topic Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window. in SAS Procedures

Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

rickpaulos — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 00:49:53 GMT

I always want to see the title line in my OUTPUT window when I use the FIND or RFIND (repeat find) command to hi-lite text.

But SAS normally sets the line with the found text to the top of the output window so I can't see the title & page number.

The only time it doesn't do that is if the repeat find text is on the currently visible page.

Is there an option to always keep line 1 visible for each output page at the top of the window when using FIND or RFIND?

I do use OPTIONS PAGESIZE =xx to keep the OUTPUT page smaller than the maximized (Zoom) window so there is never any reason for a page to not start with line 1 visible.

If I need to print output (<1% of the time), I change the OPTION PAGESIZE = to match my printer and rerun the PROC.

If I use the PgUp key to jump to the top of the page, the found text Hi-lite disappears so that's not too useful either. SAS does leave the cursor at the found text but it isn't very obvious. SAS also loses track of the latest find. RFIND just finds the same line again.

Scrolling up with the mouse wheel or scroll bars is tedious and if you over do it, the output jumps to the previous page.

Using cursor keys to get to the top is the most tedious.

re: Win7 with SAS 9.3 but this has been an issue for many years.

Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

Peter_C — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 18:22:37 GMT

Tempting to suggest a keyboard function key macro.it would

pop up a message box to collect the search string
then find that string
jump to top of that page
then find the target string again

Since the second find will be successful within the current page, you will have title at top of page and target string both visible at the same time.

but then, it's not a function i would use

Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

rickpaulos — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 16:22:18 GMT

I'll try it and see.

What is the text command to jump to the top of the current page?

Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

Peter_C — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 16:44:11 GMT

I find this command works in text output

find '0c'x prev

That seeks the standard ascii page-skip binary code

Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

rickpaulos — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 19:16:04 GMT

it works, but not so well, that bleeps the text I was trying to find so I can't do a rfind.

Is there a command to program a function key? ie, use a key to program another key? I've only used the menus, Tools, Options, Keys dialog to program keys.

I'm thinking one key to program the prompted search text in to the next key. (sounds like lord of the rings, one ring to rule them all). Is the 'search text' stored somewhere that is accessible by other than the find and rfind commands?

Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

Peter_C — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 19:38:04 GMT

with the catalog engine for the filename function and statement you could write into and read from a catalog in the work lib

Re: Irritating FIND & RFIND behavior in OUTPUT window.

Peter_C — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 23:32:31 GMT

There appears to be a KEYDEF command that might help.