Overview

Aba Search and Replace is a search utility that is capable of locating hard to find text passages and changing their details.

This tool can be used replace keywords or passages of text. The software can search for different items like copyright notices, mistakes contained in code and other situations where it is useful to locate repeated text items that can be replaced with corrected versions (or removed entirely).

The search is powerful enough to locate items across multiple lines. Regular Expressions are also fully supported which means that unusual searches can be conducted which locate items that conform to certain conditions.

There is support for international coding with Unicode UTF-8 and UTF-16.

A history of the previous searches can be accessed. Favorite searches can be saved in order to speed up the repeated need for the same searches on future occasions. This is especially useful when making use of Regular Expressions that can be quite complex in structure with the user not wanting to recreate them each time if they can be recalled instead. Match case and match whole word searches are also included as options with each search.

There is a strong undo feature which can rollback any changes to files with the search and replace function.

Syntax highlighting for code is also supported to make it easier to understand different language code within files that are opened for a search and replace action.

Installation

The installation completed without any issues. There is the option during the installation to add new content menus relating to the app to Explorer to make them easier to access.

There was no adware, toolbars, spyware or malware included with the setup package.

Aba Search and Replace requires Windows OS.

Interface

The interface is fairly basic and the layout is a little old-fashioned.

There are navigational tabs for "Search," "Replace," and "Undo." Both "Options" and "Help" buttons are shown on the top-right side of the interface.

Files can be located via the file “Browse” button.

Matching text is shown in the lower pane, with the number of characters search and the total matches given at the very bottom of the application window.

Pros

• Search and replace text inside text-based files
• Syntax highlighting
• Match whole word and match case searches
• Regular Expression searches
• Save searches for future use as Favorites
• Supports Unicode UTF-8 and UTF-16
• 30 day trial period

Cons

• Old-fashioned interface

Alternatives

TextCrawler is a search and replace utility that can perform its function across multiple text-based files.

Conclusion

Aba Search and Replace is a useful search and replace utility that includes basic searches, Regular Expressions, saved favorite searches, and other useful functionality built into its interface.