+20

Edit multi-file search results in place

Francis Gastellu 12 years ago updated by Tuncay Demirtepe 10 years ago 3

Currently, the results of a multi-file search end up in a temporary editor. It would be an *extremely* time-saving feature to have the ability to edit the files in-place, inside the search results window. Unfortunately it edits the search result editor's buffer, which can be saved on its own, but that's much less useful.

In fact, when I did my first search and got a whole bunch of results in a seemingly editable file, i thought I was being offered dozens of mini editors, and i was blown away. Then i was very disappoint.

This would be a killer feature!


Currently I use Eclipse/Aptana along with ST2 when I need to do global search and replace. That may sound silly and I'd love to completely get rid of the former and do everything in ST2 but Global Replace is just a too dangerous operation to perform it blindly, without any preview and selective replaces. Having ST2 open all edited files in unsaved state is helpful but not as transparent and efficient as what is being suggested here, I hope you agree.


Now ST2 doesn't need an interface as bulky as in Eclipse, the current search results window would be perfect, if only we could edit it and have the edits applied to appropriate locations in files!


Please consider implementing this!


P.S. This has also been suggested by Martin Stabenfeldt in this comment.

Agreed. This would be a killer feature indeed. I have only used Sublime Text (3) for a few days now and absolutely love it. However, I have many times found myself editing inside the search results window by mistake, just because it felt so natural.

I just had same experience. I needed to find a certain keyword and add something next to it with a slight change based on file name. (So replace was not an option). It would be great to do it directly in the search results, instead of opening each file. I never see such feature in any editor and having this would be a great feature.