Search with F3

Raanan Barzel

F3 is a ‘natural’ key for searching. Unfortunately, in NotePad++ it only wirks if the search panel is closed.

It would make sense and life easier if F3 was active with the search panel open.

PeterJones

Technically, F3 (the default shortcut for “Find Next”) keystroke works if the search dialog is open but not in focus – ie, after opening the Find window and doing the first Find, you can click back in the document, and the find window will go transparent (unless that’s been disabled) and F3 will work for Find Next after that.

But it would not be an unreasonable Feature Request to ask that F3 also work as Find Next even when the Find dialog has focus.

If my workaround of clicking back in the document so that F3 works isn’t sufficient for you, and you wanted to pursue getting the F3 shortcut added, this Forum is not sufficient, as this is discussion between fellow Notepad++ users, and making a post at community.notepad-plus-plus.org does not get your idea tracked. But the FAQ section has an entry with instructions on how to make an official Feature request. As always, make sure you search the official issues location to see if someone else has already made the request, and whether it’s still open (where you can add your support to idea) or whether it’s been closed-as-rejected (where you can try to lobby for the feature to be added)

astrosofista

@PeterJones said in Search with F3:

Technically, F3 (the default shortcut for “Find Next”) keystroke works if the search dialog is open but not in focus – ie, after opening the Find window and doing the first Find, you can click back in the document, and the find window will go transparent (unless that’s been disabled) and F3 will work for Find Next after that.

As @Raanan-Barzel, I get used to F3 —though actually I replaced it with Numpad5—. I am also not satisfied with clicking on the document to use F3. So some time ago I modified F3 with AutoHotkey to do this: if the Find dialog is in focus, F3 clicks on the Find Next button and activates the editor. On the other hand, if the editor is the active window, F3 does its usual work.

The script is quite simple and could be used as a workaround:

~F3::
	if WinActive("Find") {
		ControlClick, button25, Find
		WinActivate, ahk_class Notepad++    ; Switch to editor
	}
return

BR

Alan Kilborn

@Raanan-Barzel said in Search with F3:

F3 is a ‘natural’ key for searching.

Not really. It’s not mnemonic. It’s just what you’ve become used to after years of being told by Microsoft that F3 is FindNext.

I actually had to run a fresh copy of N++ to discover what F3 is mapped to before commenting. Why? Because I remapped my FindNext an eon ago to something a lot more memorable (for me).

(Actually, I just could have read down into Peter’s reply to discover F3’s default mapping)

But it would not be an unreasonable Feature Request to ask that F3 also work as Find Next even when the Find dialog has focus.

It would be unreasonable, for those that have remapped the functionality. Unless the mapping was used to discover the correct keycombo.

However, it may be worth pointing out that the Enter key by design works to FindNext when the Find window has focus. Sure, it is a different key, but maybe the OP doesn’t know that this works? Shift+Enter works to FindPrevious in a similar way.

Of course, there’s an argument that all keys that work in editing mode should also work correspondingly in the searching dialog window. To that end I think an issue is already created that gets to this, maybe further comments on the topic should be posted there. Here’s the issue: CTRL+F should upgrade to CTRL+H when pressed.
So it isn’t exactly the same as OP’s request here, but it gets to the “where the same keys should work” topic.

Alan Kilborn

This seems to be a repeat topic anyway; the OP posted pretty much the exact same thing a while ago: https://community.notepad-plus-plus.org/topic/20438

Joyce Kane

In any case, this appears to be a re-occurring subject; the OP posted nearly the same thing a while ago. https://smashkarts.co