Easy Telescope-style file finder in Zed

[baldwindavid]

There's a been a lot of discussion about telescope-style search in #8279. There's some good workarounds/ideas there, but just posting a drop-in setup that leverages television, a task, and keybinding.

1. Install television

2. Add a task for a file finder

tasks.json

{
  "label": "file_finder",
  "command": "zed \"$(tv files)\"",
  "hide": "always",
  "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
  "use_new_terminal": true
},

3. Add keybinding to open file finder in center terminal

keymap.json

// replace file_finder::Toggle
"cmd-p": [
  "task::Spawn",
  { "task_name": "file_finder", "reveal_target": "center" }
],

This should result in an interaction similar to...

2025-01-02T184704.mp4

Searching file contents

Television can search just about anything so, for example, file contents could also be searched with the text channel.

{
  "label": "fulltext_search",
  "command": "zed \"$(tv text)\"",
  "hide": "always",
  "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
  "use_new_terminal": true
},

[morgoth]

@baldwindavid Thanks. This works nicely, however when I open the search the lookup is done through some random files only and not all my workspace. Do you know how to configure that?

[baldwindavid]

I'm not too sure. What do you mean by "random" files? Are they a subset of the files in your Zed project or files from outside the project?

If outside, perhaps you need to specify ZED_WORKTREE_ROOT in the task with something like "zed \"$(tv files ${ZED_WORKTREE_ROOT})\"",

If it's the wrong files, you might need to tell television what files you want to include. Television can take a custom source for files and a custom previewer, but we're getting past the easy drop-in here. At any rate, here's an example that pipes all elixir file names in the ~/Code path from fd to tv and uses bat to preview...

fd -e ex . ~/Code | tv --preview 'bat -n --color=always {}'

In theory, you could use something like find, fd, etc to limit your set of files to the extensions you want and in the directory you want and then pass to tv. If you try this route I'd suggest getting it to work via terminal outside of Zed before trying to use it in a task.

Maybe there's an easy answer, but I don't know. It just works for me without messing with the list of files as far as I have seen.

[morgoth]

Looks like it works correctly.
I'm having few "folders" open, ie few projects and when I'm on some file in one "project folder" the search is not including other "project folders", but that's fine.
Thank you.

[dBangos]

Thanks, this works really well! Had to change the task as so

{
  "label": "File Finder",
  "command": "zeditor \"$(tv files)\"",
  "hide": "always",
  "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
  "use_new_terminal": true
}

because zed's name on linux (at least on my install) is zeditor. Really simple but might save someone a minute or two :)

[eddiebergman]

Many thanks @baldwindavid

Also adding a little something.

I usually use alt-j, alt-k for navigating menus. This wasn't
going through to the terminal fully (but also television through my terminal didn't like those keys).

Anywho, this worked for me.

{
    "context": "Terminal",
    "bindings": {
      // "ctrl-/": "workspace::ToggleBottomDock",
      "alt-j": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "down"],
      "alt-k": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "up"]
    }
  }

[failable]

That's awesome, thanks. Works like a charm except the builtin terminal is a bit slow.

[universalmind303]

came here to say the same thing. There's very noticeable delay between entering the command and when the finder is opened and ready. Much more so than spawning it in an existing terminal

[thomdabrowski]

I added a bash shell, and it improved the speed slightly:

tasks.json

[
  {
    "label": "File Finder",
    "command": "zed \"$(tv files)\"",
    "hide": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false,
    "use_new_terminal": true,
    "shell": {
      "program": "/bin/bash"
    }
  },
  {
    "label": "Find in Files",
    "command": "zed \"$(tv text)\"",
    "hide": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false,
    "use_new_terminal": true,
    "shell": {
      "program": "/bin/bash"
    }
  }
]

keymap.json

"cmd-p": [
  "task::Spawn",
  { "task_name": "File Finder", "reveal_target": "center" }
],
"cmd-f": [
  "task::Spawn",
  { "task_name": "Find in Files", "reveal_target": "center" }
]

[eddiebergman]

It's most likely the startup files contained in your .bashrc/.zshrc files, along with whatever other code they run on shell launch.

You can put it as bash --noprofile --norc to force it not to load it, same for most shells. I just did a test and it seems to work with sh as well which should be even faster to start up.
sh --noediting --norc --noprofile. You might need to put tv on you $PATH env var such that you don't need any profile config files to find it. For example, in your /usr/bin, milage may vary.

[piotreknow02]

Thank you so much @baldwindavid! This is awesome.
Has anyone here tried to bring the telescope-style live grep? I've been looking for a way to do this with tv's cable channels, but I don't see a way to pass a search term into source_command

[piotreknow02]

Update: I got it to work.

  {
    "label": "Live Grep",
    "command": "zed \"$(tv text)\"",
    "hide": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
    "use_new_terminal": true,
    "shell": {
      "program": "sh"
    }
  }

Hope that helps someone!

[Freyskeyd]

Hey @baldwindavid !

Thanks for this awesome task ! I've a corner case tho that is a little bit messing with my brain.
I'm using vim-mode and if I yank a text, like a variable or something, then open "File Finder" then paste, the text is completely messed up.
I'm not sure if it is from my setup or a problem with using this with zed. Any of you have that?

I'm on Macos, with latest zed and television.

thanks !

[baldwindavid]

I don't encounter that issue and use vim mode. Just as a test you might change that command to something like "command": "top", just to eliminate tv being involved at all as a cause. If the same issue is happening then it would probably have something to do with your keybindings.

[Freyskeyd]

All other commands seem to work well, I tried to just open vim and paste to the clipboard and it works.
I think the problem is in television, and related to this

[baldwindavid]

Ah, the author fixes bugs real quick over there so I'm sure it will get worked out.

[Freyskeyd]

Yeah, I updated to main and it works !

My next problem to solve is, how to search for a file, and open it on the right of the current one^^

[morgoth]

FYI: after update to zed 0.173.8, this stopped working due to #24833
The fix is to change "label" of the task to something like "file_finder"

[0xdapper]

A custom channel that searches over open files would be nice too. But I don't think the zed cli is capable of getting that information.

[1925381584]

@baldwindavid hi, I looked your video and find you open a file in the same instance of zed, but I will open a new zed window, what's the problem? Is it because I'm using it under Windows? Thank you for your provide anyway

[baldwindavid]

Maybe? I do know that Zed does not have official support for Windows yet.