Easy Replace provides two working modes - Single File Mode and Folder(Multi-files) Mode. In single file mode, you can monitor the change of the source code, you can do replacement without writing the physical file, so it's very fit for a testing before mass replacement.
Single File Mode Screenshot
This picture shows all matches highlighted in the file source code view.
Folder mode is the main working style of this software. All listed files in the specified folder will be replaced by the replacing rule, you will know how many items' found or replaced in each file and how many files' replaced in all files, the staus of each of will also be listed after replacement. You can also disable matches count to speed up the replacement. In folder mode, all files replaced will be saved automatically.
Folder(Multi-Files) Mode Screenshot
This picture shows thousands of matches can be found and replaced easily and rapidly in Easy Replace1.1
In both modes, file(s) will be backed up so to offer you a restoration/revert function which make your files safe.
Please see details of backup below
There are two buttons for file(s) specification. One is for opening single file, one is for folder specification.
Single file open dialog is a common single file dialog, you can select any file you want, without limitation, but you should be sure to select a text-based file, a binary file will not be shown correctly in the text monitor and will not be replaced properly.
Folder dialog is a little funning. You should select a drive first, then a folder, we don't use a popular explorer dialog with starting from desktop, which makes it complex to knowing the direct physical position. For mass files manipulation, you'd better know the physical path exactly, and do not put your files to some Windows logical folder, such as Desktop or My Documents.
Note Be careful, you should double click the folder to open it, a single click on some folder doesn't mean you have selected it.
The default file type is HTML file with a extension of .htm or .html, so if there're some HTML files in your folder, those files will be listed in the file list box automatically. If you want to work with other type files, you can choose another file type in the file type select box, we provide some most-used file types here, such as .htm, .txt, .asp, .xml, .rtf. "All files" is an optional selection which we don't recommend, only if your are sure all files with different extensions in the folder should be proceeded.
If your files are some other type which not listed in our select box, you can select the last option ¨C "Other", then input the extension in the textbox below.
Note You needn't input "." or "*." before your extension, and be sure there's no space before or after the extension characters, press enter or click anywhere else to apply your file extension.
After you specified the file(s), information of your file(s) will be shown in the monitor.
In single mode or after clicking a file in Folder Mode, the source code of the file will be shown in the file Monitor, where you can change the showing tyle of source code, such as with invisible characters or no-wrap mode, you can also preview the file here if it's a HTML file. All matches will be highlighted when finding, and source code will be shown in different colors by syntax. but we doesn't provide any editing function, after all the Easy Replace is a replacer not an editor.
There are three buttons just below the sour code viewer. The first one is the switch between source code and preview, the second contorls if show invisible characters, the last one control if wrap text in source code.
In folder mode, all selected files will be listed in a table, which shows the number, file name, matches count, replacing status and file size. When you click a file name, then the source code will appear in the source viewer. This will help you to monitor the finding and replacing process. If you don't want the source code viewer, just click the selected file name, then the source code viewer will be closed.
Note And, no matter single file or folder mode, the path/ folder of file(s) will be shown in the path box next to the folder select button. You can also input file path in the path box directly without open the file/folder dialog, press enter or click anywhere else to apply the path.
Besides two working modes, there're three replacing modes for your replacement - Normal, From-To, and Regular Expression.
Normal Mode
That's the basic and general replacing mode as all other replacing tools or editors do, you can replace A with B, by input the parameters directly and simply. That's the easiest thing needn't more words.
From-To Mode
This a spectacular mode we provide. Do you want to delete all duplicated items in each file, such as banner, footer, left panel, inserted advertisement in your HTML pages, or all unnecessary heading info of your files? This mode will make it very easy, you just need to input the starting and ending key words of the paragraph you want to change. With this mode your can also change paragraphs to what you like, you can even input "<" and ">" to delete all HTML or XML tags in your HTML or XML files.
Regular Expression Mode
This is the ultimate mode. It will make your replacement powerful and amazing. With regular expression you can give wings to your replacement, you can manipulate your files as your will.
Though most other replacing tools and even most editors also provide Regular Expression support, but if you have used you will know, most of them is not functional actually. Some only can do simplest Regular Expression replacement, when you input a little more complex regular expression, it doesn't work or even crash; some support some strange regular expression grammar, and most of them doesn't support mass replacement crossing lines.
Please see a comparison of replacing function in some famous softwares for more details.
(That's the main reason I wrote Easy Replace, I couldn't find a good tool to replace my files. Most of them are not full functional or with bad performance, from world famous text editor to professional HTML software)
Ultra Replace support MS standard Regular Expression grammar, which is compatible with most regular expressions and have a little difference with others.
If you want to know more about Regular Expression, please see About Regular Expression
Line Breaks
In all these three modes, we support line break direct input in parameters, no conversion needed, so you can control line breaks in your file easily. (Of course, you should be sure there's no additional line breaks input before or after your parameters, we will not ignore it.)
Ignore Case
The switch of case sensitive.
Global
Check on: Replace all matches, check off: replace the first one match.
The buttons in replace bar will be active when your file(s) specified., and there will be some difference between single file and folder.
Find, Replace, Actione
Backing up your file(s) is strongly recommended, so never remove the back up checkbox unless you will back up your files manually or you have tested your replacement. We offer this checkbox for repeated replacement(see below) or those who have large-sized files that backups will double the whole files size, so user can manually back up their files, such as back up them by a compressing tool(i.e WINRAR or WINZIP) or to another disk.
There are three different backup modes in different task:
In folder mode, in action or not, files will be backed up to a subfolder "\bak\" in your current folder. The subfolder will be created automatcally without prompt, if there's already one, backups will be write in directly.
All backup files and the backup subfolder will only be removed if you choose restoration, (then the backup space will be set free) they will be kept even when you finish you replacing work and exit this program. If you are sure you don't need such a backup, you can delete them in your Windows Explorer manually.
In my opinion and my working experience, keeping the backups for some days is a good idea. For file replacement is always dangerous and uncertain, especially in complicated replacement, you may find problems some time after you think it's OK. After a few days, when your replacement has been proved, delete the backup is not late.
Repeated replacement should be cared of or even avoided, for backups in next replacement will replace the last one, ( we could not create backups for each replacement, that will cost enormous space) so your original backups will be lost. But you have three choices to avoid this:
In folder mode, you can turn off counting replaced matches to speed up your replacement. Howerver, you will not know exactly how many items replaced in each file.
In common Regular Expression replacement, the replace with expression is normal words plus reference(such as $1). But sometime we need input invisible characters that cannot input directly, such as a single \r or \n. At this occasion, you can check this up. Only when you want to input "\r" as it is, not as a carriage return, you can check it off. And, whether it's on or off, inputted or copied line breaks(\r\n) and tabs(\t) can be accepted, for example, you can paste a paragraph with basic format(line breaks and tabs).
You can change source code font to your favorite here. But if you want to manipulate all the source code style, such as color, font size, background color, you must know CSS, you can modify the style sheet file directly at "style.css" in this application folder.
Keywords and some specified values in source code will be shown in different color by different file types.
You can modify syntax.tbl to add support for new file type, but you should write a .rep file for the file type. You can reference the existing rep files in \lib folder.
You can trun off the syntax show, to speed up the source code show.