Comment 4 for bug 171685

The existing Edit->find tool is not user friendly. One must be fairly expert with the program to use it at all, let alone well. This is because the fields are all just blanks, so knowing what to put in "style", for instance, requires considerable expertise. Most users would not even to know to look for it. I suggest removing "Edit->find" - so that the absence of a user friendly general selection dialog will be weighted appropriately in the development plans.

I think a more generalized select dialog (select...) would not be all that difficult to implement or to use. Fields that might appear there would include:

0. button: reset defaults
1. radio buttons: make selection[default], add to selection, remove from selection
2. pulldown list: object type (any[default], rectangle, text, path,etc.)
3. check box: fill + matching attributes (color,pattern, etc.)
4. check box:stroke + matching attributes (color, width, pattern,joins, caps)
5. check box:font + pull down list (select by font name) + (==,<=,<,>,>=,!=) size
6. check box:text + text field to search for
7. check box:fill opacity + (==,<=,<,>,>=,!=) opacity
8. check box:stroke opacity + (==,<=,<,>,>=,!=) opacity
9. radio buttons: from selected, from not selected, any[default]
10. checkbox:ID + ID string
11. checkbus:vs. selected1 + radio buttons: any[default], included, overlapping, excluded
12. checkbox:vs. selected2 + radio buttons: any[default], above, below
13. checkbox:radius + (==,<=,<,>,>=,!=) distance
14. checkbox: level + checkboxes:below,same,above
15. checkbox: locked
16. checkbox: hidden
17. checkbox:obscured + radiobuttons:completely,partially
and so forth.

The logic being that if a particular term was enabled it would be further restrict the selection.

Here is an example where this sort of thing would be useful. The other day I had a complex drawing where there were about 15 "name tags", consisting of black text on a white rectangle, each of these was grouped. I needed to make the text red. These were the only white rectangles. With a system like the one above I would have done:

select -> make selection: object-type: rectangle, fill color:white
select -> make selection: objject-type:text, vs. selected 1:included

Which would have selected only the text I needed to change, and nothing else.