Better Find
Project search in a detached, movable window — the closest VS Code gets to a
WebStorm-style "Search Everywhere" panel that you open, use, and hide without
cluttering your layout.
Features
- Floating window — the search opens in its own movable OS window (a VS Code
auxiliary window); park it on a second monitor and it stays alive
independently of the editor. (Falls back to a docked tab if unsupported.)
- Search Everywhere modes — a
Text · Files · Symbols · All bar (click or
Tab to cycle):
- Text — live, streaming ripgrep search (respects
.gitignore), with
regex, match case, and whole word toggles.
- Files — fuzzy filename/path search.
- Symbols — workspace symbols (functions, classes, …) via the language
server; jumps to the definition.
- All — runs the three and shows merged, capped sections with a
"→ more in …" link into each mode.
- File-type filter — a
Types ▾ dropdown auto-detected from your workspace
(frequency-sorted, cached). Every type is searched by default; uncheck the ones
you don't want (uncheck all = nothing to search), with Select all /
Deselect all and custom exclude globs (e.g. dist/**). Salesforce
metadata (*.permissionset-meta.xml, *.flexipage-meta.xml, …) is listed
per metadata type, not lumped under xml.
- Scope — right-click a folder in the Explorer → Better Find: Search in This
Folder; clear the scope to go back to the whole workspace.
- Grouped results + syntax-highlighted preview — matches grouped by file
(collapsible), with a whole-file, scrollable preview centered on the selected
match and Prism syntax highlighting (theme-aware).
- Stacked or side-by-side layout with a draggable splitter, and width-aware
result rows that keep the match in view.
Usage
- Toggle the window:
Ctrl+Alt+F, the $(search) Search status-bar item,
or the command Better Find: Toggle Search Window.
- Type to search; ↑/↓ moves through results and updates the preview.
- Enter / double-click / the Open button jumps to the file (and closes the
search). Single-click just previews.
Esc clears a non-empty query, then closes on the next press.- Sidebar: the Better Find icon in the Activity Bar opens the same search
docked in the sidebar (it stays open after you jump to a result, and keeps
its own remembered query and filters). Hide the icon with
betterFind.showInActivityBar if you only use the floating window.
Settings
| Setting |
Default |
Meaning |
betterFind.openInFloatingWindow |
true |
Pop into its own OS window. Off = docked editor tab. |
betterFind.showInActivityBar |
true |
Show the Better Find icon/view in the Activity Bar. |
betterFind.maxResults |
300 |
Cap on matches per search — ripgrep is stopped once this many are found, so a broad query stays fast. Raise it to see more of a big result set. |
betterFind.sortResults |
onComplete |
Text-result order: sorted by path when the search finishes; always sorts during the search (slower, stable results), off leaves ripgrep's order. |
betterFind.typeCacheDays |
7 |
Days before the detected file-type list auto-rescans. |
betterFind.ripgrepPath |
"" |
Absolute path to rg. Empty = auto-detect, then PATH. |
Requirements & notes
- VS Code 1.85+ (for floating editor windows). ripgrep (
rg) is used for
search: it's auto-detected from common install paths, then falls back to the copy
bundled with VS Code itself — so no separate install is required (set
betterFind.ripgrepPath to override).
- Preview syntax highlighting is per-line, so constructs spanning multiple lines
(e.g. block comments) may not carry their highlighting across line breaks.
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