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Open/Find Resource Dialog Box

The Open/Find Resource dialog box offers advanced search capabilities. To open the dialog box, go to Find > Open/Find Resource (Ctrl + Shift + R (Command + Shift + R on macOS)). You can also click the Open/Find Resource toolbar button or use the Search for file action that is available in some URL input fields.

Figure 1. Open/Find Resource Dialog Box

You can use this dialog box to find a file in the current Oxygen XML Author project or in one of the DITA maps opened in the DITA Maps Manager view by typing a few letters of the file name or a fragment of the content you are searching for. The Open/Find Resource dialog box also supports searching in document edits (comments, tracked change insertions/deletions, and highlighted content).

Search Results

Search results are presented instantly, after you finish typing the content. The matching fragments of text are highlighted in the results list displayed in the dialog box. When you open one of the documents from the results list, the matching fragments of text are highlighted in the editing area. To remove the highlighting from your document, close the corresponding tab in the Results view view at the bottom of the editor. To display the search history, position the cursor in the search field and press Ctrl + DownArrow (Command + DownArrow on macOS) or Ctrl + UpArrow (Command + UpArrow on macOS) on your keyboard. Pressing only the DownArrow key moves the selection to the list of results.
Note: Searches are not case-sensitive. For example, if you search for car you get the same results as when you search for Car.
Tip: Suffix searches are also supported, both for searching in the content of your resources and in their name. For this, you can use wildcards. If you search for *ing with the in content option selected, you will find documents that contain the word presenting. If you search for */samples/*.gif with the in file paths option selected, you will find all the gif images from the samples directory.

Options Available in the Dialog Box

The Open/Find Resource dialog box includes the following options:
  • In file paths - Select this option to search for resources by their name or by its path (or a fragment of its path).
  • In content - Select this option to search through the content of your resources.
  • In reviews - Select this option to search through the comments, tracked change insertions/deletions, or highlights in your resources.
  • Options - Opens the Open/Find Resource preferences page where you can configure various search options. For example, you can specify a Content language that differs from the default UI language in case your document contains multiple languages.
  • Clear Index - Clears the index.
  • Reindex - Use this option to reindex your resources.

Contextual Menu Actions

A contextual menu is available on each search result and provides actions applicable to that particular document. These actions include:
  • Open - Opens the document in one of Oxygen XML Author internal editors.
  • Open with - Allows you to choose to open the document in the Internal editor or an external System application.
  • Show in Explorer - Identifies the document in the system file explorer.
  • Copy Location - Copies the file path and places it in the clipboard.

Indexing Process

The content of the resources used to search in is parsed from an index. The indexing is performed both automatically and on request. Automatic indexing is performed when you modify, add, or remove resources in the currently indexed project. If the index was never initialized, the index is not updated on project changes.

To improve performance, the indexing process skips the following set of common English words (the so-called stop words): a, an, and, are, as, at, be, but, by, for, if, in, into, is, it, no, not, of, on, or, such, that, the, their, then, there, these, they, this, to, was, will, with. This means that if you are searching for any of these words, the indexing process will not be able to match any of them. However, you can configure the list of stop words in the Open/Find Resource preferences page.

Caching Mechanism

When you perform a search, a caching mechanism is used to gather the paths of all files linked in the current project. When the first search is performed, all project files are indexed and added to the cache. The next search operation uses the information extracted from the cache, thus improving the processing time. The cache is kept for the currently loaded project only, so when you perform a search in a new project, the cache is rewritten. Also, the cache is reset when you click the Reindex button.
Important: Files larger than 2GB are not indexed.

If there is no file found that matches your file pattern or text search, a possible cause is that the file you are searching for was added to the Oxygen XML Author project after the last caching operation. In this case, re-indexing the project files with the Reindex button enables the file to be found. The date and time of the last index operation are displayed below the file list.

Opening the Results

Once you find the files that you want to open, select them in the list and click the Open button (or double-click them). Each of the selected files is opened in the editor associated with the type of the file.

Resources

For more information about the Open/Find Resource feature and its search capabilities, watch our video demonstration: