The current Allegro Design Entry HDL (DEHDL) Page Search toolbar works only on the currently opened schematic page. If the scope of the search is different from the current page, then the Advanced Find & Navigate functionality can be used. This new feature also allows you to define the objects which you would like to search for the text.
Read on for more details …
The Find Filter (available from the Page Search toolbar) has a separate User Interface and acts as a selection filter for objects which can be used in various operations including search. This feature allows you to define the scope of a search and you can search for components, nets, properties, notes, images, pins, and plumbing bodies. You can search by using regular expressions, wild cards, property names and values. You can use the Find dialog box which can be launched by clicking on the 
button in the Page Search toolbar or using the short cut key Ctrl + F
This opens the Advanced Find dialog box:
Filter Options -
The check boxes allow you to control the objects to be searched.
Find What -
Use this to enter a search query string. In case of Components and Nets, you can also specify the Property Name Value pair as search criteria using the [>>] Button. The property name and value that you type in this window is automatically updated in the Find What combo box.
For example:
Property Name: FOO and property value: BAR; will be displayed as %prop('FOO','BAR')% in the combo box.
This combo box supports:
Directly typing into the search query string
Previous search query strings are listed in the dropdown list in the current session
Copy and Paste
Look in -
This field defines the search scope - complete design, the current page, or the current schematic selection. Once all the fields have been specified, clicking the Find All button executes the search operation.
The search results are displayed in a dockable Search Results window:
The Search Results window contains standard window type columns displaying the:
- Design Name
- Physical Page Number
- Result Object Type
- Object Details
- Property Name
- Property Value
The different rows display the search results. When you double-click one of the rows, it will navigate and zoom in to display the object. You can select the contents of this window and copy them to the clipboard to paste in a text file or Excel worksheet. This window also displays the number of results found and the time taken to search them.
Steps to search any text from the Advanced Find and Navigation Window:
1. In the Page Search toolbar, click on the button to launch the Advance Find dialog box.
2. Specify the Filter Options to define the objects on which the text needs to be searched.
3. Specify the text to be searched.
4. Specify the search scope.
5. Click on the Find All button to run the search.
6. The search is launched based on the selections made in the dialog box and the results
are displayed in the docking window.
7. In the docking window, you can:
a. Sort the results
b. Filter the results
c. Double click on a row to navigate to the object.
To find any text on the page use the find text box in toolbar.
As always - I look forward to your feedback experiencing this new 16.5 capability.
Jerry "GenPart" Grzenia