Rob Weir <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Jun 28, 2012 at 6:57 AM, Armin Le Grand <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi Kevin, >> >> Kevin Grignon <[email protected]> wrote: >>> KG01-see comments inline. >>> >>> On Thursday, June 28, 2012, Dan wrote: >>> >>>> Srinivasulu Bhattaram wrote: >>>> >>>>> I have a text file, which has one space before every line >>>>> How to remove this using search and replace option >>>>> For carriage return or <Enter>, I learnt that we hould use "\n" (quotes >>>>> not included) and keep Regular Expressions on. >>>>> But I do not know what is code for space >>>> >>>> >>> KG01 - Why is this so complicated. Such system language hides the power of >>> the tool. The tool should understand natural language inputs. >> >> I already thought the same. Regular expressions are mighty, but only >> (guessed) 5% of the users understand it (as with many mighty things). My >> first idea was to add buttons which add the 'coded' entries tothe >> expression, e.g.: Button 'Space' adds '\n' when pressed to the text field. >> Same for 'Start of Line' adding '^'. Much more to be defined, may someone >> knowing regular expressions well list more of them. >> Another way would be to allow tokens like <Space> which get translated to >> '\n' internally before using the expression, but then the user would again >> have to remember multiple tokens and how they are spelled (need to be >> valid, possible errors which need to be handled). >> Maybe a mix of both, press button 'Space' adds the (human readable) token >> <Space> which itself is not editable (represents a single character). >> Hmmm... >> > > Have you seen what the SlickEdit coding editor has? Here is their > search dialog: > > http://people.apache.org/~robweir/slickedit-re-dialog.png > > So you can click a button to pop out a list of common RE patterns.
Interesting. What is inserted into the text field, then? Some human-readable tokens, or the RE ones? > But this is more of an aid to someone who already understands RE's. > I'm not sure we can do much to make this conceptually much easier for > end users, since regular expressions have a certain amount of > essential complexity. Or would it make sense to support more than one > RE variation, maybe full RE, but also DOS-style with only * and ? > qualifiers? That is what MSDEV (Developer studio) does. It allows to choose between 'Wildcarts' and 'Regular expression', where the first one accepts simple '*' placeholders. An alternative for users, but limited. Maybe a good compromize... > -Rob > > >>> Perhaps we could explore ways to provide such system-oriented syntax to the >>> user in the context of the task. In other words, update the UI design to >>> include a way to evoke a cheat sheet, or even better, implement a way for >>> the user to insert syntax using natural language, with the system >>> interpreting behind the scenes. >>> >>> I suppose this is a broader usability theme that appears throughout the >>> toolset. We should explore ways reduce the complexity of system-oriented >>> command inputs and make advanced capabilities more consumable to less >>> technical users. >>> >>> After all, this is a tool to help people capture their thoughts and share >>> ideas - not a development environment. >>> >>> Thoughts? >>> >>>> Can any one let me know? >>>>> seena >>>> >>>> >>>> If you are using a carriage return (shift+<Enter>) or <Enter>, you can >>>> use this: "^ " (^ followed by a space). Regular Expressions must be on. >>>> The replace box should be empty. >>>> Search and replace as you did using "\n" above. >>>> >>>> --Dan >>>> >>>> ------------------------------**------------------------------**--------- >>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >>>> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >>>> >>>> >> >> >> -- >> ALG >> >> >> --------------------------------------------------------------------- >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] >> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] >> -- ALG --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
