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When can Mathematica have a decent Find dialogue?

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg107478] When can Mathematica have a decent Find dialogue?
• From: BernieTheJet <berniethejet at gmail.com>
• Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2010 05:57:58 -0500 (EST)

I don't know how many times I have muttered under my breath that
someone should complain about the lousy Find in Mathematica... but now finally
I have decided to take some action for the greater good of all.

First, instead of like the Find in other math softwares I use, Mathematica
requires I hit three (actually six) keys just to do what they do with
a Ctrl-F or an F3 key: Ctrl-C, Ctrl-F, Ctrl-V.  Jeez, what a pain.
Why do I have to copy the expression I want to search for myself?
'F1' somehow is smart enough to select the entire word, why can't
Find?

Then, there is no 'Find whole word' option.  Very annoying.  Every
little fragment of a word has to be pondered.

Then, there is no 'Undo', so that if one accidentally hits 'Replace
All' instead of 'Replace' one might as well just throw away the entire
notebook and start over.

Then, there is no option to skip Output and just search Input, so
every instance of a symbol that really doesn't need to be corrected
must be considered.

Then, the Find dialogue drops below the searched notebook whenever one
switches over to do some edits so that unless one has two screens one
is forced to do Ctrl-F again to get it back.

Then, the dialogue doesn't remember values all the time when switching
back and forth so that if one goes back to Copy some other value, for
a replacement value for example, the first value might revert to
whatever value was there when it opened.

Then, there is no 'Find First' - a pretty standard operation, no?

And finally, the layout of the buttons is a bit non-ergonomic and
confusing.  Really, if they just copied the Find from another leading
competitor we'd all be better off.

Am I wrong?

Bernard

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: When can Mathematica have a decent Find dialogue?
    • From: DrMajorBob <btreat1@austin.rr.com>
  • Re: When can Mathematica have a decent Find dialogue?
    • From: bsyehuda@gmail.com