Suggestion: Search mode - open tabs
 

I recently had to fix up a big eBook that I had made years ago. I wanted to normalize all the "sgc-x" style classes into a common stylesheet, but it seems like I had done the original book in chunks. This meant that in the first third of the book, sgc-1 might be italics; while in the middle, it might be bold and centred; and in the end, it might be right-aligned.

To repair these by using quick find & replacing, I had to use the "Selected HTML Files" search mode, and I found it a little less than idea, as clicking a tab deselects your selection, and I had to continuously reselect the pages I wanted to work in.

What I think would make more sense is to search within tabs that are opened. This way, I could do a search for the sgc style in the page's header, then find invocations in all opened tabs.

Any chance this is doable/feasible in future updates?

Selecting a set of files in BookBrowser and running the created search and replace on them seems to work well for me. I would not want to have to open 10 or more files in into tabs just to run a search. Just identify which files need what first, close all but the cover, then select the set and run the search and replace.

So I very much doubt how useful this would be given what we have now.

There's things I'd love to change about search scopes in Sigil, but there would be a formidable amount of refactoring that needed to be done first to S&R to accommodate just about anything. So much that it makes my head hurt just thinking about how/where to start.

Just a suggestion for discussion that might satisfy the OP. I do not think I would use it often enough to even consider making the change.

Would it be easier to put check boxes next to the filenames and have search and replace only work on these files. The file selection could then remain until manually changed.

My main issue is Sigil losing the selection of pages easily (I know its user error but it's very easy to trigger), so I'd be okay with a solution like that. It seems a little less intuitive than working with open tabs, but if it were something the devs would do then I'd definitely be okay with it.

Sorry. I can't see implementing persistent checkboxes for the files in Book Browser to basically serve the identical purpose of searching only selected files. I know you say "losing the selections" happens too easily, but that can be solved by changing your workflow to make the selection of files be the last thing you check before searching.

It could be just as easy to forget you closed a tab or two before initiating a new search in my opinion. So I'm not certain how using the open tabs for the scope of a search would be any more intuitive than using checkboxes in Book Browser, or the already existing "Selected Files." It's all going to come down to a user training themselves to make sure they have the scope on their search nailed down before they search no matter which method is used. And we can't do that for them.

Sorry, but I'm afraid changes to S&R's scope(s) isn't in the cards right now.

:offtopic: probably

If you have many tabs open you probably can't see them all in the tab bar. And, I'm not aware of any way to see what they are, other than stepping through them with Next/Previous Tab. If its easy to do, it may be useful to have the Book browser italicise the file names that are open.

I wish Sigil would allow no tabs - i.e. a blank canvas.

Other tabbed applications permit no tabs to be open; e.g. MS Office (via an add-in), Firefox, text & image editors, my PDF viewer, and the calibre editor - and I've customised them all to use Ctrl+W to close the current tab.

So to 'clear the decks' I hold down Ctrl+W to close all the tabs - except in Sigil it is all bar one :(

BR

Never going to happen. I don't say that to be difficult, or rude. I say it so you can put the idea out of your head and move on from wishing for it. Sigil will always require that one resource tab be open at all times. Period.

Using Firefox, every time I close the last open tab, Firefox closes.

There was a setting somewhere to stop that, but now I can't find it. But I have some pinned tabs and they don't get removed with a Ctrl+W, so it could be them that stopping it closing.

BR

There is a setting called browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab which is still listed in Firefox. It may be due to one of the several Firefox addons I run but setting that to false has not worked for me for a while now.

@DNSB - continued in The Lounge Tech Vent and Rant threat ==>> https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...&postcount=706

BR

@DiapDealer Thanks for your responses. It's unfortunate that nothing practical can be done about it, but I understand. I've been using Sigil for about ten years now and I'm a big fan of it overall, so keep up the good work!

Thank you! Every time I post something on these forums it seems to get derailed.

Don't get me wrong: S&R could really use a bit of love and attention. When it DOES eventually get it, we'll see about providing some new search scope options then. It's just not on the table in the very near future.