Visual Studio 2012: How to handle code replacement over multiple lines

Question

I often have to replace multiple lines in multiple documents. In Visual Studio 2012 there seems to be the possibility to put muliple line code in a simple one-line-input-box only.

In the "embedded" search box there is also only a single-line input field:

After inserting the often very long search terms and trying to put a regular expressions for line breaks into it, i have to move horizontally inside a one-line-input-field which isn't comfortable at all.

Is there another way to use the find/replace functionality for replacing muliple lines in Visual Studio 2012?

Answer 1

In order to replace multiple lines first you have to check regular expression option on search window. In following example it's search the

   first
   second
   third

and replace it with

  fourth
  fifth
  sixth

search text : first([\s\n])second([\s\n])third

replace text : fourth$1fifth$2sixth