Find Across Files - Need Better support for Results Pane

[MarkB-Dansko]

I used a Regex search across a directory tree filled with generated SQL Server scripts.
I did so to find where in all those scripts a particular server name was embedded in the code.
The search found 3200+ matches across 700+ files - and then it displayed the results in a nice hierarchical manner. AWESOME! INCREDIBLE! EXACTLY what I needed!
Only…
Now I need to copy that information (ALL of it as broken out by file) for detailed review and tracking as we make changes to the source files.
Except that: of the treeview’d results pane data (which can all be selected with Ctrl-A), a COPY (Ctrl-C ) ONLY grabs all the DETAIL lines, and pasting them loses the hierarchical structure of the found results data (which lines were in which file!?).
This is no good! I need to copy and preserve these results AS-IS in a hierarchical form!
I don’t care if we add an “Export results to XML” option, or allow a Copy/Paste to honor the collapsed/expanded state of the treeview elements, or if we create an options form to allow for 20-billion options for anyone to image…but clearly we need something better than this!

[Alan Kilborn]

@MarkB-Dansko said in Find Across Files - Need Better support for Results Pane:

Except that: of the treeview’d results pane data (which can all be selected with Ctrl-A), a COPY (Ctrl-C ) ONLY grabs all the DETAIL lines, and pasting them loses the hierarchical structure of the found results data (which lines were in which file!?).

NOT TRUE. After a ctrl+a, a ctrl+c copies the Find result window contents exactly as shown. Are you sure you didn’t use the right-click menu’s Copy command instead, which copies the lines with hits without the search metadata? Bottom line: ctrl+c and right-click->Copy produce very different results here.

[PeterJones]

@MarkB-Dansko said in Find Across Files - Need Better support for Results Pane:

Except that: of the treeview’d results pane data (which can all be selected with Ctrl-A), a COPY (Ctrl-C ) ONLY grabs all the DETAIL lines, and pasting them loses the hierarchical structure of the found results data (which lines were in which file!?).
This is no good! I need to copy and preserve these results AS-IS in a hierarchical form!

What Alan said. (He replied faster while I was spending too much time crafting my reply, as usual.)

Your description is different than my experience in that regard. As I said with 7.8.1 in the similar “Save found files?” discussion last month, Ctrl+C does include the hierarchy information. In those experiments, using RClick>Copy only copied the lines, not the filenames, but using Ctrl+C copied everything. When I try it again under v7.8.2, it works the same way. For example, if I search my OneDrive for Business folder for check, I get:

Search "check" (3 hits in 3 files)
  C:\Users\peter.jones\OneDrive - REDACTED\OneDriveDocuments\delme.md (1 hit)
	Line 16: * Checkboxes: `☐ ☑ ☒ ✓ ✗ ◯ ○ 🔘 ⊙ ⦾ ⦿` -- where the last is my favorite (but doesn't always render in NPP)
  C:\Users\peter.jones\OneDrive - REDACTED\OneDriveDocuments\LongTerm TODO.md (1 hit)
	Line 93: * O1: ...check ...
  C:\Users\peter.jones\OneDrive - REDACTED\OneDriveDocuments\Peter's Scratchpad.md (1 hit)
	Line 16: * Checkboxes: `☐ ☑ ☒ ✓ ✗ ◯ ○ 🔘 ⊙ ⦾ ⦿` -- where the last is my favorite (but doesn't always render in NPP)

[MarkB-Dansko]

@Alan-Kilborn
I still had that NP++ session open, I went into the results pane, hit ^A.
results pane showed all lines as highlighted.
I hit ^C
Open a new document window in NP++
Hit ^V
one line (blank?) was pasted.

select in Results pane
right-click for context menu
hit select all
right clock context menu
select Copy
open a new blank NP++ document
hit paste
only the detail lines appear.

This is NP++ version 7.8.1 (64-bit) “Free UYGHUR”
Notepad++ v7.8.1 (64-bit)
Build time : Oct 27 2019 - 22:57:19
Path : C:\Program Files\Notepad++\notepad++.exe
Admin mode : OFF
Local Conf mode : OFF
OS Name : Windows 10 Enterprise (64-bit)
OS Version : 1809
OS Build : 17763.864
Plugins : BookmarksDook.dll CodeAlignmentNpp.dll CSScriptNpp.dll CsvQuery.dll ElasticTabstops.dll HTMLTag.dll LanguageHelp.dll MarkdownViewerPlusPlus.dll mimeTools.dll npp.connections.dll NppConverter.dll NppEditorConfig.dll NppExport.dll NPPJSONViewer.dll NppMenuSearch.dll NppRegExTractorPlugin.dll NppTextViz.dll NppToolBucket.dll NppXmlTreeviewPlugin.dll PoorMansTSqlFormatterNppPlugin.dll SecurePad.dll SelectQuotedText.dll SQLinFormNpp64.dll TakeNotes.dll VisualStudioLineCopy.dll XBrackets.dll XMLTools.dll

[PeterJones]

Maybe you need to restart notepad++, or try disabling some/all of your plugins. Because it works for me as described. See my animated screenshot:

[MarkB-Dansko]

Why is askimet flagging my replies to my own topic as SPAM?

[PeterJones]

Why is askimet flagging my replies to my own topic as SPAM?

askimet is annoying sometimes. On occasion, if I have a post it flags, I cut most of the reply out, submit, edit the post, and paste it back in, and everything is happy.

[MarkB-Dansko]

@PeterJones

I am definitely NOT seeing those results.
I just uninstalled 7.8.1 and installed 7.8.2 (oddly, I de-selected Plugins support for the installer, and yet there they are again).

Trying to reproduce

Nope! Still not working for me.
It appears that something is stepping on Ctrl-C.

Ok, how do I remove ALL PLUGINS from an NP++ install?

[PeterJones]

@MarkB-Dansko said in Find Across Files - Need Better support for Results Pane:

Ok, how do I remove ALL PLUGINS from an NP++ install?

Three easiest ways:

1. use the -noPlugin command line argument,
2. or close Notepad++, rename c:\program files\Notepad++\plugins folder to something else, then restart Notepad++
3. download a fresh .zip version of Notepad++ and unzip into separate directory, and run that copy as a “portable” Notepad++, which will have only default plugins installed

If you find it works right without plugins, then you can do a search by renaming individual subfolders of c:\program files\Notepad++\plugins – if the folder name doesn’t match the name of the DLL inside, it won’t load that plugin. (So, for example, c:\program files\Notepad++\plugins\pythonscript could be renamed to c:\program files\Notepad++\plugins\x-pythonscript temporarily to disable the PythonScript plugin.