disable whole words in finder bar
whenever I use ctl-F to show the finder bar, the "Whole Words" criteria is selected. Is there a way to default this to "Off"?
Chosen solution
You can open the Find bar via "Edit -> Find" (Ctrl+F) in case you accidentally clicked the button on the Find bar. The Quick Find bar that opens if you start typing doesn't include these special ȟoices.
The Find bar has find settings for "Highlight All" and "Whole Words" and "Match Case" that are hidden when you use Quick Find. So open the Find bar via Ctrl+F and check these choices.
Related prefs as found on the about:config page.
- findbar.entireword = false
- findbar.highlightAll = false
- accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive = 0
All Replies (5)
In about:config use findbar in the Search field at the top, then look at findbar.entireword which set to false by default. Perhaps someone or something in your Firefox changed that to true.
Chosen Solution
You can open the Find bar via "Edit -> Find" (Ctrl+F) in case you accidentally clicked the button on the Find bar. The Quick Find bar that opens if you start typing doesn't include these special ȟoices.
The Find bar has find settings for "Highlight All" and "Whole Words" and "Match Case" that are hidden when you use Quick Find. So open the Find bar via Ctrl+F and check these choices.
Related prefs as found on the about:config page.
- findbar.entireword = false
- findbar.highlightAll = false
- accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive = 0
Modified by cor-el
Add code to the userChrome.css file below the default @namespace line to have these button visible al the time.
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* only needed once */
/* FINDBAR - quick find */
.findbar-container > *, .findbar-container > hbox > * {display:-moz-box !important}
/* FINDBAR - order: close at left end */
findbar .findbar-closebutton {-moz-box-ordinal-group:0 !important}
It is not that difficult to create userChrome.css if you have never used it.
- https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html
- https://www.userchrome.org/what-is-userchrome-css.html
The first step is to open the "Help -> Troubleshooting Information" page and find the button to access the profile folder.
You can find this button under the "Application Basics" section as "Profile Folder -> Open Folder". If you click this button then you open the profile folder in the Windows File Explorer. You need to create a folder with the name chrome in this folder (name is all lowercase). In the chrome folder you need to create a text file with the name userChrome.css (name is case sensitive). In this userChrome.css text file you paste the text posted. On Mac you can use the TextEdit utility to create the userChrome.css file as a plain text file.
In Windows saving the file is usually the only time things get more complicated because Windows can silently add a .txt file extension and you end up with a file named userChrome.css.txt. To avoid this you need to make sure to select "All files" in the dialog to save the file in the text editor using "Save File as".
You need to close (Quit/Exit) and restart Firefox when you create or modify the userChrome.css file.
This doesn’t disable Whole Words by DEFAULT
If you disable this whole word feature on the find bar then the pref should be false. If this doesn't last then you may have an extension that modifies this setting or you may have a user.js file in the profile folder.
Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions ("3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is is causing the problem.
- switch to the DEFAULT theme: "3-bar" menu button or Tools -> Add-ons -> Themes
- do NOT click the "Refresh Firefox" button on the Safe Mode start window