GUI Only - Replace - Replace as regular expression

I have tried several different ways and nothing is working for me. I have tried it in both of these, "Replace" and "Replace as regular function"

I tried to replace (no quotation marks) "-" to "to" in 1975-1980 I wanted 1975 to 1980. The program was seeing the dash and wanted to split the album.

I have also tried to remove extra spaces. I have tried " - " (two spaces) replace with " - " (one space)

I love the program and read a lot about the expressions people are using, but they seem pretty confusing. Not sure if they are command line entries. I am comfortable with the GUI, and am getting better.

Thank you for your patience with me.

Could you tell us which action you use for which field?
And which search string and which replace string?

If you want to replace one text constant with another one then use simple "Replace".
Search string: -
Replace string: to
(where the _ represents the blank in real life but such blanks are not shown properly in forums posts)

If you want to replace double blanks with single blanks, use
Search string: __
Replace string: _
(same symbolic representation)

I tried Replace and Replace With Regular expression. I haven't been very successful with either of these even using normal text. The string is - and the replace is to.

Yes, I know.
You said so in the first post.
What you have not told us yet is: which field?

And perhaps: how did you do it?
Did you select the files before you applied the action?
You can test your expression with the function Convert>Tag-Tag
Select the field in which you want to replace the strings.
Then enter this format string:
$replace(%fieldname%,-,to)

Instead of %fieldname% enter the correct fieldname variable for the source field.
The preview should show you the result.