made.', '')
    else:
        notepad.messageBox('No text found matching selected style(s).', '')

main()

Alan Kilborn

The marker ID used for bookmarks changed in Notepad++ 8.4.6 (and later). It is now 20, instead of 24. So, all references to 24 in this thread and/or its script(s), should be changed to 20.