I wanted to replace the string "PTI" with "pti" in small caps.
So, Edit->Find/replace (Advanced)
Typed "PTI" in the search box. Typed "pti" in replace box.
At this point, I realize that my document lacks the "Logical Markup"
module, so I can't get small caps yet.
So, into Document->Settings to fix that. And the problems start.
First problem: When the advanced search box is active, any changes made
to document settings are lost upon closing the dialog!
Understanding this took some time - I can only guess that advanced
search is a "document" of its own, similar to having several documents
open? I can understand this from a programmer point of view, but this
is NOT intuitive for users. For a user, the search dialog is NOT a
document of its own, no matter how advanced it may be. Also, this state
of affairs is also counterproductive.
The next attempt was to work around this by clicking the main window
first, and change document settings for the main window. That part
works, the setting are now retained. But:
Second problem: I can now use small caps in my document. But I still
cannot do so in the advanced search dialog, because advanced search uses
its own document settings. I have added a layout module, but this do not
show up. And I cannot work around this by adding a layout module to the
settings when advanced search has focus - because that does not work.
Restarting LyX does not help, the dialog has its own settings where only
document class matches the document being searched.
The third workaround attempt was to create a small cap string in the
main document, and paste it into advanced search. This yielded an error
box about an "unknown text style", as the style I added to my document
is unknown to the search dialog. Similar to pasting into another
document without the logical markup module.
But this worked. Using replace, I was able to get what I wanted. The
style that was "unknown" to the search dialog was still known to the
document itself.
So working around this is possible, but I consider it a bug. Advanced
search ought to use all the settings & styles of the document being
searched.
Suggested fix:
Do not keep an extra set of document settings around for "advanced
search". Instead, use the same document settings (and layout modules and
so on) as the document advanced search is operating on. And allow
changing those settings while advanced search has focus - such change
should go into the underlying document because conceptually, the search
dialog is NOT a separate document. (Even if it perhaps is implemented
that way?)
Advanced search already follows the document class - changing the
document class to "letter" immediately allows replacing plain text with
"Adress" type text, for example. It'd be nice if this worked for text
styles added by layout modules as well.
This would hopefully fix problems 1 and 2.
