The problem with Finding what is selected

Several months ago there was an uproar concerning RDi's behavior when ctrl-f was pressed. The problem was that folks wanted the selected text to be inserted as the search term. So now the selected text is used as the search term when ctrl-f is pressed. Unfortunately, we now have two less than optimal consequences of this. First, if a large block is selected, the ctrl-f search term is large, and I have to replace it with what I really want to search for. Not always a big deal, but if I want to search for something within a selected block of text "Restrict search to selection", the thing I want to search for is never the selection, but some smaller portion of the selection. I can still work around that though. The second issue is a bigger deal. If I want to do a search and replace within a selection, and I want to see the lines my search term will select, I have to:
1. select a block of source
2. do ctrl-f
3. clear the search term as it contains the selected block
4. type the real search term (this can be combined with #3)
5. alt-a to filter on my search terms.
6. Inspect selected lines to ensure there is no unexpected changes that will occur with my replace

If everything is OK, I have to do steps 1-4 again as alt-a has cleared my selection, and ctrl-f will loose my last search term because I am searching within a selection.

Then I can type my replace string, and select "Replace all".

This all used to be much simpler.

1. select a block of source
2. do ctrl-f (make sure "Restrict search to selection is selected")
3. Type search term
4. alt-a
5. inspect selected lines
6. type replace string
7. alt-e to replace all within the selection

I don't remember having to reselect after alt-a, and I certainly did not have to retype my search terms (I would not appreciate this much at all if I was using regular expressions).

I am not advocating removing the behavior where the current selection is used as the search term except when "Restrict search to selection" is active, and possibly when the selection is too large, maybe more than a single line. I also would prefer that alt-a did not clear the initial selection when "Restrict search to selection" is active. May need to save that initial selection in the background in some way, but having to backtrack through my use case and force retyping search terms negates any search term validation I do using alt-a.

Mark Murphy
STAR BASE Consulting, Inc.
mmurphy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx