The Mysterious Disappearing, Reappearing Search Box

[Jaws]

This is something that happens sometimes upon opening a book in the Edit function for the first time only. It has no rhyme or reason; it happens with both "native" and "converted" epubs, whether metadata has been changed or not, and so on. It's a minor issue at most with an easy workaround. (It's been going on since some time in version 3; that I'm just getting around to this should show exactly how much actual "trouble" it is.) It happens about one in four times, but very inconsistently:

Sometimes, upon opening a book in the Edit function, the Search functions subpane (bottom of the center pane) isn't there. There's no obvious "open the search pane" menu item, although using the dropdown menu Search | Replace brings up an error message complaining that there was nothing specified to search for, and helpfully reinstates the missing subpane.

Is there a way to force Edit Books to always show the Search functions subpane? Or, alternatively, is there an icon/command that can be dragged into the interface, or item added to the Search menu, to toggle display of the Search functions subpane?

[Quoth]

Do you mean Find & Replace?
It won't appear unless you have opened a file in the Editor.
Ctrl-F opens it, but only if a file contents is displayed already.

[Jaws]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Do you mean Find & Replace?
It won't appear unless you have opened a file in the Editor.
Ctrl-F opens it, but only if a file contents is displayed already.

This is not consistent with the behavior I'm seeing. Sometimes the subpane (you're calling it "Find & Replace," I'm calling it "Search," I think we mean the same thing)* is open when a file has been opened for editing in the left pane and appears in the center pane top; sometimes not.

Specific example:

Open book in the Editor.
Open a .xhtml (or .html or .htm) file to edit; pops (correctly) into the center pane.
Next step would be to do a global search and replace to, say, remove the UUID header... and this is when I notice whether the search pane is there.

The mystery is that I can't figure out what is causing this. It seems to happen inconsistently for all "legal" file extensions, and whether or not there's a designated or embedded cover, and whether or not it's a "native" epub (imported into Calibre as an epub) or a converted file, and whether or not it's the first attempt to search during that Calibre session. (N.B. I never manually close the search subpane, so it's not a persistence from a prior editing session.)

* I avoid saying "find" because when I try to help Mac users who've been using Macs for a long time but aren't actually all that sophisticated, they think I mean the [file] Finder. Sorry if that confused you.

[theducks]

What OS?
The search pane only shows when there is a 'editable' file in the workspace (Your center pane. Some of us detach/stack the other panes ).

[Quoth]

From menu, if you have one, It's the Find & Replace option in Search Menu item. There is no "search" pane.

It's always been fine for me, Calibre now 6.21 (on Linux only since 2017, previously Windows7 and Windows XP).

Does it appear if you do the Apple keys that works like Control F in Windows/Linux? Open a file inside the Editor first.

[Jaws]

I'm running Windows, so fortunately there's no Apple key.

And this is happening when there is HTML content visible in the code-editing window (the center pane); I thought it was clear from my second message in here that the "disappearance" is when the cursor is in that pane, with editable content active.

This is not the "without any code to edit, there's no searchability either" presumption. This is unpredictably occurring when there is "code to edit and therefore search."

[BetterRed]

How are you invoking the editor - from the library manager or directly from Windows? Not that it should make any difference.

For me, on Windows, the Find and Replace dialogue state is persistent. The only way I can dismiss it entirely is to close it via the 'X' button top left - AFAIK that button has no equivalent keyboard shortcut (unfortunately).

If it is not showing Ctrl+F will pop it, but it does not act as a toggle - i.e. a subsequent Ctrl+F has no effect.

If I close all tabs when F&R is showing it does disappear, but when I open a file (or another book) the F&R dialogue reappears.

BR

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Jaws

I'm running Windows, so fortunately there's no Apple key.

Your writing about Finder suggested an Apple user.

I can't imagine what your issue is as I've never seen it on Windows or Linux.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Your writing about Finder suggested an Apple user.

I can't imagine what your issue is as I've never seen it on Windows or Linux.

↑ ↑ ↑ ✔

AFAIK There can only be one Editor session, thus eliminating the possible race condition of the save state upon exit.

Something must be interfering with the 'edit-book' saved state files

[Quoth]

@jaws
Are you using FAT32, exFAT, a NAS, Network share, cloud storage, One Drive etc?

Any of those will result in weird stuff. Exclude all Calibre storage, files being edited etc from any AV tools or Cloud Sync or One Drive.