request for script or stack

[Timothy Miller]

Greetings,

I'm sorry to whine, but I really miss my hyperCard command-F. The 
cursor was positioned in the message box to type my search term, 
between quotation marks, and away I went. Hit the return key for the 
next hit if I don't like the item I just found. Hit the return key as 
many times as I want.

It worked about the same as typing

find "confabulation"

in Rev's message box. I think Rev is somewhat slower, but I can live 
with that. What I don't like is having to type the whole darned find 
command, including the quotation marks.

Rev's command-F find window remains much slower than the Find command 
in the message box, even if both searches are restricted to the same 
stack and to field text only. I can't imagine why. I just tested it. 
I searched for "Gloria" in a fairly bulky stack that contains a lot 
of names. Typing find "gloria" in the message box found four 
instances almost instantly.

Then I tried find "gloria" with Rev's command-F "Find and Replace" 
window. I clicked "field text" only, I chose "this stack" only, and I 
checked "obey dontsearch properties." It was at least 1000 times 
slower, maybe 5000 times slower, or more. And, in 2.6.1, it's still 
not possible to abort a search in this window once you start one. If 
you accidentally start the wrong search, you could grow a beard 
before it was done searching.

Both HC and Rev had their limits with the simple "find" command. HC 
didn't "find whole" very consistently, if you typed it into the 
message box. It would find whole just once. After that, if you kept 
hitting the return key, it would "find word." In HC and Rev, if you 
get multiple hits on the same page, they keep cycling through the 
same hits on that page until you move to the next one. Then you can 
resume hitting the return key.

Sooooo... I'd like to have a script that would start with maybe just 
a click on a button or a keystroke. It might give me my choice of 
find whole, find word, find string, or something like that. It would 
position the cursor in the suitable field, I wouldn't have to type 
quotation marks. It would search as fast as the find command typed 
into Rev's message box, or in a script. I could hit the return key 
(or maybe a button) repeatedly until I found the item  I was looking 
for. AND, the find function wouldn't get "stuck" on one page if there 
were multiple hits on the same page. If it were a floating window, 
ideally, the window would move out of the way so I could see the hits 
underneath, and if the hits were in a scrolling field, the field 
would scroll so I could see the hits. Ideally, it would ignore 
invisible fields, unless maybe I turned that option on.

(And in a perfect world, this would be a native feature in the next 
Rev upgrade.)

I'm capable of writing a script that would do most of this stuff, or 
maybe it would be a small utility stack, but it takes me a long time, 
and it really isn't my hobby. I admit I sometimes get obsessed with 
that sort of thing. It actually feels like a sickness sometimes, if I 
get too obsessed. Weird... True confessions...

It seems likely that someone has written a script or made a little 
stack that does about what I'm describing. If so, what's it called, 
where can I find it, and can I use it, please? I'd be grateful. I 
checked the Rev online stack archives, but didn't find anything.

If I've overlooked some obvious way of doing all this very easily, it 
wouldn't surprise me a bit. In that case, please clue me.


Cheers,



Tim