Under the Search Areas tab you will find a number of settings to control in what areas of the website the replacement should be done.

The main setting under this tab is the Enable in area setting. If you don't know what to choose, leaving this to Body (not in head) is usually fine.

  • Content (Articles & Categories)
    Only in articles from the article manager. So not in forum articles, for instance. And also not in articles shown through modules.
  • Components
    In the main area of your site. So in all components, but not in modules and other elements outside the main area.
  • Head (not in body)
    Only in the head section of the html (the top part containing the title and other meta tags).
  • Body (not in head)
    In the whole site except the head of the html.
  • Everywhere
    In the whole site, so also in the head of the html.

There are also additional features in the Search Areas settings, such as the ability to enable (or disable) search in feeds, edit form, in the Administrator panel, in html tags, and only between certain text.

With the Pro version of ReReplacer, you can also limit the replacements based on a multitude of possible conditions.

Settings

Enable in area Select where to do the searches.
Enable in category If enabled, the replacements will also be done in the description of the category
Enable in title If enabled, the replacements will also be done in the article titles.
Enable in author If enabled, the replacements will also be done in the author name field.
Enable in feeds If enabled, the replacements will also be done in the website's feeds.
Enable in Admin If enabled, the replacements will also be done in the Administrator.
Be careful! Only activate this if you really need to. If your search/replace has errors, it could prevent you from entering your administrator!
Enable in edit forms If enabled, the replacements will also be done in edit forms on the frontend.
Only between (start/end) The search will only take place between the given (html) code. This only works if both the start and end field are entered.

The search will be done between the start code and the first found end code after it.
(You cannot use regular expressions in these fields.)

Example:
If you replace - by / between a and b:
a --- a --- b --- b
will become:
a /// a /// b --- b
Enable in HTML tags If enabled, the replacements will also be done within HTML tags. You can also choose to do the replacements only within tags. This regards the actual tags <...>, not what is between a open and close tag.
Limit to tag selection If enabled, the replacements will only be done within selected tags and tag parameters. Otherwise searches will be done within all tags.
Tag selection A list of permitted tags and parameters to do the searches in. This regards the actual tags <...>, not what is between a open and close tag.
Use an asterisk to permit all tags/parameters. The syntax of this list is like this:
tag_name_1[parameter_name_1, parameter_name_2] tag_name_2[parameter_name_1, parameter_name_2]

Example (permits search in the values of the 'alt' and 'title' of all tags, permits search in the whole 'a' tag):
*[alt,title] a[*]

Process Explanation

Some more in-depth information about the underlying process. You can skip this part if it is too complex for you.

The choice you make in the Search Area, not only determines in what area the replacement is done, but also at what stage in the rendering process of the page the replacement is done.

During the rendering of the page, ReReplacer gets triggered 3 times.

  • Content Prepare
    This is the stage where the articles are prepared for further handling.
    Replacements using area Articles (and Categories) will be run at this stage.
  • After Dispatch
    At this stage the main content for the page has been generated. This concerns the 'component' area. So this does not include any modules yet.
    Replacements using area Content (not in modules) will be run at this stage.
    PS: After this stage it is no longer possible to add scripts/styles to the page through php commands.
  • After Render
    The is the last stage in the process, before the final html gets passed to the browser. So this includes all the html, including the 'componet' area, all modules and the 'head' section of the html (which contains the site title, meta tags and possible script and style tags). All other Replacements will be run at this stage. So Body (not in head), Head (not in body) and Everywhere.