Comment 8 for bug 1747037

Thank you for the explanation Wayne.

eechema is a schematic editor with the only uniqur main goal to pick component and wire them.

You are telling us than searching and replacing the most central thing in this editor (the component) is just not implemented.

I design something and decide for example that 16 outputs stages would be better with a MOSFET than the initial BJT choice and...... nothing.

Worst than that, editing a gate (unit of one component ) with 'E' will definitively mess up your schematic.
You expect when changing from 74LS08 to 74LS00 the FOUR gates being updated.
V or E commands are useless.

SO
"Change library symbol link name using search and replace dialog."
should be
"Basic replacement of component" first then "S&R component"

Say differently, something is incomplete with the way you handle VALUE & COMPONENT_NAME editions.
Sometimes it's a strong one to one relation eg VALUE is allways a copy of COMPONENT_NAME
Sometimes the component have it's VALUE as independant property (resistor, caps,....)
Sometimes all units are strongly identical (74LS00), maybe not for a FPGA.