Multiline Find (VS Code / Cursor)

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PyCharm-style Ctrl+F for multiline text: select a block, press Ctrl+F, then F3 to find the next match in the whole file.

Developed with AI assistance (Cursor / LLM). Part of the ide-plugins monorepo.

Problem

Built-in actions.find does not seed the find widget with multiline selections. editor.find.autoFindInSelection: "multiline" limits search to the selection and breaks F3 outside it.

Solution

This extension:

Copies the selected text (including newlines) into the find widget
Collapses the selection so search is not scoped to it
Rebinds Ctrl+F in the editor to multilineFind.open

Settings (applied automatically)

When the extension is enabled, it contributes default values via configurationDefaults:

{
  "editor.find.autoFindInSelection": "never",
  "editor.find.seedSearchStringFromSelection": "selection"
}

You do not need to add these to settings.json manually. If you already set these keys yourself, your values take precedence over the extension defaults.

What these options do

Setting	Value	Purpose
`editor.find.autoFindInSelection`	`"never"`	Do not enable «Find in Selection» automatically. With `"multiline"`, VS Code restricts search to the highlighted block when the selection spans several lines — F3 then stops at the selection boundary. `"never"` keeps search file-wide.
`editor.find.seedSearchStringFromSelection`	`"selection"`	When opening find without this extension (or via built-in paths), put the entire selected text into the find box, not only the word under the cursor. Helps single-line selections; multiline is handled by the extension itself.

Other values for reference:

autoFindInSelection: "always" — always search only inside the selection; "multiline" — same, but only for multiline selections.
seedSearchStringFromSelection: "never" — empty find box or clipboard; "always" — seed from selection only when it is a single word on one line (multiline is ignored by built-in find).

These settings complement the extension; they do not replace it — built-in find still cannot populate multiline queries on its own.

To override, add the keys to User or Workspace settings in settings.json.

Install from VSIX

Build:

cd vscode/multiline-find
build.bat

Install:

cursor --install-extension build/multiline-find-0.1.3.vsix

Or in Cursor/VS Code: Extensions → ... → Install from VSIX...

Manual multiline search

You can also paste multiline text into the find box, or press Ctrl+Enter to insert a newline in the query.

License

MIT — free to use, modify, and distribute, at your own risk.
ide-plugins monorepo · Releases

Author

Rufat