Finding project comments to replace or report on

If you are an administrator, you can create a report identifying the number of times the search text appears in a comment for each project component you select. Creating a report allows you to know where the keywords exist without opening or changing each component. You can also update the project content using the Replace All option.

This option searches for a term only when it appears inside comment tags, such as the text in bold:

<?oxy_comment_start author="me@mycompany.com" timestamp="20230411T181721+0000" comment="This should be a hyperlink."?>

This corresponds to the text you see when:

  1. Editing a topic in Oxygen.
  2. Going to the right side panel.
  3. Selecting Review.

You can also search in text, XML values, XML code, or every part of a topic. In each of these cases the steps vary slightly.

For a description of these searches, read Set the scope for find and replace.

Before you begin

Permissions can't be blocked. A content owner or administrator can set permissions to deny access to components or folders. If your permissions to content has been blocked and you are not an administrator, you cannot use the Find and Replace option in the Selected Components pane.

Use supported components

  • If you choose a component that's locked ( by you, by another user, by the system) Inspire skips it and adds a warning to your notification.
  • If you choose a binary component, Inspire skips it and adds a warning to your notification.

Searches are not case sensitive by default

  • You can select the Case Sensitive option.
  • This option limits your results to the word or phrase exactly as it appears in both your criteria and the component.

Using parenthesis

  • Inspire recognizes a parenthesis character ( ) as something that indicates a grouping of search items.
  • If you want to search for a text value that actually contains a parenthesis character ( ), you must tell Inspire to interpret it literally.
  • To do that, use a slash \ before any parenthesis character ( ).
  • For example, if you want to search for the following value: Chapter1_Intro(with_endnotes), in the search box you would enter Chapter1_Intro\(with_endnotes\).

Searching for text and creating a report does not update or change any of the components you're searching in.