OK. So let’s start off slow !

First of all, I’d like to check with you to make sure we’re on the same page about our goal :

If we begin with this text :

Our friends Sarunas, Dorde, Orjan, Pawel, Stefania, Angel and Ugur had already left
Our friends Šarūnas, Đorđe, Ørjan, Paweł, Ștefania, Ángel and Uğur had already left
Our friends Šarūnas, Đorđe, Ørjan, Paweł, Ștefania, Ángel and Uğur had already left

As you can notice these lines are quite similar and differ only because of some accents in the first names :

• The first line does not contain any accent

• The second line contains some characters with an accent. Here are their Unicode values :

Š = 0160
ū = 016B
Đ = 0110
đ = 0111
Ø = 00D8
ł = 0142
Ș = 0218
Á = 00C1
ğ = 011F

• The third line contains — when it was possible to find an equivalent — a classical ASCII letter immediately followed with a combining diacritical mark — an accent — thus two characters for one glyph. However, the letters Đ, đ, Ø and ł, without equivalent, are single characters only, like above !

S + 030C = Š
u + 0304 = ū
Đ = 0110
đ = 0111
Ø = 00D8
ł = 0142
S + 0326 = Ș
A + 0301 = Á
g + 0306 = ğ

Now, I assume you’d be interested in finding any of these three syntaxes — or others like them — at the same time, in your file(s), right ?

@troglo37, just tell me if this is your goal ?

See you later !

Best Regards,

guy038

I corrected, in my first post to @troglo37, the spelling mistake on the word shortcuts.xml and rearranged a few lines to make my description more precise !

Of course, @murraysobol, it’s better to use the second version of my macro. Note, however, that this macro generally replaces a fairly short piece of text with a rather long string of characters ! Therefore, you may need to change a default setting in the Search section of Preferences... if the resulting regular expression becomes too long !

For example, in my last post to @troglo37, the two lines of the test contains, respectively, 124 and 135 chars and the resulting regexes contains, both, 1,612 chars !

So, go to Settings > Preferences... > Searching section. Then, in the part When Find Dialog is Invoked, move to the Max Characters to Auto-Fill Find field from Selection option and modify the default 1024 value to a greater value. Personally, I use the maximum 16383 value !

However, it’s obvious that your initial selection must be as short as possible This macro will be used mainly to get the different spellings of names or surnames !

An exemple with this INPUT text, below :

Our friends Šarūnas, Đorđe, Ørjan, Paweł, Ștefania, Ángel and Uğur had already left
Our friends Sarūnas, Đorđe, Orjan, Paweł, Ștefania, Ángel and Uğur had already left
Our friends Šarunas, Đorđe, Ørjan, Pawel, Stefania, Ángel and Uğur had already left
Our friends Šarūnas, Dorde, Ørjan, Paweł, Ștefania, Angel and Ugur had already left

Now if I copy, at random, the third line of this INPUT text somewhere else, select that line and run the Global Search macro, I get this regex :

(?=[[=O=]])\X(?=[[=u=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=f=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=i=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X(?=[[=d=]])\X(?=[[=s=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=Š=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=u=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=s=]])\X(?=[[=,=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=Đ=]])\X(?=[[=o=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=đ=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=,=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=Ø=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=j=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X(?=[[=,=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=P=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=w=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=l=]])\X(?=[[=,=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=S=]])\X(?=[[=t=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=f=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X(?=[[=i=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=,=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=Á=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X(?=[[=g=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=l=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=n=]])\X(?=[[=d=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=U=]])\X(?=[[=ğ=]])\X(?=[[=u=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=h=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=d=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=l=]])\X(?=[[=r=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=a=]])\X(?=[[=d=]])\X(?=[[=y=]])\X(?=[[= =]])\X(?=[[=l=]])\X(?=[[=e=]])\X(?=[[=f=]])\X(?=[[=t=]])\X

Finally, if you select the 1,079 characters of this regex and open the Find dialog with Ctrl + F, you can easily verify that it matches, successively, the four lines of the INPUT text. Whaooou ;-))

Note that I could have chosen the first, the second or the fourth line, either. The resulting regexes would have matched the four lines of the INPUT text, as well !

Best Regards,

guy038

Please use the </> button on the forum toolbar when you want to paste example text, and put the text where it says code_text when you do that. That way, your example text won’t be interpreted as “markdown”, so that we know that your example text is coming through the way you pasted it.

@MurraySobol said:
This question is for @guy038.

Why limit it, when anyone else with the knowledge can answer as well?

I don’t know if I have modified the shortcuts.xml file correctly,

You have not. The <Macro name=...>...</Macro> must be between <Macros> and </Macros>

here is my file contents:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<NotepadPlus>
    <InternalCommands />
        <Macro name="Global Search" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
            <Action type="3" message="1700" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
            <Action type="3" message="1601" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="(?=\X)(.)|(?!\X)." />
            <Action type="3" message="1625" wParam="0" lParam="2" sParam="" />
            <Action type="3" message="1602" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="(?1\(\?=[[=$1=]]\)\\X)" />
            <Action type="3" message="1702" wParam="0" lParam="640" sParam="" />
            <Action type="3" message="1701" wParam="0" lParam="1609" sParam="" />
        </Macro>
    <Macros />
    <UserDefinedCommands>
        ...
    </UserDefinedCommands>
    <PluginCommands />
    <ScintillaKeys />
</NotepadPlus>

I was trying to find this line: the line containing </Macros> in shortcuts.xml but did not see it.

Looks like the updated XML libary that Notepad++ now uses is changing empty

    <Macros>
    </Macros>

into

    <Macros />

… which is valid XML, but annoying when people are trying to explain how to edit macros manually.

To follow @guy038’s instructions, you will have to change

    <Macros />

into

    <Macros>
    </Macros>

and then put the macro inside it, like:

    <Macros>
        <Macro name="Global Search" Ctrl="no" Alt="no" Shift="no" Key="0">
            <Action type="3" message="1700" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="" />
            <Action type="3" message="1601" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="(?=\X)(.)|(?!\X)." />
            <Action type="3" message="1625" wParam="0" lParam="2" sParam="" />
            <Action type="3" message="1602" wParam="0" lParam="0" sParam="(?1\(\?=[[=$1=]]\)\\X)" />
            <Action type="3" message="1702" wParam="0" lParam="640" sParam="" />
            <Action type="3" message="1701" wParam="0" lParam="1609" sParam="" />
        </Macro>
    </Macros>

I was trying to find this line: the line containing </Macros> in shortcuts.xml but did not see it.

I assume you are talking about this post by @guy038 . If you’re going to create a new topic based on instructions given in a different topic, the least you could do is link to it. (Or you could have just clicked “reply” on that post, as it would have auto-linked, and kept the discussion in one place rather than fracturing it)

I assume this was a typo??

The same post lists both shortcut.xml and shortcuts.xml, so the incorrect one was most likely a typo on @guy038’s part.

I was unable to create a shortcut for this Global Search,

It’s there for me. Is the macro in the Macro menu yet? If not, did you remember to save the shortcuts.xml file and then exit Notepad++ and restart, because Notepad++ doesn’t re-read that config file for new macros when you save it: you have to exit the app and launch it again to have it reload the config files.

update: Looking at @guy038 's original, he said,

Reminder :

• If you installed N++ with an installer package, your active shortcuts.xml file should be within the folder %AppData%\Notepad++

• If you installed N++ with a portable package, your active shortcuts.xml file should be along with the Notepad++.exe file, in your install folder

• You may also define a shortcut for this Global Search macro, by opening the Settings > Shortcut Mapper... > Macros tab and double-clicking on the Global Search line !

Now :

• Close and restart Notepad++

• Paste the French text, below, in a new tab ( I rewrote the same French text in different cases ! )

He should have had the Close and restart Notepad++ before the You may also define ... – he probably didn’t notice, when typing up the instructions, that it might cause confusion.

Having read my post, he will most likely fix his original, so that it has accurate instructions for future readers.