BUG: Undo makes Columns++ rege ignores 1st line in the text

[dsanalytics]

Steps to recreate it:
Enter the txt as seen on the screenshot

[1] Book A
[1] Book B 
[1] Book C 
[1] Book D

Open Columns++ Search and enter regex to generate the sequence

^\[\d+\]

[(?=1+1*(match - 1))]

Click Replace All, which should perform 4 replacements
Go back to the text and click Ctrl-Z to undo
Go back to Columns++ Search and click Count - It gives 3 matches instead of 4
If I select all the text, copy and paste it again and go back to the Columns++ Search and click Count - It gives 4 matches!

So, if undo is used, from that point on, first line is ignored by Columns++ Search

Image 1 is what I described. Image 2 is if I do all that starting with a blank added at the top confirming that the first line is ignored.

[Coises]

I agree that there is a bug here, but it is not quite what it appears to be.

I don’t really use dark mode, so I never noticed it, but the default Indicator Custom Style is not very visible in dark mode. Search in Columns++ was originally intended for rectangular selections (column selections), since the “In selection” option in Notepad++ search can’t be used with rectangular selections. Early feedback led me to the idea of converting the column selection to an “indicated region,” so the user can do step-wise finds or changes within a column and still see both the result of the step (as a selection) and the full area to be searched as finding progresses (the indicated region).

This is very difficult to see, but if you zoom in and look closely at your first screen shot, you’ll see that in the first line, the background behind the [1] is the same color as the empty space to the right of the text, while the rest of the line is colored very slightly differently.

For whatever reason, Undo has restored the text, but has not restored the marked region accurately. I doubt that I can fix that, since Columns++ doesn’t control Undo operations. That sounds like a Scintilla bug — which might or might not get fixed by Scintilla and subsequently incorporated in some upcoming version of Notepad++.

The default custom indicator being virtually invisible in dark mode is a Columns++ failure. I will see if I can come up with a way to fix that without disturbing settings existing users have made intentionally. (Columns++ dialogs don’t respect dark mode either, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.)

In the meantime, I recommend either switching to another indicator (using the drop-down at the bottom of the Columns++ “Search in indicated region” dialog), or changing the display of the Custom indicator so you can see it (those settings are in Columns++ Options... in the Custom style for Search in indicated region box; increasing the Alpha to something between 80 and 128 will probably work).

If you can’t see the indicated region, Columns++ “Search in indicated region“ will be full of unpredictable mysteries. ;-)

[dsanalytics]

I just checked and it does not appear to be Notepad++ bug, as Notepad++ S&R does not miss the first line if I do a regex replace, undo it, go back to the S&R dialog and replace again. This is not a visual bug, Columns++ Search misses the first text line regardless of the visual mode.

Could you please take a look at this as this is a serious bug as it misses the first line that people may not notice. Again, I do not see it as a design flaw as it's not visual. The other issue I reported was visual (#30) but not this one.

Thank you.

[Coises]

@dsanalytics:

I just checked and it does not appear to be Notepad++ bug, as Notepad++ S&R does not miss the first line if I do a regex replace, undo it, go back to the S&R dialog and replace again.

You did not understand what I wrote. Of course Notepad++ search and replace does not miss it: Notepad++ search and replace is not restricted to an indicated region.

Aside: This is an example of how Search has outgrown its original purpose in Columns++ and why I am building a new plugin. The “Search in indicated region” concept serves a very useful purpose when you are trying to find or replace text only within a specific column. Because the search has other abilities not present in the native Notepad++ search, it gets used for other purposes, such as to search the entire document, for which the “indicated region” part is just confusing.

This is not a visual bug, Columns++ Search misses the first text line regardless of the visual mode.

The bug is not visual, but it is a result of the Scintilla component’s implementation of Undo. The problem I see in Columns++ is that dark mode users with default settings can’t see what has happened. I can’t fix Scintilla (assuming they would consider this a bug). However, if you could see the indicated region, you would see that Columns++ is searching the indicated region, as it is supposed to do; after the undo, the indicated region does not include the first “[1]” as you would expect. Not being able to see the indicated region with default settings in dark mode is something I failed to anticipate, so I consider it a design flaw and I will work out a way to fix it.

Please try my suggestion of changing either the indicator in use or the display settings for the custom indicator. If you do that, you will see that the Undo (which Columns++ cannot control) is not restoring the same conditions that existed before you did the Replace All, and that is why the results are not as expected.

[dsanalytics]

I see. However, I did not define any regions prior to using Columns++ S&R, because I assumed that if region is not defined, Columns++ would simply treat the entire file/text as defined/indicated region. I did not mark anything or select anything. I just entered the text and brought up Columns++ S&R.

So if you think this is not a bug and no fix is needed, then what's the workaround aside from inserting a dummy blank line for every text I need to process with Columns++ S&R?

Thank you.

[Coises]

@dsanalytics:

I see. However, I did not define any regions prior to using Columns++ S&R, because I assumed that if region is not defined, Columns++ would simply treat the entire file/text as defined/indicated region. I did not mark anything or select anything. I just entered the text and brought up Columns++ S&R.

That is a confusing element of the Columns++ search, and I see how it tripped you up. When the Auto set box in the Selection -> Region section is checked (as it is by default), Columns++ follows a somewhat complicated set of rules (see the Other controls in the Search dialog sub-section in the Search section of the Help) to determine the search region and marks that region before searching. If nothing is indicated and there is no selection present, the entire document is indicated. In the Columns++ “Search in indicated region” dialog, there must always be an indicated region before searching can begin.

So if you think this is not a bug and no fix is needed, then what's the workaround aside from inserting a dummy blank line for every text I need to process with Columns++ S&R?

You can press the Clear Now button in the Indicator section to remove any indicated region that is present; then when you do a search, the whole document will be indicated automatically.

I agree that this is annoying behavior, partly due to what I think is a bug in Scintilla, and partly due to the design of Columns++ search. Without redesigning the basic principles of the search, about the only thing I can do to mitigate it is to help dark mode users avoid the situation in which you were caught, where the region indicator is so hard to see that you never notice what is happening.

The new search plugin will not force the use of an indicated region when one is not wanted or needed, so this particular problem won’t happen.

Thank you for your patience going back and forth with me about this. Even if sometimes it seems like I’m mostly telling you “how things really are,” I am paying attention, and this helps me learn what design choices are not user friendly, so I don’t repeat them.

[dsanalytics]

Yes, pressing Clear Now works. Thanks for the workaround.

Question: Aside from Undo (Ctrl-Z), would I need to use Clear Now after some other action(s) assuming that I started with no regions defined? Trying to keep myself out of trouble elsewhere. Thanks.

[Coises]

@dsanalytics:

Question: Aside from Undo (Ctrl-Z), would I need to use Clear Now after some other action(s) assuming that I started with no regions defined? Trying to keep myself out of trouble elsewhere. Thanks.

I’m not really sure. I didn’t know about this one, with Undo, until you reported it.

The only reliable advice I can give would be to click Clear Now before starting any search or replace — other than the first one after you open the Search dialog — if you’re not intentionally using a previously set up region.