How to: Use Search in the Workflow Designer

  • Article

Applies to: yesVisual Studio noVisual Studio for Mac

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2017. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

To facilitate creating larger, more complex workflows, you can search within the Workflow Designer to find items by keyword. Note that the designer does not support Replace.

Quick Find

Quick find finds the following in the designer:

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

  • Variables

  • Arguments

  • Expressions

Use 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 is located in the current workflow. The following image shows an activity display name being located in the designer:

    Search result in the Workflow Designer

Find in files

Find in Files locates strings in workflow files, including XAML files.

Use 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 is shown in the Find Result view. Double-clicking a result item navigates to the activity that contains the match in workflow designer.