I have no problem using Find and Replace. But when I choose Find only, to search out a word or phrase, it seems I also have to enter something into the Replace box in order to activate the search, when I don’t want to replace anything, just find something. What am I doing wrong?
I’ve never seen this before—but here are the steps that I take:1. Cmd-F (opens Find dialogue)
- “the” (type in the word “the”)
-
Enter(type in the Enter key)
And I’m done. No need to enter anything into the replace field.
It happens when I go to Find under the Edit menu and choose Find. Both the Find and the Replace dialogue boxes come up together (just as when choosing Find and Replace). But I can’t figure out what I’m doing wrong.
Also under Edit, when I choose Project Search, no dialogue box appears. Is this correct?
Thanks.
Project Search doesn’t have its own dialogue box (unless you have the application toolbar hidden). You might as well just click in the toolbar search field to use Project Search, I can’t imagine selecting it from the menu would be any faster. That’s just there for people who like to use keyboard shortcuts.
On the other issue: I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, but are you sure Scrivener is in the foreground when this is happening? There is no “Find and Replace” menu item, only Find—and that one is integrated into a single dialogue box, not two. I’m not sure what you are getting when you say you see a Replace dialogue box coming up with a Find dialogue box.
You are correct in saying there is only Find in the drop-down menu under Edit, but clicking on it brings up a second side menu with four choices : Google Search, Find, Find Next etc. When I click on Find here, a dialogue box ALWAYS appears with both Find and Replace bars requiring action.
Thanks for your patience and super quick replies.
No problem!
Okay, it does sound like perhaps you have something installed that is adding functions to (potentially) all of your Mac applications, and maybe that is giving you difficulties. There is no Google Search option by default. Do you have Google Desktop installed, by any chance? By default, the only reference to Google that I am aware of is when you right-click on a selection of text in the editor—and that is provided by the OS.
Try doing the same exact thing in TextEdit. That’s a good test to see if what you are experiencing is system-wide, or specific to Scrivener. If TextEdit’s Find menu also has a Google option, and is producing weird results with Edit/Find/Find…, then it is almost surely something messed up with the mix of tools you have installed.
No, I don’t have Google Desktop installed. I tried your test with TextEdit. A dialogue box with both Find and Replace came up (the same as in Scrivener); there was no Google Search option.
Okay, this is something I can live with, as I don’t know where to begin searching for the tool that is causing the problem.
Thanks for your efforts.
If you do want to track it down, a good place to start is in System Preferences, under Accounts. The “Login Items” tab on the right has a list of every application that starts automatically whenever you start up your computer and log in. If you scroll through that, you might come across something you aren’t familiar with, or be reminded of a tool you installed and then forgot about. If you don’t want it, you can just delete it from this list (it’ll still be in your Application folder), and then log out and back in.
If there is nothing there that looks suspicious, then the next layer of investigation is a bit more “advanced”, and like you say, you might just want to live with it at that point.
Hi,
Unless I’m missing something here, it’s quite normal for a Find panel in OS X to bring up a panel that has both Find and Replace fields. This is standard in TextEdit, Mail, Pages and most text apps. But you don’t need to enter anything in the Replace field - you just ignore that unless you want to do a find and replace.
So:
- Hit cmd-F to bring up the Find panel.
- Enter whatever it is you want to search for in the Find text field. (Ignore the Replace field.)
- Hit enter or press “Find”.
There is no separate Find & Replace dialogue - they are the same thing. You just ignore the Replace field if you only want to run a Find. (Even if you enter something in the Replace field, you can run a Find without replacing - text only gets replaced if you explicitly click on “Replace” or “Replace All”.
So, from what you describe, everything sounds normal, unless, as I say, I’ve missed something.
Hope that helps.
All the best,
Keith