Search Pane and Shortcut Suggestions

[DiveShallow]

My suggestions are (almost all) search related, which is why I love Xchange Editor

(1) Custom shortcuts would be great for:
(A) a shortcut to go to next or previous result in the search pane would be nice.
(B) shortcut to toggle highlight search results would be nice
(C) shortcut to toggle the "find" box so it disappears the same way you can toggle advanced search pane
(D) toggling all menus/panes with one keystroke. e.g. it would collapse everything including advanced search, thumbnails, and bookmarks.
(E) Shortcut to toggle thumbnailview to maximized to sort pages easily.

In the search pane...
(2) The "only whole words" and "proximity" option would be nice to be able to make visible always in search pane, because it can be confusing when a search result shows 0 results if the user incorrectly thinks "only whole words" is unchecked or incorrectly thinks proximity is set to "same paragraph" when it is set to "adjent" instead. I'm no designer, but seeing the options here would be great:


(3) Aside from being able to see those options, ultimately, I would love to be able to set a custom shortcut that would toggle search "proximity" option (only words from same page, only words from same paragraph, etc). Thanks. : )

(4) I find the multi-colored search highlighting messy and not helpful. I'd prefer all search results were uniform in color using neon yellow so still easy to read. In this screenshot, the color of "Only two of..." would be ideal for all results. The multicolor becomes disorienting with lots of words!


THANKS!

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello DiveShallow,
Thank you for the post and excellent suggestions, lets see if we can tackle them all!

1) Note that nearly all functions can be bound to key combinations of you choosing from the Customize toolbars UI, This KB should help with that: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... the-Editor
A) While the search pane is selected, you can use the up and down arrow keys to quickly jump to the previous and next search result.
B) This function can be configured in the Customize Toolbars interface.
C) The is a feature request for this function currently, I will make a note that there is more interest.
D) This function can be configured in the Customize Toolbars interface. (Note that currently this is two separate functions, Namely the "Reset Main Panes/Document Panes Layout" functions)
E) I will ask about this, I am unsure of such a functions validity, could you explain further what "Maximized Thumbnail view" would look like? (possibly with screenshots)

2) While I see the merit in such a function, I will not be making this into a feature request at this time. This is because many people have the search pane in a rather minimal state (as is default), and adding additional text to it would certainly make it take up more unnecessary space.
As an example, not all users have large monitors, and even on a 1080p monitor the Search UI already takes up nearly half of the height of the screen. Without widening the search pane to take up more horizontal space, these functions would have to take up more vertical space. We do not wish for our UI to feel cluttered.

3) This is an excellent idea, I will speak with the development team about its viability as a feature request.

4) To clarify this point, you simply want a toggle so make all search results a single color? If so this can already be toggled in the Search options dropdown menu, by unchecking colored search results.

[DiveShallow]

Sorry for the delay. I will do better checking this.

1) Yes, of course.
A) Right, but I am often looking through academic reference material and using the [hand] or [select text] tools after a search, and it is maddening trying to figure out which search result is next after moving away from the search pane. For example, if I select the 6th result in the search pane and then I read a section and scroll with the [hand], when I'm ready to view the 7th search result there is no indication as to which result was viewed previously. So, I guess, and maybe I click the 8th or the 9th, and I don't know if it is the next result until I reach the 7th again. Obviously I could reference the page # currently in view against the search result page but that is distracting.
B) Not sure how I missed this one.
C) word.
D) Oh, I've been using this for years and since the option says "to their default state" I thought it would reset customizations rather than close the panes. "Close Document Panes" would be more intuitive. It still would be nice to have one keystroke to toggle everything, but I can use autohotkey now that I know.
EDIT: So, I just tried this and it does reset to default. I keep my bookmarks and page thumbnails on the right and it resets those panes docked to the left. So, yeah, just toggling everything would be awesome.

• Before 1st press: https://i.imgur.com/L0bSDX8.png
• After first press: https://i.imgur.com/68l9ntx.png
• After pressing again: https://i.imgur.com/L0bSDX8.png

E) Yes, something like this screenshot (without the horizontal pane at the bottom): https://i.imgur.com/59ke2VX.png
Toggling that state back to docked state like this: https://i.imgur.com/4UnyjGs.png

2) Ok.

3) On second thought, if there was a keyboard toggle for (whole words, whole words) and (adjacent, same paragraph, same page, etc) with a toast notification that would be awesome. The first time pressing the shortcut would just show a toast with current state, and second press would change to next option. (toast, meaning like in 1:47 in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hru956m ... u.be&t=105)

4) Oh, I though that removed the highlighting. Got it!

THANKS!

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello DiveShallow,

On your points for viewing the next search result, I am unsure which build of the Editor you are using, but in my current Build 326 installation, the search pane leaves a darker grey highlight over the last selected result:

DMKB18July238.png

The Thumbnails topic is already available simply by dragging the thumbnails pane out of the Editor window and resizing it:

DMKB18July239.png

You could then toggle it on and off just by pressing Ctrl+T

I like the toast notification point there, and will add a note to the request.
As per usual, I cannot guarantee any request will be implemented, but I can promise it will be seriously considered.

[DiveShallow]

Replying two years later. Nice.

So, it would be really lovely if the most recent search result selected always remained highlighted in the search pane, even if the pane was closed and reopened (i.e. until a new search was performed or user switches to different document).

For example, in build 8.0 v355.0, the current behavior is:
I search for a word → click second result on list → click anywhere else (on the document, or on a page thumbnail, etc) → the last search result in search pane is deselected and no longer highlighted.

Why does this drives me nuts? If I have a lot of results I'm reviewing in succession, it's easy to lose track of which one I clicked on last.

One possibles solution? A hotkey that jumps to the next or previous search result AND remembers which search result was last selected, would solve my constant battle with this feature regardless of the highlight.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello Diveshallow,
as in my prior post, the Editor does already maintain the highlight on the last selected search result, it will be a faded grey as opposed to the normal highlight color, but should still be plenty visible, this has been then handling for quite a while now, including the latest V8 build 336.0:

PDFXEdit_njcQdjg47G.png

PDFXEdit_dTNOqLoUmL.png

As for your latter request, we do have a ticket currently for search shortcut keys:
RT#4288: FR: Next/Previous search hotkeys

I cannot say when this will be implemented, but I have added your voice to the ticket so that it can gain some more traction.

Kind regards,