Find, Errors, Messages panels

There are three buttons at the bottom of the workspace that open panels for Find, Errors and Messages. The panels may also be opened automatically as needed, such as when there are compiler errors or you want to show all bookmarks. You can quickly switch between the various panels using the keyboard shortcuts Ctrl-Shift-> and Ctrl-Shift-< on Windows/Linux and Shift-⌘-> and Shift-⌘-< on macOS.

The Panel area is closed when the project is Run if the preference "Hide Bottom Pane on Run" is checked.

To maximize typing speed in the Code Editor, you should close this panel when it is not in use. Typing in the Code Editor can force the panel to update so that it shows changed code and this can slow down typing in large projects.

Find

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The Find Panel is used to search (and optionally replace) text in your project. It searches instantly as you type text in the Find field.

You can use the scope control to change the scope of the search and the “gear” button to change the matching criteria. The scope choices are:

  • Entire project: Searches the entire project (this is the default).

  • This item & subclasses: Searches just the currently selected project item in the Navigator and any of its subclasses.

  • This item: If the Code Editor is visible, this item is visible and searches just the text in the Code Editor.

  • Selected Text: If the Code Editor is visible and has selected text, then this option is displayed and used to search only within the selected text.

By default your search text is matched as case-insensitive and will find partial matches. This means that searching for "List" will find things like "myList" or "NameListBox". You can change the matching criteria:

  • Whole word - Only searches for your text as a whole word.

  • Match Case - Does a case-sensitive search.

  • Use RegEx - Use a Regular Expression to search for matching text. RegEx searches apply to a single line at a time.

Click once on a Find result to jump to where it is in your project.

Find only searches the items displayed in the Navigator. If you have filtered the Navigator using either the Filter or Jump Bar, then Find only finds based on what is displayed.

Bookmarks and breakpoints

You can also display a list of breakpoints or bookmarks in this area, by choosing the appropriate menu option:

  • Project > Bookmarks > Show All

  • Project > Breakpoints > Show All

Errors

The Errors Pane

The Errors Panel displays compiler errors and warnings. This panel appears automatically when you Run or Build if there are compiler errors. Click on the issue to jump to where it is in your project.

Warnings are only displayed when you use the “Analyze Project” or “Analyze Current Item” commands. You can choose to display errors or warnings by type or by location using the selector at the top of the Error Panel. You can choose which warnings appear by using the Analysis Warnings window (Project > Analysis Warnings). Refer to Analyzing the Project for more information.

Messages

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The Messages Panel is used when running your project using the debugger. When you run your project, messages for Application Launched and Application Ended are automatically created. Additional system messages may also be displayed here.

In addition, the output from the System.DebugLog method appears in the Messages Panel allowing your applications to generate their own logging messages to aid your debugging and testing.

You can search for messages using the Search field in this panel. The Next and Previous buttons allow you to navigate values that match what has been entered into the Search field. The Clear button clears all the messages in the list.

The Messages panel shows the latest 1500 lines of output. If you need access to older messages, use the appropriate OS system log viewer.