CC3+ contains a huge amount of various commands and features. This series highlights a number of these. There won't be any special progression to this series, and the command will be selected from the entire range, from the simple basic commands, to more advanced features intended for the more advanced users. Feel free to use this topic to discuss the command presented.
This series is called the command of the week, but it could also explain a feature. The explanations will tend to explain the technical parts of the command, and is intended to highlight the basics (and complexities) of the command, and information about how to use it, but won't be a detailed tutorial. It is up to you to use it creatively in your maps.

Week 17 - Search Files for Text

Having a lot of maps is great, but there are times when you might forget exactly which maps had references to a certain place. For these circumstances, CC3+ has the Find in Files/Search files for Text command. This command can search through entire directory hierarchies after certain text strings, and it can search for text in the map, as well as for text found in map notes (great if you have a description of the map in a map note. Map notes were addressed in a previous installment of this series).

Where to find it?

Toolbar: [Image_8452]
Menu: Tools -> Search files for Text
Command Line: SEARCH

How to use it?

Simply start the command, and you will be presented with a dialog box where you can specify your search criteria.

This dialog consists of 4 parts: Search path: In this input field you can specify the path to search, as well as toggle the searching of subdirectories. Note that this field doesn't just specify a path, but also a filter for the file types to search. Generally, you'll always want this field to end in *.fcw (Files with the fcw file extension are CC3+ map files, and the asterisk (*) is a wildcard basically saying search trough any file that has the fcw extension). The first time you use this box, the default path will be @.fcw. Remember, the @-sign refers to the CC3+ data directory. This box remembers the paths used (hit the down arrow to access the history), but it doesn't have a browse button, so you need to type in the path. Search Criteria: This section contains a text field where you can specify the text to search for (you can use an asterisk as a wildcard), and if you wish to search through map notes, text entities in your map, and if frozen layers should be searched or not. Note that text on hidden sheets/layers will never be searched Secondary Search Criteria: The second set of criteria works just like the first, but you must check the "Also" box to enable it. Additionally, you must select if this criteria should be an OR criteria (either the text in the first or the text in the second criteria must be found in the map) or an AND criteria (both text strings must be present in the map) Buttons:: These should be self-explantory. Hit OK to start the search

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Once the search is performed, assuming CC3+ found any maps matching the criteria, you will get a search result box. Select the map you wish to open, and hit the "Open Selected Entry" map to view it.
[Image_8454]

Note that the results of your latest search is saved to a bookmark file. Bookmarks are a nice functionality in CC3+ where you can save a list of maps to a file which you can later bring up to show the files from the bookmark. To bring back up the search results from the latest search, simply hit the bookmark button (Just a few buttons to the left of the search button). You can also use the two navigation buttons in between these two buttons to navigate back and forth between the maps in the bookmark without opening the dialog all the time.
[Image_8455]