IPython Notebook Search Features

search_features.md

existing productive search interfaces:

• sublime text/textmate
  • replacement preview
• notepad++
  • mark multiple searched values
• Word
  • contextual navigator interface:
    • hits with context
    • page preview
    • header-level outline
  • "where to search" choices
    • input cells
    • output cells
      • widgets
    • cell/notebook metadata properties
• browsers

screen real estate: (especially mobile)

• top, right, (i.e. covering kernel picker): chrome
• bottom, full width: ff, atom, sublime
• top, full width: ie
• left, full-height: word
• popup: n++ (though find all results docked to bottom)

features:

• find (next/previous)
  • basically what the browsers currently show
    • per-keystroke search/highlight
• find all
  • show navigable table of hits
• replace
  • show contextual preview of replace
    • inline is probably too hard
  • for cells, replace and run?
• undo
  • undo all
• usual search settings
  • regular expressions
    • will have to be JS regexen, probably...
      • but maybe bring in XregExp
  • match case
• search context(s)
  • cells
    • input
    • outputs
      • widgets
  • metadata
    • cell
    • notebook
• grep (hide
• search/replace string history
  • where to store?
    • notebook meta
    • localstorage

frontend integration:

• ScrollManager (unless this can be hidden in IPython.events)
  • .scroll_to
• widgets
  • event based?
  • base widget just searches the text of the DOM
    • obviously won't find things in canvas nodes, or in un-displayed data
  • custom widget implementer either offers up
    • values to be searched
      • includes metadata on how to scroll to that hit: i.e.:
        • scroll to the widget
        • then reveal and focus on a particular node
    • implements its own search
      • potentially allows for searching stuff back in the kernel
  • publish event that requests a search of the notebook for a particular value

backend integration

• search across many notebooks
• widgets implement custom search
  • think paged data not yet displayed on front-end