Alternative dialog Find & Replace for Writer (AltSearch)

I just installed OpenOffice.org 3.1.1. I tried to install Mr. Bilek's AltSearch extension (which I've used extensively under OOo 2.4). The green binocular icon appears as expected, but clicking on it produces no response (including no error message). Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Mike

This extension has been great, and I appreciate all of the documentation that goes with it - except I was unable to find documentation that explained how to simply replace some text in a regular font with a bolded font. Apparently this involves understanding internal OpenOffice character style attributes. (Does someone know of an easier way that I missed?) Hopefully this will help someone out in a similar situation...

I had text of the form "Region 1" or "Region 11" where I wanted to make every occurrence bold. Here's what I did:

Find (using Regular Expressions): ^Region\s([0-9][0-9]?)
Replace: \C{Quotation}\A{CharWeight=150%}\A{CharPosture=0}

The first part of the replace (\C{Quotation}) was added by choosing "Character Style" from the Replace drop-down list. The second parts were more difficult to determine. The general format of (\A{SOMETHING}) was listed in the replace drop-down as well, but neither CharWeight nor CharPosture were actual options in the PickProperties drop-down. I found that these were the actual options I needed to use by trial and error and eventually found what the available attributes were for each style by going to http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/DevGuide/Text/Formatting. According to the wiki, while things like BOLD and NONE (for CharWeight and CharPosture respectively) are supposed to be valid options for these styles, neither would work and I had to use a numeric value.

The CharPosture part was necessary because whenever I used CharWeight to make the text bold, it automatically italicized the text as well. Including CharPosture=0 was necessary to make it un-italicized again. I'm not sure if this is a bug in OpenOffice or the extension, or just by-design.

Overall, I'm pleased at the power of this extension and it still saved me a lot of time and manual formatting... but there is still room for improvement in the documentation and in making it easier to use. All in all, thanks for making it!

(Using Alternative Find & Replace for Writer version 1.2.1 on OpenOffice.org 3.0.0)

You say (6th bullet) "It is possible to select at once texts of all footnotes or endnotes and to assign them any style".
I am using oOo 3.0.0 in XPproSP2 and am not a beginner - but need help now. I can get as far as [::BigBlock::] but cannot define "start" and "end" in a functional manner. Note 1 starts with "[superscript] 1Joel" and note 52 ends with "39-47" - both are unique instances. But "1Joel[::BigBlock::]39-47" does not "select all" - nor does "Joel[::BigBlock::]39-47" (ignore superscript).
If I can get this to work - with your help - how do I change the para style?
Note: this is done (hate to say it) in M$Word by: highlight any footnote, CTRL+A, format para - 3 clicks only.
Tnx - Paul

AltSearch looks great, but when I try to run it in Writer I get the following error:

"BASIC runtime error.
An exception occurred.
Type: com.sun.star.container.NoSuchElementException
Message: ."
and the following line of code is highlighted.
GlobalScope.BasicLibraries.LoadLibrary("Tools") ' natahnout std. knihovnu

I'm using Windows XP SP2, OO.o version 2.4.1. I am not very experienced in OO Macros.

I suspect a library called Tools is missing; there is a library with that name in the OpenOffice.org Macros container, but it seems to contain no modules. If this is the problem, where can I find the modules?

I would very much like to use this extension, so could someone help me? Many thanks.

The Extension I haven't tried yet. But I need to search for paragraphs and replace them by blanks or tabs. By copy and past I find a text an this text with several paragraphs has to be merged into one large block. It has to be guaranteed, that no paragraph sign is left inside the text.

Sometimes I need the opposite. Each blank or tab sign inside the text should be replaced by a paragraph sign, so that becomes one large column with one word in a line.

--
Moritz

Just installed in 2.4.1 (linux) and find that the opened window for the macro is too small to be of use.

The box is cuts off just after "Extend" on the right, and just below "Match case" on the bottom.
Same problem in OOo 3.0 (M17).

The search box window shows correctly in OOo 2.3.1.

I really recommend this extension. It is very flexible, and it allows very complex search and replace operations.
I use it to search for broken cross-references. It is irreplaceable for this, as Writer does not offer any other possibility to do so!
Also, Tomas has put very much effort in the documentation, that I find very helpful indeed.

Really good extension. It's very useful to convert texts form Writer to Spip. Thanks a lot.
S.

I've started spanish localization some weeks ago.
It's almost done.

Really good extension.

Hi, and thanks for your extension update.

But, on my system, the "Save batch" function doesn't work. The batch manager still empty, and the file AltSearchScript.txt file still at 0 byte.
I'm using AltSearch 1.1, OOo 2.3.1 Italian, Win XP HE SP2.

Thank you for your attention.

http://img137.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bug018vd3.png
Literal translation:
"Syntax error BASIC.
Symbol Replace already been determined."

$ uname -rms ; pkg_info -Ex openoffice
FreeBSD 6.3-RELEASE i386
ru-openoffice.org-2.3.1

Hello,

This looks like a great thing, but for some reason, I can't get the batch mode to work. When I try to run a batch, it gives me an error message:
Bt_run: Unknown command: [Find], and the same for all others, i.e. [Replace], [Parameters], etc. It's probably not a mistake I made in writing the batch, since none of the built-in batches work either. The regular method (simply type the find and replace strings in the window) works fine, as does the counter.

Even when I save a command that already worked as a batch, I get the error when the batch is executed, since it makes the batch with the same syntax as used in the others.

Is there some setting that I missed?

By the way, the error disappears when I removed the brackets around the commands in the AltSearchScript file. But when I did that, the batch ran, but didn't actually do anything.

I'm running OOo 2.3.0 on Ubuntu 7.10

-Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke

Hello I just downloaded your extension & tested it.
It works & I love it, really.
Just a note: when I tried to save a search as a batch, I get an error message:
Save option to file: Error opening file:
file:///home/rob/.openoffice.org2/user/config/AltSearchScript.txt
I. O:
Later I checked the file
/home/rob/.openoffice.org2/user/config/AltSearchEditor.ini
and I just had to change from 'notepad' to 'kwrite', and everything went as expected.

Incidentally, I could translate this excellent extension to french.

Very good. At first try, I managed to do what I never succeeded to do with the OOo Find&Replace. The replacements are slower than with the native system, but it's quick enough.

Few bugs :
- in "Pick properties" button : the bottom of the text is eroded
- same problem for the "?" button
- when clicking on "?", I get the message "File of Help is impossible to open, etc." though it finds the file and opens it !
- I get two errors messages when I switch to the batch manager

I can give screenshots if you want.
email: trash.noreply{}gmail.com
I'll answer ;)