Extended Replace in TopStyle 3.5

One of the most popular features in HomeSite was "Extended Search and Replace," which enabled searching and replacing blocks of text across multiple files.  I remember hearing from countless customers who used HomeSite for this feature alone.

Pretty much every text editor had a similar feature, but HomeSite's was really easy to use, and it was extremely fast.  So it was no surprise when TopStyle customers who had switched from HomeSite requested the same feature in TopStyle.

I partially addressed this in TopStyle 3.10 by adding "Find in Files" (Shift+Ctrl+F), which improved upon HomeSite's "Extended Search" by adding regular expression matching. But as nice as this feature was, it only searched files.  The lack of similar replace feature has been a sore spot for some TopStyle users (including myself, to be honest).

So today I finally buckled down and added an "Extended Replace" feature to TopStyle 3.5 which makes HomeSite's look childish by comparison.  You can do things like:

• Replace only if the text occurs outside of an HTML tag
• Replace only in files that have been modified in a specific date range
• Replace only in files that have not been modified in a specific date range
• Include or exclude files based on their extension
• Save your search/replace operations so you can repeat them later

Here's a screenshot of how it looks so far:

Comments

[critter42]

I think I'll probably have this reaction for all the new TopStyle features - A whole lot of "WooHoo! new features!" mixed with a healthy dose of ":drool: - I can't WAIT to see this in action!", and the whole thing tempered with just a hint of "why did we have to wait so long?" :) :)

Sigh...public beta can't come too soon :)

[Matt]

Nice! Never disappointed with TopStyle, especially when new features are coming! Thanks Nick!

[Erki Esken]

In addition to limiting by file extension, and you make it so it takes filename wildcard masks (globbing)? For example allow me to replace only in all ownload_*.html files in certain folder and subfolders.

[David Sims]

Great to see you working on TS again, Nick...these new features look excellent!

Also, how about:

+ find/replace in "site" (similar to "project" in HS)

+ find/replace in HEAD section only

+ find/replace in BODY section only

+ find/replace in comments only

+ find/replace in everything except comments

+ find/replace in user-specified elements, e.g. find/replace in all list items or find/replace in all tables--user specifies which tags are operated upon

+ find/replace in "all open documents" (sim. to HS)

+ ability to combine parameters, e.g. find/replace in BODY section only for "this site" or find/replace in comments only for "all open documents"

I'm one of those people who got hooked on HS's extended find/replace feature, which is outstanding...how is the speed of TS's new feature compared to the speed of the HS one? As you mention, the HS feature is extremely fast...is TS's also?

Many thanks again for your renewed work on TS...it's very much appreciated!!
David

[David Sims]

Sorry...almost forgot this one:

+ find/replace using wildcards, e.g. find/replace any text within all H2 tags, find/replace any text within all P tags marked with the "example" class, and so on...

would this be possible? it could be useful for my particular site...

[Nick Bradbury]

Wow - that's quite a list, David! The extended replace in v3.5 is built on top of the existing "Find in Files" feature, so it supports everything that's already in "Find in Files" (including searching within a site). But it won't support your more advanced suggestions (replace in specific tags, comments, etc.).

I will, however, seriously consider these for v4.0, since I can definitely see how useful they'd be.

[David Sims]

SUPER! It would be great to see these functions in the next version ... thanks again, Nick.

[Martiner]

I find extremely useful find or replace in all open documents, like HomeSite does

[simon]

One of the features I miss from Homesite is the ability to be able to click on the line number by the side of the page, I find this really useful when working with big pages.

Really good to hear you are working on it again. It is my tool of choice but I too like many others having been casting around recently for alternatives, but now I dont have too! Looking forward to it, and like a few others mentioned before me, if you are on the lookout for beta testers I would be v happy to give feedback.

[Mike Gale]

This is a really great start to your refresh of TopStyle.

I still use Homesite almost daily, in part because of the amazing search and replace functionality. I sometimes shut down other IDE's and move into HomeSite just because the S&R feels like home.

On a related issue:

Do you have a written description or somesuch detailing the way you envisage the TopStyle user? If you do I'd love to see a copy.

[Leonardo Herrera]

Well, considering that I've even downloaded Homesite a couple of times just for this feature...

[Matt]

In response to Simon's post earlier... I wrote an article about this, it's possible!

http://nick.typepad.com/topstyletips/2004/11/bookmarks_no_wa.html

[Matt]

Nick, I'm not sure where to post feature suggestions for now... on the Newsgator forums or???? Anyways, I notice that FTP Voyager has a SDK available. Any chance of integrating that with TopStyle?

[simon]

Hey Nick! Thanks! My day just got better :)

[Rick]

I still regularly use HS's Extended Replace. I can't tell for sure from looking at the screenshot, but I hope the new TS Find and Replace will allow the option to include or not include subfolders (it's a Checkbox option in HS). Thanks for working on TS again.

[Nick Bradbury]

@Rick, yes - you still have the option to include/exclude subfolders.

@Matt, the TopStyle forum at http://www.newsgator.com/FORUM/Forum16-1.aspx is the best place for feature requests. Despite being an FTP-V user for many years, I doubt that I'd integrate with its SDK (if I ever did add FTP features, I'd probably write them myself).

[Daf]

That's too good to be true!! The ES&R was my #1 feature request! Very glad to see you working on TS again, Nick. :)

[MT]

Great Nick! Happy to new release of TSP and happy to see you're putting inside the extended search and replace!

[Tom]

It's great that a extended find and replace feature is being added to TopStyle Pro. I have been using Homesite for a while now and never fully made the switch to TopStyle because it was lacking this feature. Thanks.