clear dropdown find and replace list?

[pompano]

without laboriously editing sigil.ini, how does one clear all entries in Sigil find drop down list? I do not necessarily want or need to retain list from one epub edit task to the next. Certainly do not need to keep find/replace lists when working with new epub.
Is there a button or function I am obtusely missing?
linux os, latest version Sigil
wXp, latest version Sigil

[theducks]

Originally Posted by pompano

without laboriously editing sigil.ini, how does one clear all entries in Sigil find drop down list? I do not necessarily want or need to retain list from one epub edit task to the next. Certainly do not need to keep find/replace lists when working with new epub.
Is there a button or function I am obtusely missing?
linux os, latest version Sigil
wXp, latest version Sigil

Why not save a clean copy of Sigil.ini and simply replace the old one?

[pompano]

theducks
Thanks for quick reply. Yes, i figured out to save clean copy of sigil.ini, replace old one, forgot to mention that kaloog. What a hassle, though. If sigil developers read this => need a little button to empty all contents of the Find and Replace lists, and perhaps a setting option to auto clear list when sigil closes...

[mrmikel]

For hobbyists that are doing a little of this and a little of that, it can be an annoyance. For Hitch who probably does the same actions over and over, persistence of searches may be a great deal more useful.

Since development has stopped and apparently will remain so, this is another thing that won't get done.

[AnotherCat]

I don't understand what the need is.

If the drop down list is cleared (presumably because there is likely to nothing of any use in it) then there is nothing in it to use.

If the same drop down list's contents are not cleared there is still nothing in it to use.

Seems to me to be the same thing.

So why not just ignore the past contents of the list if they are of no use to one ?

[varlog]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

So why not just ignore the past contents of the list if they are of no use to one ?

Are you Sigil user? The list is difficult to ignore !
But I agree - it's peanuts.

[Tex2002ans]

Hmmm... may I ask what the purpose of clearing the search list completely is? Are you looking up naughty words that you don't want anyone else to see?

Originally Posted by varlog

Are you Sigil user? The list is difficult to ignore !

The saved list is extremely helpful... which made me think of another idea.

It would be nice if the Regex list would be separate from the normal searches. Many times I am swapping between using Regex and searching the book for specific sentences.

All those sentence searches push the useful Regex right out of the saved list, and then I have to retype/rethink of them!

Originally Posted by mrmikel

Since development has stoppedand apparently will remain so, this is another thing that won't get done.

Originally Posted by user_none

Sigil is not dead but it's development has slowed considerably to the point it's not being developed very much at this point. The best way I can describe it is Sigil is on life support.

Think of it instead of being updated every few months, maybe once a year. Tweaks/Fixes will still be happening, just much more SLOWLY.

[Toxaris]

Originally Posted by Tex2002ans

All those sentence searches push the useful Regex right out of the saved list, and then I have to retype/rethink of them!

You can of course save those searches for reuse...

[Tex2002ans]

Originally Posted by Toxaris

You can of course save those searches for reuse...

Indeed, I have a large assortment of saved Regex for general EPUB fixing... I try to keep my Saved Regex more for Regex which is used in a large amount of books... not ones that I will use while cleaning one book and never again.

For example, just today I was just working on a book which had bold+italic "subsections" in the format of 'i.' + 'ii." + 'iii.' + ... within the text that I wanted swapped to "(i.)" + "(ii.)" + "(iii.)" + ...:

<p><span class="bold">Social Theory and Historical Facts:</span> From the outset, Hayek was well aware <span class="bold italics">a.</span> that “social theory” studies data that are historical in nature, and <span class="bold italics">b.</span> of the issues that are involved. I collate his early comments and observations made before he turned to these wider issues: <span class="bold italics">i.</span> Statistical indices fail to capture key aspects of reality, e.g. changes in the capital structure, <span class="bold italics">ii.</span> Theory provides a framework for fitting in concrete assumptions about people’s actions. <span class="bold italics">iii.</span> Theory studies a constantly-changing object, <span class="bold italics">iv.</span> The trade cycles that have to be explained are historical phenomena, <span class="bold italics">v.</span> In the social sciences, complex phenomena can never be observed twice under identical conditions, <span class="bold italics">vi.</span> The ultimate goal of all economic analysis is, of course, to explain the economic process in time, [i.e.] a chain of historical sequences<a href="#fn29" id="ft29">[29]</a>.</p>

So I used:

 <span class="bold italics">([iv]+)\.</span>

Replace:

 <span class="bold italics">(\1.)</span>

I also had regex swapping "ie" + "i.e" + "ie." -> "i.e." and a whole host of others.

You do these Regex fixes as you stumble across them while cleaning other things in the book (making sure footnotes are in proper positions (or that they transferred over properly from the OCR), to make sure sentences are correctly merged, inserting blockquotes, fixing indentation, etc. etc.).

Then let us say I am tweaking a much further section in the book, and I wanted to swap the 'a.' and 'b.' to '(a.)' and '(b.)', I could just easily have had the Regex above in my Search List and tweak it... where in this case, I would have to have retyped it completely from scratch.

Of course this was a simple example I just had in today's EPUB... but many times I run more complex Regex. (and yes yes, I could use the Saved Search to save every Regex I use for every specific book... but that is cumbersome compared to the list if you work at the output level I do).

Perhaps as another addition to Sigil, there should be an option to at least expand the amount of searches saved in the list.