Find & Replace (Beta)

Note:

This feature is currently in Beta and available to a limited group of customers. General availability for all Heretto customers will follow the conclusion of the Beta phase. Full rollout dates will be shared when available.

Note:

Find & Replace (Beta) is being released in two phases. The Find portion is available in Beta now. The Replace portion will follow in a later phase, with timing that will be shared when available.

Note:

Until the Beta phase of this feature is concluded, only users assigned the Administrator role can use it.

Heretto CCMS includes a robust Find & Replace feature that enables you to search a branch, folder, map, or a mix of those, preview your search results, and replace content, XML syntax, DITA attributes, and more in your XML files.

Find & Replace Operation and Guidelines

Before you start working with Find & Replace, familiarize yourself with these facts and guidelines.

Find & Replace searches through your XML files in Heretto CCMS.
You can use Find & Replace on different levels of content: a branch, a folder, a map, or a mix of those.
Find & Replace returns matches for a file but excludes it from replace operations when:
- A file is locked collaboratively or non-collaboratively by any user, including the user performing a Find & Replace operation. A collaborative lock is applied automatically when a file is open for editing in the Content Editor. Non-collaborative lock is applied manually by a user or automatically when the file is edited in Oxygen. For details on file locks, see File Locks.
- Permissions restrict read or write permissions of a file. For details, see Read and Write Permissions.
- A file status restricts editing permissions of a file. For details, see File Status.
You can preview files returned in a Find operation directly from the Find & Replace window. The preview shows the file XML and enables you to Ctrl+F (Windows®) or Cmd+F (macOS®) in that specific file.
Find & Replace can't be performed while an upload or branching operation is in progress.
When performing a find operation on a map and its dependencies, files that are outside of the map scope are not searched. For example, a concept topic that is linked by a task topic in the map but is not added to the map itself.
You can export your search results to a CSV file.
It is currently not possible to exclude resource-only files from Find & Replace operations.

Find Content

Note:

Find & Replace (Beta) is being released in two phases. The Find portion is available in Beta now. The Replace portion will follow in a later phase, with timing that will be shared when available.

Note:

Until the Beta phase of this feature is concluded, only users assigned the Administrator role can use it.

Find content in any branch, folder, map, or file in Heretto CCMS by performing a text or regular expression (regex) search. Find & Replace searches through all XML files withing the defined scope.

Open Find & Replace

Go to a branch, folder, or map of your choice and open Find.

If your CCMS is configured to only use Find, the menu shows the Find option, not Find & Replace.
- For a map: Right-click the map and select Find.
- For a folder: Right-click the folder and select Find.
- For a top-level folder, like Content: Right-click the folder in the Browse tab and select Find.
- For a branch: Navigate to a branch and in the Content Library breadcrumbs, right-click the branch name and select Find.
Figure 1. The master branch in the Content Library breadcrumbs and the Content folder in the Browse tab

Refine your search scope

In the Search Scope section, select from options for maps and folders and add resources as needed.
- For folders, decide if you want to search subfolders too.
- For maps, decide which map dependencies you want to search. For details, see Find & Replace Options Reference.
- To add more files or folders, click Add Files and add more resources.
  To select a range of resources, hold Shift while selecting the range.

Provide your search criteria

In the Find field, enter your search query.
- To perform a text search, enter your search query in the Find field.
- To perform a regular expression (regex) search, switch the Find field toggle to Regex and enter your search query.
Optional: Expand the Advanced Options section and select relevant options. For details, see Find & Replace Options Reference.
Click Find.
The CCMS searches files in the search scope and returns search results. The search results list files along with all instances that match your search criteria within those files. When performing a replace operation, you can choose to perform it in an entire file or only apply it to selected matching instances within that file.

Review your search results

In the Search Results section, review the search results.
- To open a file in a new tab in the Content Editor, click the file name.
- To preview the source code of a file, click Preview.
  The preview opens in the same browser tab and shows the file XML structure. Search results are highlighted. You can also use Ctrl+F (Windows®) or Cmd+F (macOS®) to search the source code.
Export the search results to a CSV file by clicking Export CSV.
A CSV file with the search results is saved to your computer.

Note:

If you change your search criteria, lock or unlock files, etc. after performing the search, to get accurate results, run the find operation again. The system detects and informs you about this situation when you change the search scope in the Find & Replace interface. However, it doesn't detect or inform you about files that wre locked/unlocked between now and when you ran your search last.

Find & Replace Options Reference

Find & Replace includes two categories of options: Search Scope and Advanced Options. Together, they control which files a find operation searches and how precisely it matches your search text.

Search Scope Options

Search scope settings control which files a find operation includes. For maps, you can extend the search from directly referenced topics to include submaps and the topics referenced within them, and for folders, you can extend it to include subfolders.

Figure 2. Search scope options for maps and folders

Map Search Scope Options

Map Only: Searches only the XML of the .ditamap file. Selected by default.
Map + Direct Topics: Searches the XML of the .ditamap file and all topics referenced directly by the map, including resource-only files (processing-role="resource-only").
Submaps + Topics: Searches the XML of the .ditamap file, all topics referenced directly by the map, and all submaps and their referenced topics, including resource-only files (processing-role="resource-only").

Folder Search Scope Options

Sub-folders: Extends the search to include the subfolders of the selected folder. Selected by default.

Advanced Options

Refine find results using text-matching options like case sensitivity, or target specific XML elements, attributes, or comments.

Figure 3. Advanced Options

Text Options

Case sensitive: Matches only text with the same uppercase/lowercase letters as entered in the Find field.
Whole words only: Matches complete words only, not substrings inside a longer word. For example, it won't match cat inside catalog.
Ignore extra whitespace: Treats runs of spaces (two or more space characters in a row), line breaks, and indentation as a single space, so matches still work even when the spacing or line breaks in the content differ from what you typed in the Find field.

XML Options

XPath expression: Limits the search to the parts of the document matched by an XPath expression. For example, it can narrow your search to only within the title element, rather than the whole file.

XML Type

Element names: Searches element names, like note, not the text added inside elements.
Element contents: Searches the text added inside elements.
Attribute names: Searches attribute names, like id or href, not their values.
Attribute values: Searches values added to attributes. For example, it searches for overview in href="feature-overview.dita".
XML Comments: Searches text added inside standard XML comments  and tooltip XML comments . These are author facing comments that show in the Content Editor but never publish to output. For details about XML comments, see XML Comments.
Processing Instructions: Searches the hidden <?ezd-review-*?> markers Heretto CCMS inserts into content when someone adds a comment or suggestion. These markers record an ID, a type such as comment or suggestion, the author's email, and a timestamp, not the wording of the comment itself. Use this option to find where comments or suggestions are anchored in content, for example, by searching for a reviewer's email. For details on processing instructions, see Processing Instructions.
CDATA: Searches specifically inside <![CDATA[ ]]> blocks. Character Data (CDATA) is a special block in markup languages like XML and SGML that tells the parser to treat the text inside it as raw, unparsed literal text rather than markup tags. This prevents errors when your data contains special characters like < or &. Use this option to find raw code or text stored in these protected blocks, without also matching that same text if it appears elsewhere in the topic.

Under maintenance

Heretto Help

Find & Replace (Beta)

Find & Replace Operation and Guidelines

Find Content

Find & Replace Options Reference

Search Scope Options

Advanced Options

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