$re = '/<!--{if(\s+\(?(\$[^\s!=><}]+)[^}]+)}-->/m';
$str = '<!--{if $projectdisplaymode != \'Widget\'}-->
<!--{if (isset($projectdisplaymode ) && $projectdisplaymode != \'Widget\' )}-->
<!--{if $runnow == \'true\'}-->
<!--{if (isset($runnow ) && $runnow == \'true\' )}-->
<!--{if $showdelete == \'Yes\'}-->
<!--{if $average_rating_colorclass == \'progress0\'}-->
<!--{if ($percentage!="")}-->
--Find: <!--{if(\\s+\\(?(\\$[^\\s!=><}]+)[^}]+)}-->
--Replace: <!--{if (isset($2) && $1)}-->';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php