Search++: A work in progress

Coises

@guy038 said in Search++: A work in progress:

This still one point that’s a bit unclear to me : what is the fundamental difference between all these options, when compared in pairs :

The principle (see the last bullet point under help for search scopes) is that commands which don’t specify a scope search in marked text if there is any; otherwise, in the current selection if it is not empty; otherwise, in the whole document. That’s subject to the Settings: if you unchecked both Automatically search within selections and Automatically search within marked text, then all the pairs of commands you listed would be identical; and there are the limits on when selections are considered “large enough” to trigger search within selection. (A selection that is the immediate result of a stepwise search never causes the same search to search within that selection no matter how large it is.)

There are two special cases, and a third questionable feature, also involved:

There are no Before or After commands with in Selection scope. (My logic is that something can’t be both in the selection and before or after it.) So search commands that include Before or After can only be in Marked Text or in Whole Document.
Mark commands that don’t specify a scope don’t automatically scope to in Marked Text even if Automatically search within marked text is enabled. What happens is that unless you’ve checked Always unmark all text before Mark command, default Mark commands add to existing marks. I know this is a different behavior from selections, but I think because selections are so volatile, and marks are not, it is natural to use them in different ways. Should this exception be an option in Settings? I’m inclined to add it as a default-checked sub-option of Automatically search within marked text.
Search commands that specify in Selection or in Marked Text search the whole document if there is no (non-empty) selection or marked text. I’m questioning the sense of that now. I’m thinking that if the user specifies “in selection” or ”in marked text,” and there is none, the search should fail with a message like “No marked text to search” rather than silently discarding the specified scope.

Thoughts about that logic, especially point 3 (which I am inclined to change in the next release) are welcome and encouraged.

I have tried to keep as much “symmetry” as I could, to make it all more comprehensible. I think it is possible that I have created some nonsense in practice.

Points 1 and 3 together mean that Before and After commands without a scope are either the same as Before/After in Marked Text if Automatically search within marked text is checked, or the same as Before/After in Whole Document if it isn’t. However, as I wrote, I’m questioning point 3; without that, when the relevant setting is checked, there would be a difference (the commands that don’t specify a scope would switch between in Marked Text and in Whole Document depending on whether there was any marked text in the document, whereas neither command that specified one scope would switch to the other).

So… looking at the full list you gave, group by group, assuming default settings… this is what is supposed to happen (full testing of every possible case has not been done):

Find                         vs        Find in Whole Document
Find Backward                vs        Find Backward in Whole Document

The two on the left will find the next match in marked text following or preceding the current position or selection if any text is marked; otherwise they will find the first or last match in the selected text if “enough” text is selected; otherwise they will find the next match following or preceding the current position or selection in the whole document. Those on the right will always find the next match following or preceding the current position or selection in the whole document regardless of whether any text is marked or selected.

Count                        vs        Count in Whole Document

Count will count only matches in marked text if any text is marked; otherwise it will count only matches in selected text if “enough” text is selected; otherwise it will count all matches in the whole document. Count in Whole Document will always count all matches in the whole document regardless of whether any text is marked or selected.

Count Before                 vs        Count Before in Whole Document
Count After                  vs        Count After in Whole Document

The two on the left will count only matches in marked text that are before or after the current position or selection if any text is marked; otherwise they will count matches before or after the current position or selection in the whole document. Those on the right will always count matches before or after the current position or selection in the whole document regardless of whether any text is marked.

Find All Before              vs        Find All Before in Whole Document
Find All After               vs        Find All After in Whole Document

The two on the left will list only matches in marked text that are before or after the current position or selection if any text is marked; otherwise they will list all matches before or after the current position or selection in the whole document. Those on the right will always list all matches before or after the current position or selection in the whole document regardless of whether any text is marked.

Select Before                vs        Select Before in Whole Document
Select After                 vs        Select After in Whole Document

The two on the left will select only matches in marked text that are before or after the current position or selection if any text is marked; otherwise they will select all matches before or after the current position or selection in the whole document. Those on the right will always select all matches before or after the current position or selection in the whole document regardless of whether any text is marked.

Mark Before                  vs        Mark Before in Whole Document
Mark After                   vs        Mark After in Whole Document

I’ll double-check my logic later, but I think these are identical, since (1 above) Before/After can’t be in selection, and (2 above) Mark doesn’t automatically scope to marked text. It’s unclear to me which ones to remove, since either choice breaks the symmetry and could be confusing to users, but having two commands that do the same thing is also confusing.

Show Before                  vs        Show Before in Whole Document
Show After                   vs        Show After in Whole Document

I grant that this would be a strange use of Show. In the circumstance where there are hidden lines both before and after the current position or selection, and there is some marked text in document, the ones on the left would search only marked text before or after the current position or selection for lines to unhide, while the ones on the right would search all text.

Replace and Find             vs        Replace And Find in Whole Document
Replace and Find Backward    vs        Replace and Find Backward in Whole Document

Find or Replace              vs        Find or Replace in Whole Document
Find Backward or Replace     vs        Find Backward or Replace in Whole Document

Replace All                  vs        Replace All in Whole Document
Replace All Before           vs        Replace All Before in Whole Document
Replace All After            vs        Replace All After in Whole Document

These are like their Find and Find All counterparts. The ones on the left work like “in Marked Text” if any text is marked; otherwise, like “in Selection” if “enough” text is selected; otherwise like “in Whole Document” (like the ones on the right).

Coises

@guy038 said in Search++: A work in progress:

This still one point that’s a bit unclear to me : what is the fundamental difference between all these options, when compared in pairs :

[…]

Count Before                 vs        Count Before in Whole Document
Count After                  vs        Count After in Whole Document

Find All Before              vs        Find All Before in Whole Document
Find All After               vs        Find All After in Whole Document

Select Before                vs        Select Before in Whole Document
Select After                 vs        Select After in Whole Document

Mark Before                  vs        Mark Before in Whole Document
Mark After                   vs        Mark After in Whole Document

Show Before                  vs        Show Before in Whole Document
Show After                   vs        Show After in Whole Document

[…]

Replace All Before           vs        Replace All Before in Whole Document
Replace All Aftrt            vs        Replace All After in Whole Document

Now that I think about it some more, it seems like I could simplify this by removing all the Before and After search commands that don’t include a scope (in Selection, in Marked Text or in Whole Document). I don’t think anyone is going to want to make a before or after command the one-click action for a button; and otherwise, once you have to select from a menu anyway, why not select what you mean instead of selecting something that’s going to infer what you want?

Thanks again, Guy, for looking at this so carefully and pointing out the confusing and redundant parts.

If no one thinks it’s a bad idea, I’ll probably remove the unscoped Before and After searches in the next release.

guy038

Hi, @coises and All,

@coises, I read carefully your last two posts and many thanks for all your explanations !

Regarding your point #3 :

You said :

I’m questioning the sense of that now. I’m thinking that if the user specifies “in selection” or ”in marked text,” and there is none, the search should fail with a message like “No marked text to search”

Indeed, it quite disturbing for example that, when no selection and no marked text exists, the Count in selection or Count in Marked Text options still return all the matches of current document ! Give it a try, searching for the insensitive word fix within the last change.log file ( You should get 32 matches ! )

So I support your idea that, in this specific case, the search should fail with the message No marked text to search or No selection to search

Regarding your point #1 :

I totally understand your logic. This make sense !

Regarding your point #2

You began with :

Mark commands that don’t specify a scope …

Are we agree that you’re speaking about the Mark Before and Mark after options ONLY ? Presently, as you said, these two commands, not restricted to a scope, search throughout all file contents.

Now, as expressed in your very last post, I do support your idea to avoid any command, containing Before or After, that do not include a scope ( in Selection, in marked Text and in Whole Document ). Thus, that should solve automatically this problem ;-))

One question :

Let’s suppose the v8.9.3 change.log in a tab
Now, enter the regex (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R) in the Search dialog
Click on the ▼, after the defeautl Find All option
Run the Mark > Mark in Whole Document option

=> Message : Marked 4 matches

Now, with the (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R) regex still present in the Find dialog
Run the Mark > Mark in Marked Text option

=> We get the message No matches found in marked text. Is this coherent, @coises ?. To my mind, I was expecting the message 4 matches in marked text !

Of course, I know that, normally, I should have changed the search, in between ! For example :

Write the (?i)fix regex, in the Find dialog
Run again the Mark > Mark in Marked Text option

=> The fix word, whatever its case, is now marked, from all the previous marked regions, ONLY !

You’ll note that the fix string within all the lines beginning with Notepad++, which were not concerned by the previous search, are not marked, as expected !

Regarding the Remove marks from all open documents and Remove marks from documents in this view options, in the Tools dialog :

Could you move them to an other place of the Tools dialog, in order to not be close to the Remove marks from active document option, that we’ll probably use more often ?

OR :

Could you add a confirmation dialog for these two specific options ?

Best regards

guy038

Coises

@guy038 said in Search++: A work in progress:

Regarding your point #2

You began with :

Mark commands that don’t specify a scope …

Are we agree that you’re speaking about the Mark Before and Mark after options ONLY ? Presently, as you said, these two commands, not restricted to a scope, search throughout all file contents.

It applies to the plain Mark command, too. If there is a non-empty selection (that’s “large enough” per Settings), Mark will perform Mark in Selection (not possible for Mark Before and Mark After). But none of the three will perform Mark […] in Marked Text; that has to be selected explicitly. The same isn’t true for Select; if there is an existing selection (large enough), Select will perform Select in selection. What I was thinking is that perhaps this difference between Mark and Select should be “explained” by having an additional setting for each action, enabled only when Automatically search within {selections | marked text} is checked, that controls whether the matching command is an exception (that is, Select doesn’t perform Selection in Selection, or Mark doesn’t perform Mark in Marked Text). The current behavior would have the “except Select” box unchecked and the “except Mark” box checked.

It comes down to: What do you want to do when you say Select and there’s already a selection, or you say Mark and there’s already marked text? Do you replace the existing selection or marks? add to them? or search within them?

And when I put it that way… I have to think this through some more. From a user’s perspective, the Settings I have are too difficult to figure out. I’m having trouble getting a clear picture of what settings make sense with what other settings and I wrote the damn thing. :-(

Now, as expressed in your very last post, I do support your idea to avoid any command, containing Before or After, that do not include a scope ( in Selection, in marked Text and in Whole Document ). Thus, that should solve automatically this problem ;-))

It would get rid of some of the problem, but not all of it. Where I’m stuck is that I really want there to be “adaptive” commands (the plain Count, Find All, etc.) that recognize when the user would want to search in a selection or in marked text, so they can be the one-click action on a button. Alas, there’s that fundamental design flaw in all computers thus far produced: the RUM (“read user’s mind”) instruction was never implemented. It could be that making an appropriate guess is hopeless. But I really don’t want an oversized, cluttered interface with a matrix of 20 buttons, and I really don’t want users to have to select operations they use often or repeatedly from button menus. So, at least for a while, I’m going to keep trying.

I appreciate your feedback on these issues very much. Anything you, or anyone, can tell me about what works smoothly and what is difficult to use or doesn’t work as expected is helpful.

Now, enter the regex (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R) in the Search dialog

Click on the ▼, after the defeautl Find All option

Run the Mark > Mark in Whole Document option

=> Message : Marked 4 matches

Now, with the (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R) regex still present in the Find dialog

Run the Mark > Mark in Marked Text option

=> We get the message No matches found in marked text. Is this coherent, @coises ?. To my mind, I was expecting the message 4 matches in marked text !

I did document this, but it’s easily missed:

For a regular expression search, each run of marked text is searched independently; the search in any span of marked text cannot “see” outside that span. This affects the behavior of assertions (including word boundaries, lookaheads and lookbehinds, ^ and $).

The search in Columns++ has the same limitation. I couldn’t figure out a practical way to make it work other than this way.

Regarding the Remove marks from all open documents and Remove marks from documents in this view options, in the Tools dialog :

Could you move them to an other place of the Tools dialog, in order to not be close to the Remove marks from active document option, that we’ll probably use more often ?

OR :

Could you add a confirmation dialog for these two specific options ?

I will work out something so they won’t be easily clicked by accident.

guy038

Hi, @coises and All,

Oh… My God ! I forgot about the Find All, Select, Mark and Show options, which do not have any scope, too !

So, in summary :

Regarding the scope :
- If this icon appears, before the button label, the Default scope will be used
- if this icon appears, before the button label, the Whole Document scope will be used
- if this icon appears, before the button label, the in Selection scope will be used
- If this icon appears, before the button label, the in Marked Text sope will be used
Regarding the extent :
- If this icon appears, after the button label, the Forward extent will be used
- If this icon appears, after the button label, the Backward extent will be used
- If this icon appears, after the button label, the Before extent will be used
- If this icon appears, after the button label, the After extent will be used
- If this icon appears, after the button label, the Any extent will be used
- If this icon appears, after the button label, the All Docs extent will be used
- If thisi con appears, after the button label, the Current View extent will be used

Regarding your question :

What do you want to do when you say Select and there’s already a selection, or you say Mark and there’s already marked text? Do you replace the existing selection or marks? add to them? or search within them?

To my mind, I would say :

Regarding Marked text
- Add current marked text region(s) to existing one(s) and operate within the union of all these searched regions as Search++ does presently. If we don’t want to keep previous marked region(s), we can simply use one of the three Tools > Remove Marks from... options, first

Regarding selections :
That’s not the same story ! Indeed, for any command that does not delete the current selection(s), like Count in Selection, Find All in Selection , Select in Selection, Mark in Selection, Show in Selection, and Replace All in Selection : no problem. Thus :
- Add current selection(s) to existing one(s) and operate within the union of all these selections as Search++ does presently. If we don’t want to keep previous selection(s), we can simply put the caret anywhere in current document, first

Note this tip regarding the Show command : after running your first Show in Selection option, you can use the Tools > Show all Lines option, to display all the document again, and then, add new selection(s) and, finally, run again the Show in Selection option !

Now, for any command that cancels all previous selection(s), like the Find in Selection option, the Replace and Find in Selection option and the Find or Replace in Selection option, they seem to act on the whole document, anyway !

Strictly speaking, to handle properly this case, you should keep a map of the beginning and end of EACH selection, in current document ! Probably not easy with huge documents and a nightmare because of all possible types of selection :-((

It’s worth noting that, within Notepad++, the In selection possibilities are restricted to these 5 actions, ONLY :

The Count action
The Find All in current Document action
The Replace All action
The Mark All action
The Clear all marks action

BTW, why the choice between the Replace and Find... options and the Find or Replace... options is not placed in the Settings dialog, like within Notepad++ ? This would simplify some menus !

I understand, now, why the Mark in Whole document option returns 4 matches and the Mark in Marked Text option returns No matches found in marked text. Once any marked text exists, that means that any other operation will consider this marked text ONLY

Thus, as current document is the last change.log file and the current regex in Find dialog is (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R), the total amount of marked text is, indeed, the text below :

 1. Regression fix: a crash in User Defined Language.
 2. Regression fix: installing (or removing) plugin re-opens Notepad++ with permanent admin privilege.
 3. Regression-fix: wrongly added parenthesis for some multi-bytes characters.
 4. Regression-fix: incorrect function list text display for non-UTF8 documents.
 5. Regression-fix: ProjectPanel Workspace text localization issue.
 6. Regression-fix: Change History margin not enabled by default.
 7. Regression-fix: Notepad++ update & plugin download fail behind corporate MITM proxies.
 8. Security enhancement: Update cURL to v8.19.0 in auto-updater (WinGUp) to fix cURL security issue (CVE-2025-14819).
 9. Improve performance by migrating the XML parser from TinyXML to pugixml.
10. Update Scintilla to 5.6.0 & Lexilla to 5.4.7.
11. Fix the issue where printing caused Notepad++ to crash.
12. Fix Find in Files failing to search file content on disk.
13. Add disableNppAutoUpdate.xml to disable auto-update when WinGUp (GUP.exe) is present.
14. Fix a memory leak on exit.
15. Fix installed auto-completion files not overwritten after update.
16. Add model capacity of shortcuts.xml & contexMenu.xml for administration.
17. Add an option to disable selected text drag-and-drop.
18. Fix wrong theme-writing path for non-ProgramFiles installations.
19. Enhancement: prevent XML config files from being overwritten when updating portable package (copy/paste).
20. Fix incomplete Find dialg tab translation when 1st opêned from Project Panels.
21. Fix Notepad++ spawning a new Windows Explorer process in Task Manager.
22. Add Function List & Autocompletion for D language.
 1. Security enhancement: Make updater check interity & authenticity of server-returned XML (XMLDsig).
 2. Security enhancement: Fix untrusted search path vulnerability (CVE-2026-25926) by launching explorer.exe.
 3. Security enhancement: Make auto-updater (WinGUp) even more secured (Remove dll dependency & unscured options).
 4. Fix a plugin installation crash due to incorrect processing catch.
 5. Add redact selection feature - Default: █, Modifier (Shift + Click): ●.
 6. Fix context menu shortcut localization not aligning to the right regression.
 1. Fix EOL duplication regression when playing back old recorded macros.
 2. Remedy search failure for pasted text containing trailing invisible EOL character.
 3. Fix customized context menu regression where separator (id="0") escapes FolderName submenu.
 4. Fix issue where a single undo reverted multiple changes after macro execution.
 5. Fix visual glitch when dragging dockable dialogs on a 2nd monitor.
 6. Fix inconsistent automatic search mode switching (RegEx to Extended) in Find dialog.
 7. Fix incorrect URL parsing caused by Unicode special spaces.
 8. Update to Boost 1.90.0.
 9. Improve update themes feature: fix JavaScript.js edge case.
10. Update javascript.js to better match javascript (embedded) in all themes.
11. Function List: enhance for Perl & PHP; add for Nim.
12. Fix comments and highlighting in TCL.
13. Update perl keywords and autocomplete for 5.42.
14. Improvement: display Find dialog status message with invisible characters warning.
 1.  NppExport v0.4
 2.  Converter v4.7
 3.  Mime Tool v3.1

And it’s easy to verify that the regex cannot produce any match as no empty line exists ( the look-ahead (?=^\R) ), in this text, to limit the search scope !

Now, @coises, we can trick your plugin by modifying the regex to search !! Here’s how, just for fun :

First, use the Tools > Remove marks from active document
Type in the regex (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R)|(?<=[.1]\r\n)\R in the Find dialog

You’ll note that , this time, we also search for any line-break if prececed with .\r\n or 1\r\n

Click on the ▼ of the Find All button
Choose the Mark option

=> Message Marked 8 matches ( So the previous 4 zones of text and the 4 line-breaks )

Now, change the present regex, in the Find dialog, by the regex (?si) 1.+?(?=^\R)
Click on the ▼ of the Count button
Run the Count in Marked Text option. Bingo : we do get the message 4 matches in marked text

-And, if we use the default Find button, it does matches, succcessivly, 4 bunches of text ;-))

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

@guy038 said in Search++: A work in progress:

Now, for any command that cancels all previous selection(s), like the Find in Selection option, the Replace and Find in Selection option and the Find or Replace in Selection option, they seem to act on the whole document, anyway !

Not quite (unless there’s a bug). The first match (meaning first in time) will be the first match (meaning top/left) in the selection for a forward find, or the last match in the selection for a backward find.

After that, the selection is lost. However:

Strictly speaking, to handle properly this case, you should keep a map of the beginning and end of EACH selection, in current document ! Probably not easy with huge documents and a nightmare because of all possible types of selection :-((

That came up in the discussion @Alan-Kilborn and I had when I was working out search in Columns++. Later in that discussion, Alan mentioned the idea of marking text, which became the basis for how search in Columns++ works.

In Search++, there is an option is in the Settings dialog: Convert selections to marked text before beginning a stepwise search. This applies only when you use a stepwise command without a scope specified (default scope); so, if that option is checked, Find when there is a selection (but no marked text) will convert the selection to marked text and search within the marked text, but Find in Selection won’t.

BTW, why the choice between the Replace and Find... options and the Find or Replace... options is not placed in the Settings dialog, like within Notepad++ ? This would simplify some menus !

My thought was that users might change their mind about whether they want to see what the replacement did before moving on; for example, with a complicated regex replacement, perhaps at first wanting to see each replacement in context, then if they seem to be working as expected, start skipping forward to the next candidate for replacement.

guy038

Hello, @coises,

For the last time this season, I went skiing with two friends, just three hours, because the snow conditions started to deteriorate in the afternoon. Our previous outing, last week, was great because it was much colder that day !

Let’s back on topic ;-))

You said :

Not quite (unless there’s a bug). The first match (meaning first in time) will be the first match (meaning top/left) in the selection for a forward find, or the last match in the selection for a backward find.

After that, the selection is lost. However:

So, I agree with you that the very first match is correct and expected, but all the subsequent ones are not !

But, luckily, you add :

In Search++, there is an option is in the Settings dialog: Convert selections to marked text before beginning a stepwise search. This applies only when you use a stepwise command without a scope specified (default scope); so, if that option is checked, Find when there is a selection (but no marked text) will convert the selection to marked text and search within the marked text, but Find in Selection won’t.

Ah… very instructive, indeed. So, we have a mean to look within selections ONLY, if we check the Convert selections to marked text before beginning a stepwise search, in the Settings dialog. It will automatically cancel the selection(s) and replace them with some equivalent Marked text regions. I tested that feature : nice !

Regarding the choice between the two options Replace and Find and Find or Replace :

You said :

My thought was that users might change their mind about whether they want to see what the replacement did before moving on; for example, with a complicated regex replacement, perhaps at first wanting to see each replacement in context, then if they seem to be working as expected, start skipping forward to the next candidate for replacement.

I do understand your point of view ! Now, I’m thinking about an other solution :

In settings, you would create a new option :

How many times you want to [ immediately ] check the result of replacements, with the possible values :

Never
Always
A digit from 1 to 9

So :

In case of the Never answer, the usual Find And Replace would be used
In case of the Always answer, it would be like when the Replace : Don't move to the following occurrence option is checked, in Settings > Preferences > Searching of native N++
In case of a digit answer, between 1 to 9, the first replacements would act as the Find or Replace options of Search++ and all the next replacements would act as the Replace and Find options of Search++

And, to my mind, a default value of 3 would be appropriate !

Best Regards,

guy038

Coises

Search++ version 0.5.2 addresses a number of issues:

Fix display of Settings: Mark style drop-down in dark mode. (@Snabel42: this should fix the problem you described here.)
Add a dialog to resist accidentally clicking the Tools menu options to remove marks from documents in view or from all open documents. (per @guy038, last point here)
Rearrange Settings dialog and add four new settings:
- Fill after Search… menu command or shortcut even if search dialog is already visible.
- Allow default Select command to Select in Selection.
- When eligible selection and marks are present, default search is within selection.
- Allow default Mark command to Mark in Marked Text.
Make commands that explicitly specify in Selection or in Marked Text show a failure message (rather than fall back to in Whole Document) if there is no selection or marked text.
Remove Before and After commands without an explicit scope from command button menus.
Apply the action Convert selections to marked text when beginning a default stepwise search only when the search finds a match.
Change names of stepwise replace commands to Replace (then find) and Replace (then wait).
Fix adding to selection not working when the selection is a rectangular selection. Add note to help regarding unexpected results when adding to existing selections.
Update and clarify documentation, particularly the Search commands and Settings sections.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this discussion so far! Search++ still has a lot of rough spots and omissions, but it’s getting better.

Vitalii Dovgan

@Coises
Thank you for the update!
My next suggestion may ruin one of the initial purposes of Search++, but maybe you’ll find it useful anyway? Here it is: the “icudt78.dll” is a big DLL with a size of 32 MB, and when I think about a portable version of Notepad++, I usually consider a portable and small version of Notepad++. Correspondingly, what do you think about an attempt to load the “icudt78.dll” at runtime and if it is not available then just disable the “ICU” button and allow the rest of the plugin to operate normally?

Coises

@Vitalii-Dovgan said in Search++: A work in progress:

My next suggestion may ruin one of the initial purposes of Search++, but maybe you’ll find it useful anyway? Here it is: the “icudt78.dll” is a big DLL with a size of 32 MB, and when I think about a portable version of Notepad++, I usually consider a portable and small version of Notepad++. Correspondingly, what do you think about an attempt to load the “icudt78.dll” at runtime and if it is not available then just disable the “ICU” button and allow the rest of the plugin to operate normally?

Regex search also depends on ICU, so I can’t really make it optional.

One of the major “under the hood” changes I made when I built Search++ based on the search in Columns++ was to use ICU for all the Unicode properties instead of the rather hacked-together approach I used in Columns++. The underlying engine in both search in Columns++ and Regex search in Search++ is Boost.Regex, with a considerable amount of customization to make it work well with Scintilla and with Unicode.

I’m really hesitant to reverse that, as the ICU properties are more accurate and easier to update when Unicode releases new versions, while the Columns++ approach is tricky and a bit fragile, and still doesn’t get everything right.

However, as you note, it does increase the size: that one dll is over six times the size of the plugin dll. It also appears that the current version of the ICU4C dll files (at least the pre-compiled ones) don’t work on Windows 7 (and presumably Windows 8).

So… I suppose it’s possible that at some point I’ll try to undo the use of ICU and go back to the cobbled-together approach, but this time get it right. I can’t hold out hope that it will happen soon, nor promise that it will happen at all.

Edit to add:

I included the ICU search mostly for testing. ICU’s native search doesn’t integrate well with Scintilla, and it lacks some of the syntax familiar to Notepad++ users from Boost.Regex. Since I haven’t manipulated its search process at all, results from ICU searches can serve as a check on whether Regex is properly implemented (allowing for expected/intentional differences). I might remove it before Search++ comes out of pre-release status; but @guy038 has expressed hope that I will leave it in, so it will probably remain, perhaps hidden in some way.