[OS X TeX] Re: find in texshop - wishlist
Michael S. Hanson
mshanson at wesleyan.edu
Mon May 16 16:17:42 CEST 2005
On May 16, 2005, at 4:15 AM, Lawrence Paulson wrote:
> I'd like to second requests 1 and 4.
>
> On the other hand, 3 would end the common practice of selecting a
> search string to paste into the Find box.
No, it would not: it would simply change the default in the Find
dialogue from "Entire File" to "Selection" whenever a block of text was
currently highlighted. One could always manually over-ride that
selection before executing the search. (Or click outside the
highlighted area before searching.)
Having used an editor that changes the scope of the find/replace
automatically in the past, I agree with Themis that this behavior is
actually desirable and a real time saver once you incorporate it into
your workflow. As a result, I now find it frustrating / infuriating
when I think I am going to change text just in a selection and end up
affecting the whole document. (BBEdit in particular comes to mind....)
I suppose a refinement would be for the editor to change the scope to
"selection" only when a LF or CR was included in the interior of the
selected string -- that might more directly address Larry's concern.
Personally, I prefer the behavior that Themis describes because I find
it better to not change things you mean to change (and thus simply
execute the find/replace a second time on the broader scope) than to
change things you did not mean to change (and thus have to undo one or
more changes, re-locate the selection in which the change is to be
applied, re-execute the find/replace on this narrow scope, then "re-do"
any subsequent changes since the erroneous find/replace). I also find
this behavior consistent with the Macintosh philosophy (largely lost on
OS X, it seems) that destructive changes should not be defaults, all
else equal.
Reasonable people can disagree on the configuration of GUI defaults;
I simply wanted to clarify Larry's interpretation, and provide some
rationale for why some folks might prefer the behavior for which Themis
has advocated. As well as, perhaps, a second for his "motion."
> On 16 May 2005, at 01:00, TeX on Mac OS X Mailing List wrote:
>
>> Subject: find in texshop - wishlist
>> From: "Themis Matsoukas" <matsoukas at adelphia.net>
>> Date: Sat, 14 May 2005 20:25:12 -0400
>>
>> 1. When I search in Texshop for a string, I hit apple-F and start
>> typing the string. The Find panel, however, remembers the last string
>> and *appends* the typing to the old string. It would be better if the
>> find panel opened with the old string *selected* so that any new
>> typing
>> writes over the old.
>>
>> 3. It would be nice if Find would automatically switch to "Scope
>> Selection", if some text is already selected.
>>
>> 4. Could we change "Less Options" to "Fewer Options"?
I concur!
-- Mike
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