Suggestion for Find/Replace + Bookmarking enhancement - Spider Writer Suggestions and Support Forum

Posted 23 years ago by Lynn

I really like Spider Writer after just using it for a couple of hours today.

I am updating an ASP page where I need to remove all references and functionality specific to a couple of variables. So I used the Find feature to identify each occurrence of the variables and wrote down their line numbers so I can go back and make all the necessary changes. This sparked an idea.

Here's a way to make the Bookmark feature even more valuable:

1. Add a button to the Find/Replace dialogs that says something to the effect of "Bookmark all Occurrences".

2. When the Find textbox has text in it but the Replace textbox is empty, enable the "Bookmark all Occurrences" button - otherwise disable it (unless you want to make the button dynamically change captions to say something like "Replace and Bookmark all Occurrences")

3. When the "Bookmark all Occurrences" button is pressed, add Bookmarks for all lines that contain occurrences of the search string.

It would also be nice to have a "clear all Bookmarks" button or menu option...but maybe one already exists and I haven't found it yet.

Thanks,

Lynn

Comments (3)

Posted 23 years ago by Actipro Software Support - Cleveland, OH, USA

Lynn,

Thanks for the idea. It is a good one however I can see one problem. Only 10 bookmarks are supported and if there were more than 10 occurrences, only the first 10 would show thus misleading the user. There might be an alternative. What if we were able to mark the text somehow similar to the LiveSpell feature but maybe in a different color. Would that suffice? I'd have to check into the feasibility.

There currently isn't a clear all bookmarks command but I'll add that to the "to do" list.

Actipro Software Support

Posted 23 years ago by Lynn

I didn't realize that there was a 10-bookmark limit...but it makes sense after seeing how each Bookmark icon has only enough room for a single digit.

Highlighting the text (or maybe highlighting the entire line...like in VB when you add a breakpoint, the entire line gets reversed text in red.) would be an equally useful solution. And it isn't like you have to implement every suggestion that everyone makes...anyone who writes software knows that it isn't feasible to build every possible feature into a program. You guys have a great product as it is.

Thanks,

Lynn

Posted 23 years ago by Actipro Software Support - Cleveland, OH, USA

That is another possibility. You are right with your take on implementing suggestions. Our list of things to add is quite large. We like to get as much information from users as to what they want to see, then we categories the ideas by feasibility and value, and try to knock them out one by one.

Actipro Software Support

The latest build of this product (v5.2.0) was released 23 years ago, which was after the last post in this thread.