Project search in a detached, movable window — the closest VS Code gets to a WebStorm-style "Search Everywhere" panel that you open, use, and hide without cluttering your layout.
Features
- Floating window — the search opens in its own movable OS window (a VS Code auxiliary window); park it on a second monitor and it stays alive independently of the editor. (Falls back to a docked tab if unsupported.)
- Search Everywhere modes — a
Text · Files · Symbols · Allbar (click or Tab to cycle):- Text — live, streaming ripgrep search (respects
.gitignore), with regex, match case, and whole word toggles. - Files — fuzzy filename/path search.
- Symbols — workspace symbols (functions, classes, …) via the language server; jumps to the definition.
- All — runs the three and shows merged, capped sections with a "→ more in …" link into each mode.
- Text — live, streaming ripgrep search (respects
- File-type filter — a
Types ▾dropdown auto-detected from your workspace (frequency-sorted, cached). Every type is searched by default; uncheck the ones you don't want (uncheck all = nothing to search), with Select all / Deselect all and custom exclude globs (e.g.dist/**). - Scope — right-click a folder in the Explorer → Better Find: Search in This Folder; clear the scope to go back to the whole workspace.
- Grouped results + syntax-highlighted preview — matches grouped by file (collapsible), with a whole-file, scrollable preview centered on the selected match and Prism syntax highlighting (theme-aware).
- Stacked or side-by-side layout with a draggable splitter, and width-aware result rows that keep the match in view.
Usage
- Toggle the window:
Ctrl+Alt+F, the$(search) Searchstatus-bar item, or the command Better Find: Toggle Search Window. - Type to search; ↑/↓ moves through results and updates the preview.
- Enter / double-click / the Open button jumps to the file (and closes the search). Single-click just previews.
Escclears a non-empty query, then closes on the next press.- Sidebar: the Better Find icon in the Activity Bar opens the same search
docked in the sidebar (it stays open after you jump to a result, and keeps
its own remembered query and filters). Hide the icon with
betterFind.showInActivityBarif you only use the floating window.
Settings
| Setting | Default | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
betterFind.openInFloatingWindow |
true |
Pop into its own OS window. Off = docked editor tab. |
betterFind.showInActivityBar |
true |
Show the Better Find icon/view in the Activity Bar. |
betterFind.maxResults |
300 |
Cap on matches per search. |
betterFind.typeCacheDays |
7 |
Days before the detected file-type list auto-rescans. |
betterFind.ripgrepPath |
"" |
Absolute path to rg. Empty = auto-detect, then PATH. |
Requirements & notes
- VS Code 1.85+ (for floating editor windows). ripgrep (
rg) is used for search: it's auto-detected from common install paths, then falls back to the copy bundled with VS Code itself — so no separate install is required (setbetterFind.ripgrepPathto override). - Preview syntax highlighting is per-line, so constructs spanning multiple lines (e.g. block comments) may not carry their highlighting across line breaks.