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Are we allowed to ask questions for recommendations on how to perform a specific task?

If so, are we able to state what the task is? Eg: I need a tool to make it easier to insert 2" nails into wood.

If we are able to state what the task is (in a method analogous to the above), why would the question be closed as ambiguous, vague, incomplete, overly broad, or rhetorical?

My question was: is there an HTML editor which can perform conditional search and replace on HTML tags or tag attributes, in a manner similar to Dreamweaver?

If the question is not appropriate to this subset of the stackexchange network, but is appropriate to another section of stackexchange, is it impossible or illogical to migrate the question, instead of being closed as ambiguous, when it is simply not ambigous, or vague, or incomplete, or overly broad, or rhetorical.

I admit to being a bit miffed.

It isn't: I need some sort of tool to do something with wood. It is: I need a tool to insert 2" nails into wood, similar to a mallet.

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It isn't: I need some sort of tool to do something with wood. It is: I need a tool to insert 2" nails into wood, similar to a mallet.

I believe the issue lies in the interpretation of what you will accept as a valid answer - for instance, one answer could be "you can use a rock", another could be "a claw hammer", "sixteen gauge finishing nail gun", et cetera.

As RandomBen stated in reply to your question, "you need to give a specific tool or language you are trying to use because many other IDEs have site wide find & replace", so when you replied that you were just working with HTML the assumption was that any tool capable of performing find/replace operations on HTML would be considered (i.e. sed, innumerable Notepad variants, IDE's like - as RandomBen mentioned - Visual Studio or Eclipse).

If Dreamweaver includes functionality beyond a find/replace operation on multiple files (the About.com guide seemed to suggest further useful features) your question would still be a better fit for a different StackExchange site - please indicate if this is the case and we can migrate your question to StackOverflow after adding a description of the specific functionality you are looking for.

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  • Okay, thank you.
    – Steve
    Oct 2, 2011 at 4:00
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    The Dreamweaver search and replace knows about html tags. It can search for specific tags with specific attributes. It can strip tags out (start and end) replace attributes or replace tags (start and end) with other tags. Maybe powerusers would be a better place for the question.
    – paulmorriss
    Oct 3, 2011 at 7:51
  • @Steve - Saw your updated comments on the question - would you still like to see the question migrated? (A new question might get better traction if it is specific to the editor(s) you want to use)
    – danlefree
    Oct 3, 2011 at 16:06
  • @dahlefree: Thanks. But if this means migrating it to stackoverflow.com, they are "no longer accepting questions from this account". (goo.gl/C1Kwu). It looks like 3 of my questions were 'asking for help', and not applicable to other people; hence I've been banned from asking questions again. I understand the logic, but was given no warning, and have no chance of redemption. Ever. Which leaves a cold taste in the mouth.
    – Steve
    Oct 3, 2011 at 17:07

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