Hello all,
While working with Wordpad, I came to the realisation that, after having started a seach/replce thru the dialog, while F3 searches the next match, I have no idea what the key for replace-and-find-next-match would be.
... that is, if it exists.
Does anyone know ?
Newsgroups: alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
The problem is that Windows was designed for people who can use a mouse,
Each of the buttons on the 'Replace' dialog has one underlined letter.
people who can use a mouse, but you don't have one.
Rod,
Each of the buttons on the 'Replace' dialog has one underlined letter.
I know. But imagine the sequence of (special) keystrokes if the found text needs to be modified (not replaced).
* Use a special key combo to switch from the "replace" dialog to the text
* Edit the text.
* Use a special key combo to switch back to the "replace" dialog.
* Press the ctrl-H combo for next occurence
In the case of searching its, after dismissing the "find" dialog, just two steps :
* Edit the text
* Press F3 for next occurence
"For some reason or another" I would like to replace the first list with something similar to the last one.
Regards,
Rudy Wieser
Hello all,It's CTRL+H !!
While working with Wordpad, I came to the realisation that, after having started a seach/replce thru the dialog, while F3 searches the next match, I have no idea what the key for replace-and-find-next-match would be.
... that is, if it exists.
While working with Wordpad, I came to the realisation that, after havingIt's CTRL+H !!
started a seach/replce thru the dialog, while F3 searches the next match, >> I
have no idea what the key for replace-and-find-next-match would be.
... that is, if it exists.
If you first copy your "new" text to the clipboard you can use F3 and
Ctrl-V to search and replace
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
Just as F3 only works when the "find" dialog has been closed, CTRLl-H only works when the "replace" dialog is open *and* focussed.
On 3/19/2026 7:39 PM, R.Wieser wrote:
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
Just as F3 only works when the "find" dialog has been closed, CTRLl-H only >> works when the "replace" dialog is open *and* focussed.
No, it works, but make sure the cursor is in the text, that is when the
edit window is activated or in focus (technically speaking).
Just type something, then click on a letter, press CTRL+H.
Just as F3 only works when the "find" dialog has been closed,
CTRLl-H only works when the "replace" dialog is open *and* focussed.
No, it works, but make sure the cursor is in the text, that is when the
edit window is activated or in focus (technically speaking).
When you just open Wordpad, the focus is in the menu, not the
text-editing box.
Than your worpad is different from mine, as mine focusses the text-editing box (the cursor is blinking, I can directly type stuff, etc).ha.... my bad. If there is no text in the edit box, CTRL+H will just
Yes, CTRL-H does pop-up the "replace" dialog. Thats not the issue.With the Replace dialogue window active, press ALT+R for "_R_eplace"!
What is, is that I can't find a key/key-combo that will repeat, when the "replace" dialog has been closed, a replace-and-search-next-match, just like F3 will repeat a search-next-match.
How to do the same *without* the Replace windows closd? Google for it,Correction:
maybe with A.I.!
Than your worpad is different from mine, as mine focusses the
text-editing
box (the cursor is blinking, I can directly type stuff, etc).
ha.... my bad. If there is no text in the edit box, CTRL+H will just
ignore me and do nothing. :)
F3 will repeat a search-next-match.
With the Replace dialogue window active, press ALT+R for "_R_eplace"!
How to do the same *without* the Replace windows closd?
Google for it,
Ha, a tit-for-tat : I make a mistake, and you make one to balance it out.
:-)
I'm sorry to say that ALT-R doesn't work ever for me (I just tried). NotIt's strange that Micro$oft didn't use F3 to repeat find-and-replace
whe the Replace dialog is showing and focussed, not when its showing but un-focussed, not after it has been closed.
I don't usually use WordPad. Always went for Word instead. :)
It's strange that Micro$oft didn't use F3 to repeat find-and-replace just like find. Maybe M$ considered Wordpad a dead project. Dunno!
Maybe M$ considered Wordpad a dead project. Dunno!
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
I don't usually use WordPad. Always went for Word instead. :)
On my machine (XPsp3) WordPad.exe is just over 200 KByte. Word.exe is less than 6 KByte. Which does mesh with what I heard that the latter is is just a wrapper to start the former. iow, they are the same program.
It just pulled word.exe thru a disassembler, and it indeed does a ShellExecute of wordpad.exe.
Regards,
Rudy Wieser
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
It's strange that Micro$oft didn't use F3 to repeat find-and-replace just >> like find. Maybe M$ considered Wordpad a dead project. Dunno!
Not that strange. F3 would be the replace-dialogs version of Ctrl-F. Its just Ctrl-R that doesn't have a similar key.
Maybe M$ considered Wordpad a dead project. Dunno!
There are quite a few things they didn't do or did I've got my questions about. Probably will never have an answer to them either. :-)
... like why notepad can search upward, but write/wordpad can't. Especially when the EM_FINDTEXT(EX) message/function doing the actual searching doesn't seem to have a problem with it.
Regards,
Rudy Wieser
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
Than your worpad is different from mine, as mine focusses the
text-editing
box (the cursor is blinking, I can directly type stuff, etc).
ha.... my bad. If there is no text in the edit box, CTRL+H will just
ignore me and do nothing. :)
Ha, a tit-for-tat : I make a mistake, and you make one to balance it out. :-)
Regards,
Rudy Wieser
On my machine (XPsp3) WordPad.exe is just over 200 KByte. Word.exe is less than 6 KByte. Which does mesh with what I heard that the latter is is justWhat version of Windows are you using? Gotta be an old one! :)
a wrapper to start the former. iow, they are the same program.
Yes, the lack of ability to change direction of search, in other things,
is sad. (Though it has a disconcerting ability to _remember_ the
direction! I've sometimes been in a file I _know_ contains the string
I'm looking for, and am at the top of the document and it isn't finding
it, then I notice it's set to Up!)
A variation of one of those golden rules of usenet and similar fora: if
you pick someone up on a spelling or grammar error, you'll make one -
often a worse one - in your post pointing it out.
Back when there was no electronic word processors, imagine you made a
mistak at the end of typing a very long essay using a mechanical
typewriter. Okay, you only need to re-type one page. :)
One should expect others to make a few mistakes. Not everyone is a
scholar.
What version of Windows are you using? Gotta be an old one! :)
I think both Wordstar 4(DOS) and Vi Editor(Unix) can search backward. Not 100% sure!! :)
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
What version of Windows are you using? Gotta be an old one! :)
What do you mean old ? It was only in 2017 that I binned Win98 (had little choice, the motherboard died and W98 drivers for the new one could not be found) and advanced to XP. Thats just 9 years ago! :-)
Joking aside, just as with W98, XP still does what I need it for.
Norton Editor (v1.3b, 1986), which I'm still using almost daily, allows reversal of the search direction at will (different "continue search next" and "continue search previous" keystrokes).Then I have to mention Qedit which uses WordStar 3.3 style hotkeys. I
For replacements it can do that in either direction, but will than continue in that direction.
Yep, a rather nice flat text-editor - even if its already 40 years old.
I am using Win 10. So my Wordpad is very different from yours. Even the
menu bar is completely different. :)
On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:52 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
[snip]
Back when there was no electronic word processors, imagine you made a
mistak at the end of typing a very long essay using a mechanical
typewriter. Okay, you only need to re-type one page. :)
And there's "liquid paper" which if used incorrectly can turn your essay
into a useless sticky mess.
And it did stay the same ! That key doesn't exist in my ancient XP, and doesn't exist in your W10 either ! :-)
On 3/20/2026 10:34 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
A variation of one of those golden rules of usenet and similar fora: if
you pick someone up on a spelling or grammar error, you'll make one -
often a worse one - in your post pointing it out.
Back when there was no electronic word processors, imagine you made a
mistak at the end of typing a very long essay using a mechanical
typewriter. Okay, you only need to re-type one page. :)
One should expect others to make a few mistakes. Not everyone is a scholar.
Mr. Man-wai Chang,
I think both Wordstar 4(DOS) and Vi Editor(Unix) can search backward. Not >> 100% sure!! :)
Norton Editor (v1.3b, 1986), which I'm still using almost daily, allows reversal of the search direction at will (different "continue search next" and "continue search previous" keystrokes).
For replacements it can do that in either direction, but will than continue in that direction.
Yep, a rather nice flat text-editor - even if its already 40 years old.
Regards,
Rudy Wieser
I mention that last because I've remembered that Edge (and IIRR Chrome)
do it too, but _don't_ stop.
On 2026/3/20 16:0:52, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
On 3/20/2026 10:34 PM, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
A variation of one of those golden rules of usenet and similar fora: if
you pick someone up on a spelling or grammar error, you'll make one -
often a worse one - in your post pointing it out.
Back when there was no electronic word processors, imagine you made a
mistak at the end of typing a very long essay using a mechanical
typewriter. Okay, you only need to re-type one page. :)
As Mark has pointed out, there was correcting fluid - Tipp-Ex and Liquid Paper in UK, White-Out in US. And the fancier electric typewriters that
used film one-time ribbons had a delete key, like the thing you
described, that used adhesive tape to lift the erroneous character.
They're of roughly two types though: the simple typo, which can be
One should expect others to make a few mistakes. Not everyone is a scholar. >>
ignored or picked up and run with - another 'group I take does that, to
the extent that we have several 'group memes: a male spouse is always referred to there as a husbad, and the Brian character (it's a 'group
about a soap) is always referred to as Biriani. The other type pf error
is the spelling or grammatical error which - often because it's repeated
- makes it clear that the poster is under the impression that what they
typed is correct. One could ignore those too, but I like to _help_ the
poster (to not continue to appear ignorant of the error) - but I usually _try_ not to do so in just a telling-off or showing-off way, but
humorously, in the hope this will help them (and others reading, if it's
a common error) remember.
On 3/21/2026 1:47 AM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 00:00:52 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
[snip]
Back when there was no electronic word processors, imagine you made a
mistak at the end of typing a very long essay using a mechanical
typewriter. Okay, you only need to re-type one page. :)
And there's "liquid paper" which if used incorrectly can turn your
essay into a useless sticky mess.
I think There was correction paper. You place it on the error, then type
the same letters as the error, so as to punch the white "powder" off the correction paper and stick to the error.
I forgot its proper name. It's been decades ago. :)
On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 20:57:06 +0800, Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:[]
I think There was correction paper. You place it on the error, then type
the same letters as the error, so as to punch the white "powder" off the
correction paper and stick to the error.
I forgot its proper name. It's been decades ago. :)
I seem to remember a typewriter that had a color selector that could be
set to black, red, or white. There was no write ribbon. That setting would bypass the ribbon completely, IIRC for the correction paper.
John,
I mention that last because I've remembered that Edge (and IIRR Chrome)
do it too, but _don't_ stop.
I'm assuming those do not offer a "replace all" choice, or if they do make it a special case. It would be no fun when trying to change (for example) a single dash into two of them, only to have the program crash ...
It would be a rather "clbuttic" mistake. :-)
Regards,
Rudy Wieser
Correcting fluid didn't really have that high an attach rate.
Most of the time, any tech like that, would be "dried out"
or "half working" when you needed it. And people who typed
for a living tended to start from scratch, rather than
produce a sheet of work that smelled like a distillery because
of correction fluid.
When our secretary was given a "machine with two floppy drives",
she refused to use it as intended, and still ran the damn
thing like an Underwood. She wouldn't save the work to floppy
and reload, so that the error situation would be convergent
and eventually you'd get a "perfect copy". I think you can
imagine how that nerve in my face was twitching while this
was going on :-)
On Sat, 21 Mar 2026 11:30:46 -0400, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote:
Correcting fluid didn't really have that high an attach rate.
Most of the time, any tech like that, would be "dried out"
or "half working" when you needed it. And people who typed
for a living tended to start from scratch, rather than
produce a sheet of work that smelled like a distillery because
of correction fluid.
Reminds me of the blonde joke where she put the white-out on the
computer monitor. Worked fine until she scrolled or printed, I suppose.
When our secretary was given a "machine with two floppy drives",
she refused to use it as intended, and still ran the damn
thing like an Underwood. She wouldn't save the work to floppy
and reload, so that the error situation would be convergent
and eventually you'd get a "perfect copy". I think you can
imagine how that nerve in my face was twitching while this
was going on :-)
In the very early days of office PCs, I had a coworker who saved her
daily report on a 5.25" floppy assigned to her for the purpose. About 3 months later, she starts asking around, wanting to know why she can't
save her reports anymore. Turned out that she was using her name as the filename root, followed by two digits. Marsha1.txt to Marsha99.txt were
ok, but Marsha100.txt broke the 8.3 limit. Mystery solved. She couldn't understand the concept of a new directory, so she was given a new
floppy.
...I'm assuming those do not offer a "replace all" choice, or if they do
make
it a special case. It would be no fun when trying to change (for
example)
a single dash into two of them, only to have the program crash ...
I'm talking about the just "find" function in Edge and Chrome - they
don't offer editing facilities, at least not when just viewing webpages.
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