16.1 Introduction

The Search Files tool gives you a convenient way of performing searches on directories, individual files or systems. You can create a Search Files tool by choosing Tools > Search Files or clicking in the Podium or use the keyboard accelerator described in 3.1.5 Displaying tools using the keyboard. You can also start context-dependent searches, for example by choosing Edit > Search Files... or Works > Systems > Search Files..., or from editor command such as Alt+X Search Files.

Out of necessity, this chapter makes some references to other tools in the environment which you may not yet be familiar with. However, this chapter does not assume any prior knowledge of these tools.

The Search Files tool

The Search Files tool has the following areas:

• The toolbar contains a dropdown list that chooses the kind of search to perform (Plain Directory was used in the screenshot above). There are also buttons to start and stop a search, and to perform a query replace operation on the matched lines.
• The Search Specifications area lets you specify what to search for and where to search. This area is filled in or partly filled in automatically when you start a context-dependent search. You can also enter suitable values directly, or modify the existing values.
• The filter area lets you restrict the search results displayed in the main area.
• The main area displays the results of the last search in a tree. You can expand each file to showed the matched lines within it.