Adobe Dreamweaver Bug Causes the Find in Folder Feature to Select the Wrong Folder

For some reason I've had problems with Dreamweaver's Find in Folder feature. When browsing for a folder, Dreamweaver often selects the wrong one. I don't know if the issue is caused my computer, Dreamweaver, or both. But I wanted talk about how I get around the bug in case you're experiencing the same issue.

Background

Note that I'm currently using Dreamweaver CS4 on Windows Vista. And to make the example easier to follow, let's say our website's folder structure looks like Figure 1.

Figure 1. Example Folder Structure

Searching a Folder

To search for something in all the files under the "about" folder, we could

• Open the Find and Replace dialog
• Enter the search criteria in the "Find" field
• Select Folder… from the "Find in" drop down
• Click the folder icon to the right of the "Find in" field
• In the Choose Search Folder window, locate and select the "about" folder (see Figure 2)
• Click Select
• Click Find All

However, you may have noticed that Dreamweaver is searching through more files then the ones in the about folder. If you take a closer look at Figure 3, Dreamweaver didn't select the correct folder.

Figure 2. Select the About Folder

Figure 3. Incorrect Folder Selection

Solution

We could manually type the folder name, but there's a quicker way which is less prone to errors. When selecting a folder, watch the "Select" reference in the Choose Search Folder window (see Figure 4).

Figure 4. Select Indicator Showing Incorrect Folder

This shows the folder that Dreamweaver will select. If the correct folder isn't shown, click one level deeper into the folder structure where possible. So in our example, we can go into the images folder and Dreamweaver will select the about folder (see Figure 5).

Figure 5. Select Indicator Showing Correct Folder

Conclusion

The weird thing about this bug is that it seems very inconsistent. Sometimes the parent directory is selected, other times Dreamweaver selects the desired folder.