How to use our feature "Find & Replace" to replace content in your D2L Instance.
Using Find and Replace
💡 We highly recommend testing our F&R in a specific course before trying at the account level. Please keep in mind sometimes search's will take a minute or two depending on the size of the content that is being searched. This is as expected.
The Find and Replace option will appear on the search landing page next to the triple-dot menu.
Content Types in D2L
Currently you can only search Pages in D2L. Not assignment or quizzes.
How to search
Find and replace allows you to search across your course and edit the HTML of your D2L Page content in bulk using your existing Atomic Search course index.
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Find
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This text field has an auto-expandable multi-line control to enter your search criteria.
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Choose how to find results by clicking one or more of the following buttons.
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Match case - When this setting is enabled, it will only return matches where the casing matches exactly. For example, searching for ‘dna’ with this setting turned off will match ‘dna’, ‘Dna’, or ‘DNA’. With the setting turned on, it will match only ‘dna’.
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Match whole word - When this setting is turned on, it will not match against parts of words. For example, searching ‘able’ with the setting turned off will match ‘able’, ‘stable’, or ‘tables’. With the setting turned on, it will match only ‘able’
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Regular expression - Allows for more advanced matches using a regular expression engine. It uses the Elixir Regex module, which is documented here: https://hexdocs.pm/elixir/Regex.html . For example, you could switch any links going to http://docs.google.com or http://www.google.com to HTTPS links with this search text: “http://(docs|www).google.com” and this replace text “https://\1.google.com”
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Replace with
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This text field has an auto-expandable multi-line control to enter your desired replacement criteria.
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Once you click the Find button, your search will be initiated, and results will start to appear. A loading indicator will appear at the top of the right panel, indicating it's still searching. When the search is done, the loader will disappear.
This results list lets you preview your changes for each result before running the bulk action.
We display matches by listing the names and types of the items where results were found, along with a snippet of the match and replace. We currently only display the first five items. There is a dropdown to show more results at once.
The matched text is highlighted in red, and the pending replacement text is highlighted in green.
To remove a result from your list, hover over the result and click the X button that appears. This will skip over the Ignored result when the replacement is started. The ignored results will reappear if you initiate another search.
Replace All
Once you have done a find, and at least one result has returned, a new 'Replace All' button will appear next to the 'Find' button.
Note: Clicking this button will cause most of the UI to become grayed out and read-only while the process runs. You can leave and come back to this page at any time.
You will see a status bar at the top indicating how many matches have been replaced and how many total matches there are.
While in progress, you can press the 'Cancel' button to halt the replacements. After canceling, you can continue accepting or dismissing individual items or begin 'Replace all.'
Once the replacement is finished, an 'Undo' button will appear on the right-hand side.
To replace text on a single item, hover over an item in the results list.
Undo
To undo simply press the undo button. Keep in mind that if you leave and come back the undo button will be gone. It only undoes the direct search you just made.
F&R History
F&R has a history that shows the find, the replace and the User ID of the person that has done the search, as well as the timestamp and scope. Additionally you can download the CSV results of your search.
Settings
F&R has the ability to allow only admins, only instructors, or both for usage. You also have the ability to enable world cloud for instructors.
Allow Admins to Use Find & Replace:
This allows, only, Admins to use Find & Replace.
Allow Instructors to Use Find & Replace:
This allows, only, Instructors to use Find & Replace.
Allow courses to enable world cloud:
This allows instructors to enable world cloud. They can also disable it.
How to Set Up
1. Go to your LMS instance
2. Go to Search
3. Click the 3 dot menu
4. Go to Admin Settings