Finally poking around sorted out something that's been annoying me for a while.
I've been using code blocks as an editor, not for debugging. (The code I'm writing has real time
issues that makes debugging with gdb impossible). Which means I never use the Log window.
Anyway whats annoying for a user that doesn't know is that 'highlight' -> 'find occurrences of' doesn't show anything unless the Log window is open. And you have to go view->Log or F2 to make that happen. Be a lot easier for a newbie if 'find occurrences' would open the log window if it's not being shown. Same issue with find in files. If the log window isn't show you see nothing.