Select by name

The "Select by name" menu item lets you select only some of the objects in a currently open folder view.

Selecting objects is then done in a new dialog window, where you may enter a file specification and then press "Select" or "Deselect".

How the entry field's contents are interpreted depends on the state of the "Regular expression" checkbox.

If the box is not checked, the entry field expects a file specification similar to those on an &os2; command line, i.e. you may use the * and ? wildcards to select several files. For example, if you enter *.txt here, all files ending in .txt will be selected after pressing "Select"; reversely, you may deselect only some files by entering a specification and then pressing "Deselect".
By contrast, if "Regular expressions" is checked, the entry field is assumed to contain an extended regular expression, which is evalued when you press "Select" or "Deselect". This might be useful for complex criteria. Note however that wildcard specifications like *.txt will then provoke an error box because both the * and the dot characters will be interpreted differently. As a regular expression, the previous example would have to be specified as .*\.txt.

Even though we use the term "file" specification here, the match string also work on abstract objects, such as program or shadow objects.

The "Select all" and "Deselect all" select or deselect all items in the folder, regardless of the current search string.

The dialog window only closes when you press "Close" or the "Esc" key. It does not close after you press any of the other buttons. This allows you to select several groups of files.