Search: Ctrl+W
Ctrl+F works too — both are bound to search by default.
- The input is pre-filled with your previous search, so Enter simply repeats it.
- Searching starts at the cursor and continues to the end, then wraps to the beginning.
- A match moves the cursor there and highlights it in yellow.
- An empty search is refused: “Search text cannot be empty”.
- Esc cancels and leaves the cursor where it was.
Case sensitive, no regular expressions, no wildcards. Searching for Error will not find error. Full-width and half-width characters are different too — which, when you are working on CJK documents, is usually exactly what you want.
Find next and wrapping around
Just keep pressing F3.
- F3 finds the next match using the previous search, with nothing to retype.
- Pressing F3 before you have searched simply opens the search input for you.
- At the end of the document it wraps to the beginning and says “Search continued from the start; F3 finds the next match” — that message means you have been all the way round.
- With no match anywhere: “No match found”, and the cursor does not move.
Erya does not display “match 3 of 12”. Read the message row instead: “Match found” means you are still moving forwards; “Search continued from the start” means you have wrapped.
Replace: Ctrl+R
Two questions: what to find, then what to put in its place.
Notice that the hint bar changes for the second input: you now have three choices.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
| Enter or F5 | Replaces the next match and returns to editing. |
| F6 | Replaces every match in the document and reports the count. |
| Esc | Cancels; nothing changes. |
Erya will not do the work for nothing: “Search and replacement text are identical; document unchanged”. In practice that usually means one of the two has a typo.
F5 replaces next, F6 replaces all
The terms are remembered per tab, so you can keep going.
- After one replacement, F5 continues with the same pair of strings; nothing to retype.
- F6 finishes off everything that is left in one go.
- Pressing F5 or F6 before any terms are set opens the replace input for you.
- Replacement wraps at the end of the document too: “Replaced 1 match from the start”.
- With nothing left to change: “No replaceable match found”.
There is no “ask me each time” mode, but F3 and F5 together are one: F3 to look at the next match, F5 to replace it, or F3 again to skip. Both keys share the same search terms.
The six things the message row says
Almost all feedback from search and replace lands in the last row.
| Message | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Match found; F3 finds the next match | Found it, and the cursor has moved there. |
| Search continued from the start; F3 finds the next match | Found it, but the search has wrapped. |
| No match found | Nowhere in the document. Check case and full-width characters. |
| Search text cannot be empty | You pressed Enter on an empty input. |
| Search and replacement text are identical; document unchanged | Both fields are the same. |
| Replaced 1 match; F5 replaces next, F6 replaces all Replaced all N matches | It worked, and it reminds you what to press next. |
Undoing a replacement
Ctrl+Z, but know how big one step is.
- A single replacement (F5): one Ctrl+Z puts it back.
- Replace all (F6): the whole batch is one step, so one Ctrl+Z reverts all of it.
- Ctrl+Y redoes it afterwards.
F6 neither asks nor previews — it simply does it. When you are unsure, walk the matches with F3 first, particularly if the search string is short. If it does go wrong, Ctrl+Z is there, provided you have not saved and left.
Common problems
The five misunderstandings that come up most.
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| The text is there but is not found | Different case, or full-width versus half-width. Matching is exact (2.3.1). |
| You wanted to use .* | Regular expressions are not supported; those characters are searched for literally. |
| It keeps finding the same place | The search has wrapped. Look for “Search continued from the start” (2.3.2). |
| You only want to replace inside a selection | Not supported. Work through it with F3 and F5 (2.3.4). |
| The replacement was wrong | Ctrl+Z. Replace-all reverts as a single step (2.3.6). |