Create a multibuffer from multiple files?

[xpe]

I'd like to choose some files, smoosh them together in a multi-buffer, looking something like this:

===== file_1.md =====
# File 1
This is file 1

===== file_2.md =====
# File 2
This is file 2

===== file_3.md =====
# File 3
This is file 3

Of course, having a nice visual horizontal separator would be nice.

Design Questions

• how to specify the files to include?
  • perhaps files inside a directory
  • perhaps a multi-selection
  • perhaps a newline-separated list of files
• how to specify the order of files?
  • initially
  • later
• adding/removing files to/from the multibuffer
• convenient UX for renaming files in the multi-buffer

[JosephTLyons]

I'd also like a command to open selections in multi-buffer. This would be useful for a variety of things, but one would be:

Running Select All Matches and then running the open selections in multi-buffer command to pull everything into one tight view, where you can easily double check that all of your selections are selecting the things you want

[xpe]

Hi, is your "friendly amendment" / suggestion about multiple selections in a single file? Would it work for multiple files?

[mikayla-maki]

These features sound awesome!

[JosephTLyons]

I've had a branch open for probably 6 months with a bit of work for Open Selections in Multi-buffer, but I ran into some issues and abandoned it. I've been wanting that for a long time now 😂

[alejandrovrojas]

@JosephTLyons I've also been hoping https://github.com/zed-industries/community/issues/698 would get some attention at some point!

@xpe I think a file based selection would quickly lead to a very cluttered multi-buffer. I'd like to use a command like append selection to multi-buffer which would solve the issue of what to include and in which order, and most importantly only show the most relevant lines of each file.

On that note, Emacs has a feature called narrowing which allows to isolate a buffer to a specific number of lines and thereby limiting all editing operations to those lines only. This feature by itself would be a great addition to Zed but it could lead to an even more interesting usage of a multi-buffer view consisting of narrowed parts of different buffers.

[imthatgin]

This is something I've wanted from vscode for a long time, which has been more or less impossible to implement with just the extension API. Has anyone made progress on this type of feature?

[SomeoneToIgnore]

I do no think the plugins should do that, it seems quite fundamental to be included into the core.

The main question here is the UI: how that should be displayed to the user, in particular, how "this buffer and this particular range of it to add" is selected in the interface.

After that is solved, all that's left to do is call

zed/crates/multi_buffer/src/multi_buffer.rs

Lines 1224 to 1243 in 385e05e

	pub fn push_excerpts<O>(
	&mut self,
	buffer: Model<Buffer>,
	ranges: impl IntoIterator<Item = ExcerptRange<O>>,
	cx: &mut ModelContext<Self>,
	) -> Vec<ExcerptId>
	where
	O: text::ToOffset,
	{
	self.insert_excerpts_after(ExcerptId::max(), buffer, ranges, cx)
	}
	pub fn push_excerpts_with_context_lines<O>(
	&mut self,
	buffer: Model<Buffer>,
	ranges: Vec<Range<O>>,
	context_line_count: u32,
	cx: &mut ModelContext<Self>,
	) -> Vec<Range<Anchor>>
	where

and, optionally, create a new multi buffer before doing that.

[alejandrovrojas]

The main question here is the UI: how that should be displayed to the user, in particular, how "this buffer and this particular range of it to add" is selected in the interface.

Wouldn't a command like open selections in multi-buffer be enough to solve this? I don't think UI affordances are necessary to test this concept

[SomeoneToIgnore]

Better than nothing, but does not sound very convenient to me personally: specifically, I'd love to see the ability to fill a multi buffer from multiple different files, while open selections ... deals with a single file only.

[SomeoneToIgnore]

A small update, looks like a team member have been thinking about the same, and now there's #23644 coming next week.

So, first step towards multi buffer ergonomics is made.

[DavidPD]

Man I've been wanting something similar to this since I was a heavy Sublime Text 2 user. The sublime search buffer always made me feel like I should be able to do exactly what Zed offers with multibuffer editing. Then, VSCode's peek made me think about how it would feel if I could open a buffer for a single function and then open buffers for every function my current buffer references.

That functionality is probably deeper than Zed's Core should handle since every language would be a little different (unless there's somehow an LSP call for getting the start and end of a function). But if Zed's plugin API made creating and manipulating multibuffers easy...

Basically I've always wondered what it would be like to have a "focus mode" for individual functions and whatever they depend on. Maybe even the ability to save a named multibuffer with a list of functions used in a particular feature.

[imthatgin]

Yeah this is exactly what I want. The video from this neovim plugin that achieves what I want is indicative of the value proposition: https://github.com/hoschi/yode-nvim

[claytonrcarter]

Thank you, @JosephTLyons for #23644! I have run into a number of occasions where I have wanted to do normal/single buffer search, but to see all of the matches opened in a multibuffer. I still want that, but I now have a pretty good intermediate workaround: start a buffer search, run/click "select all matches", run "open selections in multibuffer". Magic!

If such a hypothetical "open all matches in multibuffer" feature were added to the buffer search, the only difference between what I mentioned about is that it would not "select all matches" first.

Anyway, thank you!

[JosephTLyons]

I'd like to introduce a bunch of ways to create your own multibuffers. I added editor: open selections in multibuffer, but I'd like to be able to open a multibuffer from selections across multiple panes, I'd like to be able to create a multibuffer by selecting multiple files in the project tree, or right clicking on a directory. Creating one from a buffer search sounds cool too.