(I should have said this in my previous post.)

Issue created :

https://github.com/notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus/issues/17200

BR

guy038

Forbid the Select And Find … options when the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, in settings, is unchecked.

So really what the user should be doing in this circumstance is to use the “volatile” versions of the commands?

allow the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected setting to be checked, independently of the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option. So, putting caret within any word, would still select this word and placed it in the Find what zone of the Find dialog for search

To me, if user doesn’t want to fill find with selected text, he wants it to be absolute; in other words, he never wants any filling, of any kind. But, I’m sure there would be users out there that want what you describe (learned this from past experience, about all kinds of things).

Ah…, I was just hoping some reactions before creating an official issue ! I think it was sensible to wait a bit and indeed, reading again the Terry’s post, he said something important that I did not notice before :

Then I went into the 8.8.5 portable version and deselected the “fill find field with select text” but the “select and search next/previous” still worked.

Thus, my proposition of fix, in my first post, is quite erroneous and I just need to redo some tests with the 8.8.5 and 8.8.6 releases, only, to get an overview of this bug ( as I supposed that the 8.8.7 and 8.8 releases are not concerned )

Once these tests done, with a good description of the bug, creating that issue shouldn’t be a problem !

BR

guy038

I’m quite surprised that no one answered my post, yet.

I’m not surprised. There wasn’t much of a question. You (1) confirmed the bug/regression reported by the OP, and (2) made a suggestion of how you felt it should be solved. I don’t think either require an “answer” here.

At this point, with you and @Terry-R both confirming the bug, I had hoped one of the regulars would have either pointed out to @MM-tsuchi that it’s time to follow the FAQ instructions for creating a bug report, or taken the initiative to put in the bug report without waiting for the OP, since it’s been confirmed. (We don’t really need to have a suggestion for how it might be fixed – just mentioning in the Issue that it was working as expected under 8.8.5, but with the same settings doesn’t work under 8.8.7, it would be enough for Don to be able to easily track down which change to the Find and Replace system that was made in that timeframe caused the problem.)

Since two forum regulars had already chimed in and confirmed it, I was hoping that one of them would be the one to point the way to the bug-report FAQ or location. But, given your follow-on post, I decided that wasn’t likely to happen without me pointing it out.

I’m quite surprised that no one answered my post, yet. To my mind, search looks quite weird if you do not check the two options Fill Find Field with Selected Text and the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected, in the Settings > Preferences... > Searching panel !

Of course, I have not noticed anything yet, as I usually has these default parameters with just the Max characters to Auto-Fill Find Field from Selection option set to 16383

What’s your feeling about this problem ? I’m curious to know your suggestions to fix it !

BR

guy038

@mm-tsuchi, The behavior, that you’ve found out, seems definitively a bug , I’m afraid :-((

Let’s test with the beginning of the change.log file, copied in a new tab :

Notepad++ v8.8.7 new features & bug-fixes:

 1. Sign Notepad++ binaries with GlobalSign certificat to fix false-positive alerts.
 2. Fix Monitoring in one view affects selections and position in second view.
 3. Fix Shortcut Mapper memory leak issue.
 4. Enhance Perl FunctionList for class.
 5. Fix pressing Alt or Tab causes controls redrawing problem in UDL dialog.


Notepad++ v8.8.6 new features & bug-fixes:

 1. Add capacity of pasting multiline into Find/Replace fields.
 2. Improve UAC in Notepad++ for seamless elevated operations.
 3. Fix Pin Tab operation being too long with many opened documents.
 4. Add 2 new full-readonly modes via command line argument (-fullReadOnly & -fullReadOnlySavingForbidden).
 5. Add apply/remove read-only for all documents commands.
 6. Column Editor enhancement: GUI input fields now support radix to match the output format.
 7. Add Window dialog "File Modified Time" sorting capacity.
 8. Fix NPPN_CMDLINEPLUGINMSG not working issue & define the pluginMessage usage protocol.
 9. Fix pasting from column mode to multi-selection issue due to different EOL.
10. Add NPPM_GETNPPSETTINGSDIRPATH message to get Notepad++ settings directory path.
11. Enhance SQL function list parser.
12. Fix C# function list not working with comments.
13. Add function list ability for CSS.
14. Allow user to customize max selected chars to auto-fill "Find what" field.
15. Restore undo/redo behaviour in Find/Replace fields after Copy/Paste or Ctrl-F.
16. Fix text corruption issue caused by selection within multibyte characters.
17. Fix DOCTYPE styling in xml and html.
18. Fix double clicking on edit zone border creates a new tab issue.
19. Update cURL in WinGUp (Notepad++ updater) for fixing security issue CVE-2025-5399.

And let’s start with a fresh portable v8.8.7 release of N++. After launching Notepad++.exe for the first time, if you move to the Preferences... > Searching panel, you should see this snapshot :

So, you can verify that, by default, the two options Fill Find Field with Selected Text and Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected are checked

In this configuration, no problem at all regarding the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands which work as expected !

Now, as soon as you unchecked the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, note that it also unchecks, automatically the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected option and the Max characters to Auto-Fill Find Field from Selection option, as well !

With that new configuration :

• Double-clic on the first Add word of the text

• Open the Find dialog ( Ctrl + F )

=> The Find what zone should be empty ( logical, because of the settings ! )

Note that the Wrap around option is checked by default and the search mode is set to normal

• Type the word Add in the Find what zone

• Click once on the Find next button to jump to the next occurrence of the Add word

• Close the Find what zone ( Esc )

• You can check that the F3 / Shift + F3 shortcuts ( Normal search ) or the Ctrl + Alt + F3 / Ctrl + Shift + Alt + F3 shortcuts ( Volatile search ) work as expected

• However, the Select and Find Next and Select and Find Previous commands do nothing. This is also logical because of the new settings !

• Now, just put the caret within any Add word. if you hit the F3 key, it does find the next Add word ! Don’t be mistaken : it found the Add word just because the Find what zone still contains the Add word as the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected is uncheked

To be convinced, simply put your caret within an other word Fix : hitting the F3 key still search the next occurrence of the Add word and not the Fix word !

Now, double-click on any Fix word. The only possibility to search this new word is to use the Alt + Ctrl + F3 or Alt + Ctrl + Shift + F3 shortcuts. However, if you open the Find dialog, as this kind of search is volatile, the Find what zone will still contains the Add word !

So, IMO, how to fix this issue :

• Forbid the Select And Find ... options when the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option, in settings, is unchecked. This seems logical as current selected text never fills the Find what zone !

• But, allow the Select Word Under Caret when Nothing Selected setting to be checked, independently of the Fill Find Field with Selected Text option. So, putting caret within any word, would still select this word and placed it in the Find what zone of the Find dialog for search !

Best Regards,

guy038

Notepad++ 8.8.7 "select and search next/previous (Ctrl-F3 / Ctrl-Maj-F3) don’t work anymore, neither with menu or shortcut keys.

I can confirm that the newly portable versions of both 8.8.5 and 8.8.7 64bit DO work with the “select and search next/previous” (out of the box).

However my “installed” version of 8.8.7 64bit does not (it has been updated for a couple of years or more). At least it did not until I ticked the option “fill find field with select text” under Settings/Preferences/Searching. Then I went into the 8.8.5 portable version and deselected the “fill find field with select text” but the “select and search next/previous” still worked.

So all I can gather at the moment is that is seems that the “select and search next/previous” process relies on something else (to be enabled/disabled). Nothing in the online manual suggest any other settings need to be set to operate this search mode.

Terry