Version: unspecified (using KDE 4.7.3) OS: Linux Current kate (3.7.4) search/replace dialog lacks support for matching only whole words. This feature has been implemented in kate for KDE3 and is very useful when editing programming languages. Reproducible: Always Actual Results: Search/replace matches all substrings, eg. search for "this" matches part of the word/identifier "all_this_foo". Expected Results: With "match whole words only" search for "this" won't matches part of the word/identifier "all_this_foo".
If you open the search & replace bar (CTRL+R), you have a "Mode" combo box on the bottom: Choose "Whole Words". This should solve your issue, right?
This would solve this issue if the "Mode" Combo Box would be visible when searching (CTRL-S).
Think of ctrl+f as a "simple find", and ctrl+r as "extended find, with the option to replace". Then you have what you want. This is by design, and it works pretty well. We cannot add all sorts of options to the simple find, because then 1. it is not simple anymore, and 2. there is not enough space. Hence, this won't change ;)
Sry but I can't do that. CTRL-S is for Search, CTRL-R for replace, that's pretty much hardwired to my neurons by now. Besided, the Edit menu entries are labelled "Find" and "Replace" and not "Simple Search" and "Extended Search/Replace". From a user POV, I think that switching from a dialog box to an interactive paradigm with Next/Prev buttons is an improvement. However, a differencation between Simple/Extended doesn't make much sense because users don't think that way and switching between the Search/Replace context loses context (at least in the current implementation). Whatever is to be considered an "extended" search/replace option may be placed into an "advanced" acordeon style GUI element.