This was an intentional choice. The idea is that the menu would be used
by beginners, who don't know the keyboard commands yet. These users
would also not know what characters need to be escaped in a pattern.
As Christian mentioned, once you know Vim a bit you would just use
"/pattern" and ":s/from/to".
--
hundred-and-one symptoms of being an internet addict:
16. You step out of your room and realize that your parents have moved and
you don't have a clue when it happened.
/// Bram Moolenaar -- Br...@Moolenaar.net --
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