Search in Files Plugin

The "Search in Files" plugin allows to search for a given string in multiple files.

Use cases

1. Paolo wants to search for the string "foo" in all the open documents in the current gedit window
2. Paolo wants to search for the string "bar" in all the C files in the directory "/opt/gnome" and in all its subdirectories
3. Yannick wants to launch a research based on the current selected text in active document
4. ...

Controls

A new menu entry "Find in files..." should be present in "Search" menu

The plugin should catch Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut to show the search in files dialog

If user has selected text in current document, this selection should be reported in the "Search for" entry of the search in files dialog

UI Design

More than one year ago Paolo prepared some mockup. You can see them at: http://www.gnome.org/~paolo/screenshots/search-files/

Search in Files dialog

The plugin should show a dialog to allow users to configure the target:

http://www.gnome.org/~paolo/screenshots/search-files/search_in_files_dialog.png

TBC: A future extension should be another entry to configure "follow symlink"

The users choice in the dialog should be kept for the next session

This dialog should be displayed:

• when user press Ctrl+Shift+F shortcut,
• when user go in menu, Search and select "Find in files..." new entry.

Results of search

The results should be displayed as a list (TBD: or a tree ?) in the bottom panel:

http://www.gnome.org/~paolo/screenshots/search-files/panel-item.png

When the research succeed, each line should display :

• the document name,
• the line number in the document,
• the line content in the document.

TBD: In case the tree widget is prefered, the document name can be displayed only in a node, and leaf should contains only line number and line content.

The user should be able to navigate to a document & a line result by double clicking an entry in this list

TBD: The global behaviour (editing still possible ?) of whole GEdit documents while search is in progress

Abbreviations

History of this file

2007-08-07 by PaoloMaggi : Initial Creation.

2007-08-08 by YGicquel : Addition of Shortcut details, search dialog & results of search behaviour.