I have changed this on a local copy of 1.34 and it works fine - just one function, search_show_find_dialog  had to be changed in Search.c
You can leave the search widget open and highlight the next text to find. It transfers to the widget when you click find again without having to close the widget. 
Modified file attached if anyone wants it.
I only implemented it in the basic find, not in find-replace nor find-in-files although it looks like the changes would transcribe quite easily.
 
Compiling for Linux was straightforward and I did manage to make a windows installer using the help on https://wiki.geany.org/howtos/win32/msys2
That was not so straighforward !
Has anyone made the  "Automated build via MAKEPKG file" yet ?
 
The only problem that I have with only the windows build is that it crashes on help-about. Everything else looks fine.
Does anyone have an idea why ? Does windows require something extra for that?
 
K