Find without Change (in particular without Change All)

[susmur]

I inadvertently used the Change All feature a couple of times. This happened when I was only searching for a string in my FM book, so the field with the replacement string was empty. Since undoing this operation is not possible, it had a lot of fun cleaning this up.

There should be a number of options to prevent this from happening:

• Display a warning message when the user clicks Change All (or presses the corresponding key) - at least if there is no replacement text given
• Allow this operation to be undone
• Modify the Find dialog box so that Find and Change are separate features

[peter_minneapolis]

susmur wrote:

I inadvertently used the Change All feature a couple of times. This happened when I was only searching for a string in my FM book, so the field with the replacement string was empty. Since undoing this operation is not possible, it had a lot of fun cleaning this up.

There should be a number of options to prevent this from happening:

• Display a warning message when the user clicks Change All (or presses the corresponding key) - at least if there is no replacement text given
• Allow this operation to be undone
• Modify the Find dialog box so that Find and Change are separate features

I don't have access to FrameMaker right now, but IIRC, FrameMaker displays a "not undoable" message before performing Change All. I'm not sure if recent releases have changed this, or perhaps if the warning is suppressed if History warnings are turned off in File > Preferences.

A good preventive measure is to save the files in which the action will occur - either the current file, or Shift+File > Save All Files in Book (from the book window), or Shift+File > Save All Open Files.

HTH

Regards,

Peter
_______________________
Peter Gold
KnowHow ProServices

[susmur]

FM used to display that message in previous releases (I believe this changed in FM 7.2). FM 8 and 9 do not display a warning message, no matter whether history warnings are turned on or off. I doesn't help to save the book before using the Find feature. With changes on a book level, FrameMaker will open each file in the book that isn't already open, make the changes, save them and close the file. You could create a backup of the book every time before you use the Find feature, but that's not really convenient ...

[susmur]

BTW, my current workaround is to copy the string that I'm searching for into the Change field. And I'm not the only one having this problem: http://lists.frameusers.com/pipermail/framers/2009-October/018233.html