I tried it, but still no luck. I even tried it on a blank line which had nothing to select and it still reverted to the last thing I previously searched for. I can't clear the search history either. I have tried every combination I can think of and it still insists on plugging a search string in.

Maybe I wasn't clear - I don't want the editor to reuse the previously used search string - I want the find box completely empty.

I dont think it can do that, as far as I can tell...

You can save a particular string to always be there. But you can't save "<NOTHING>". As well if you set a custom to a particular search string then the other features get disabled -- which is non-optimal.

I can see where you are coming from though: You want it so if some text is selected, that text is in the find-box, otherwise the find-box should be blank.