Hi...

I think that PhpED should automatically open all files found by a search across multiple files. This feature could possibly be enabled by an option.

I realize that all the results appear in the log, but at the moment, I have many non-text files in my project tree (graphics and others), and the search produces an extra line in the log for every non-text file. This means that I have to scroll up through tons of log entries trying to find the files.

Apologies if this has already been discussed, a search didn't come up with much.

Cheers,

Matt Parlane

some projects are big enough (10000+ files). If you start searching for "<?php" with this feature turned on you will get IDE overflooded with files, easily.

I still like BBEdit's approach best. When you do a multi-file search, it opens a separate window that it calls a results browser (variations of which are used for other purposes, as well). It's a two-paned window. In the top pane is a list of the files that came up in the search (only matches are included), viewable either as a flat list of files, with one file per line, or with each file within its directory hierarchy such that you can open or close its parent folders. In either case, the file itself includes a control to collapse or expand it to show all the results within that file. For example, it'll say there were 8 results in foo.php, and you can either show or hide those 8 results by clicking the disclosure control next to the filename. Each result listing includes the line number and a line of context. You can select any file and hit delete if you don't want it included in the results list.

If you double-click a file, it opens the file and selects the match, and you can use the contextual menu to select the file in the Finder (the Mac equivalent of Explorer). If you single-click the file, its contents are shown in the bottom pane with the match selected. As the name of the window implies, and so that you don't have to worry about not being able to quickly switch among files because of unsaved changes, this pane is read-only. However, it's otherwise a full-featured BBEdit text window with all the usual controls for wrapping, code folding, etc, and you can continue your search/replace inside the file as though you'd opted to do one file at a time. Double-clicking anywhere in the preview takes you that point in the actual file for editing.

If you do a new multi-file search, a new results browser is created, allowing you to have the results of multiple searches easily at hand without them disturbing each other. And, you can use one result set as the file set for a new search.

If you want to do as the OP requested, that's just a check box away in the search window. Another search option lets you control whether to automatically save files in which changes are made (if you opt not to do this, and you're doing a replace operation, then the option to open each matching file is automatically selected).

It's hard to describe all the search features of BBEdit succinctly, but it's full of wonderful, flexible features that are all wrapped in an extremely well-thought-out interface. I suggest taking a peek at its manual, which includes screen shots:

http://valdez.barebones.com/pub/manual/BBEdit_85_User_Manual.pdf

The section on multi-file searches begins on page 119. If PhpED were to copy even a third of BBEdit's search features, I think it'd already be well ahead of any other PHP IDE.