Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

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joseph_anton
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Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

Post by joseph_anton »

I read about Mellel's Find Set feature in a blog post by Ori some time ago, but only got around to trying it out today. It's extremely powerful, and to be able to perform actions like eliminating double spaces in one fell swoop is extraordinary. I was wondering if there is any way for the user to control the find and replace process as it is being run, either by prompting before making each change or by making it easy to see the changes that have been made afterwards?
DavidH
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Re: Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

Post by DavidH »

My impression is that there’s an important difference between individual Find Actions and the complex Find Sets that run a sequence of Find Actions one after another.

With an individual Find Action, you can load it and then take your pick of Replace All, Replace & Find, Next, and Previous. This gives you control over the direction in which you work through the document. It also enables you to step through things one Find at a time and skip or undo an particular change you don’t want. But it doesn’t offer an easy way to review and reverse already made replacements.

See Mellel Guide 6.B.13.A, p. 175

When you load run a Find Set, on the other hand, Mellel makes a Replace All pass through the whole document for the first Action in the set, a second such pass for the second Action, and so on.

See Mellel Guide 6.B.14, p. 177
joseph_anton
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Re: Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

Post by joseph_anton »

DavidH wrote: Fri Sep 07, 2018 3:02 am My impression is that there’s an important difference between individual Find Actions and the complex Find Sets that run a sequence of Find Actions one after another.
Thanks for the clarification on this, DavidH! I feel like I may be missing something fairly basic here, but is there any way to identify the changes that have been made after running Find Sets? The number of double words that are identified in the document I am working on seems too high to all be legitimate mistakes, so I'm reluctant to simply delete them without having some idea of what they were.
joseph_anton
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Re: Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

Post by joseph_anton »

Just in case anyone else has the same question I did: actions like "Double Words" are set up to mark what is found in the text without automatically deleting it. It's possible to review the problem areas by clicking through them using the "Markers" panel.

The Find Sets where there is no need for user review of the changes, such as "Extra Spaces", automatically make the edits without needing approval for each change.
Icelander
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Re: Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

Post by Icelander »

Hello, joseph_anton et al

You may have found it out already by yourself, but I thought I should mention the following, just for the record:
Find Actions in a Find Set can also be selected individually (using the Command key) and then run without triggering the other Find Actions in that Find Set. If you have a Find Set like this, for example:

a
b
c
d

you could select and just run "a" and "d".

The sequence in which Find Actions are executed can also be influenced by dragging Find Actions up or down. This enables the user to group related Find Actions in the Find Set.

You mentioned specifically removing double words. When I opened my Find Sets, I saw a group there called "Common Errors". I think this group includes ready-made Find Actions that shipped with Mellel. One of the Find Actions there is called "Double words" and it's supposed to find and mark double words. This Find Action DOES NOT work, so I had to create another one from scratch. I can't rule out the possibility that it was me who created the flawed Find Action a long time ago, but I really can't remember having done it. Do you also have this Find Action? And does it work? Or did you create your own Find Action to mark double words?
joseph_anton
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Re: Find Sets - prompt before replacing?

Post by joseph_anton »

Thank you for this post Icelander - you are absolutely correct that there is a problem with the "Double Words" Find Set that ships with Mellel. I've been in touch with Mellel Support and they are aware of the issue; I assume that a fix will ship with the next update.

That is very interesting news regarding the ability to control the sequence in which Find Sets run, thanks for posting!
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