How to: Use Search in the Workflow Designer

[This is prerelease documentation and is subject to change in future releases. Blank topics are included as placeholders.]

To facilitate creating larger, more complex workflows, Search can be used in the Workflow Designer to find items by keyword. Note that the designer does not support Replace. Search will find the following in the designer:

Quick Find

Quick find will find the following in the designer:

  • Properties of Activity objects, FlowNode objects, State objects, transitions, and other custom flow-control items.

  • Variables

  • Arguments

  • Expressions

Using Quick Find

  1. With the workflow designer open, press Ctrl+F, or select Edit, Find and Replace, Quick Find.

  2. Enter the search term into the Find what textbox and click Find Next.

  3. The search term will be located in the current workflow. The following screenshot shows an activity display name being located in the designer.

    Search result in the Workflow Designer

Find in files

Using Find in Files will locate strings in workflow files, including XAML files.

Using Find in Files

  1. In Visual Studio, press Ctrl + Shift + F, or select Edit, Find and Replace, Find in Files

  2. Enter the search item into the Find what textbox and click Find All

  3. The find result will be shown in the Visual Studio Find Result view. Double-clicking a result item will navigate to the activity which contains the match in workflow designer.

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Build Date:

2012-08-02