Add file explorer modal v2 by baldwindavid · Pull Request #45307 · zed-industries/zed

baldwindavid · 2025-12-18T22:28:13Z

This PR implements a modal file browser as an alternative to the project panel. This addresses the feature request from #45042, which proposed enhancing the existing modal that supports the workspace::Open action to be able to function as a general directory explorer.

Background

This builds on the discussion from #43961, which proposed a new dedicated file explorer modal. After maintainer feedback preferring enhancement of an existing picker rather than creating another one, this PR extends the existing OpenPathPrompt with directory navigation capabilities. As noted in #43961, this was the original approach but there were concerns about remote-handling and it perhaps diverging too much from the original intent of the picker.

What's New

Adds two new actions:

workspace::Browse:

Opens file picker from the project root
Navigate into/out of directories (Enter to go in, ".." to go up)
Only allows selecting files (directories are for navigation, not opening as workspaces)
Always opens files in the current workspace

workspace::BrowseFromCurrentDirectory:

Opens file picker from the current file's directory with that file preselected
Same navigation behavior as Browse
Useful for finding files near your current location

Both actions work for local and remote projects.

Implementation

Core changes:

Added DirectoryListerMode enum (Open vs Browse) to explicitly control picker behavior
Extended DirectoryLister to carry mode and optional initial_path
Added confirm_update_query() to OpenPathDelegate to navigate into directories instead of opening them as workspaces
Forces use of in-app picker when preselect is needed (system picker doesn't support starting in specific directories)
OpenPathDelegate derives all context from DirectoryLister (path_style, preselect, browse_mode)

UX details:

Browse mode shows folder icons for directories and navigates on Enter
".." entry at top navigates to parent (suppressed at filesystem root)
Tab on ".." moves to next item (consistent with existing behavior)
Root directory edge cases handled (no duplicate "/", no ".." when no parent)
Empty path entries filtered to avoid confusing display

Other Considerations

Tab behavior on ".." entry:
Currently Tab on ".." moves to the next item (matching the existing workspace::Open behavior on "open this directory"). This means that the top entry "skips" while the entries below "autocomplete". It would arguably be more consistent to autocomplete to the parent directory when tabbing this ".." entry, but I tried that and it felt surprising.

Keybindings:
There are none set in this PR currently. I know that I would set - to trigger workspace::BrowseFromCurrentDirectory (muscle-memory from vim-vinegar) and shift- for workspace::Browse, but probably too opinionated as a default.

Screencasts

`workspace::Browse`

`workspace::BrowseFromCurrentDirectory`

Release Notes:

Added workspace::Browse action to browse and open files via modal (starting from the project root)
Added workspace::BrowseFromCurrentDirectory action to browse and open files via modal (starting from the current file's directory)

* main: (349 commits) component_preview: Fix license symlink (zed-industries#46379) Do not react on already observed buffer edits' versions (zed-industries#46308) Fix EP CLI output flicker (zed-industries#46313) vim: Fix bug where repeat operator could lead to unrecoverable replaying state (zed-industries#46376) vim: Implement text-based matching bracket logic for Vim '%' motion to correctly find pairs within comments (zed-industries#45559) Improve LSP button error message (zed-industries#46377) agent: Make reject/accept keybindings consistent with restore/stage (zed-industries#46373) Enable test-support features for some dev dependencies (zed-industries#46370) Capture terminal output when thread is interrupted (zed-industries#46306) Inline assistant tools: no more feature flag (zed-industries#46107) Add `ep split` subcommand for dataset splitting (zed-industries#46364) lsp_button: Fix long LSP version label (zed-industries#46359) remote: Introduce a proper mock remote connection (zed-industries#46337) ep: Allow matching patches against files without trailing newlines (zed-industries#46357) docs: Update "Custom Keybindings for Extension-Based Agents section" to include a troubleshooting note for defining an agent name (zed-industries#46144) Fail early if clangd is downloaded on aarch Linux (zed-industries#46346) ep: Handle errored requests in Anthropic batches (zed-industries#46351) settings_ui: Fix settings search missing results when BM25 finds partial matches (zed-industries#46349) workspace: Unpreview active tab when closing other tabs (zed-industries#46294) terminal: Skip SHLVL when loading login shell environment (zed-industries#46273) ...

baldwindavid · 2026-01-27T14:51:38Z

Going to hold on this and see how #44530 shakes out and if all pickers move to this sort of design.

Overhauls Zed's pickers to make them resizable and give them a preview. Closes zed-industries#8279 ### Background The most requested Zed feature has the last year has been a [Telescope like search box](zed-industries#8279) [discussion](zed-industries#22581). To understand why this is so popular we need to understand search can serve thee goals: - Navigation: fuzzy search is faster & easier then clicking in a file tree - Exploration: example, find a function by a word in its doc comment - Collecting: example, getting a list of functions to change The project search which shows results in a multibuffer is the perfect way to operate on a list of items. Navigation and Exploration need a lot of context around each result and offer fast navigation between them. For both of these live searching is also critical. The `telescope UI` is a picker with a preview to the right or below. It's offered in various editors and IDE's most famously Neovim (through the Telescope plugin), IntelliJ (natively), Helix (natively) and of course VScode (plugins) and it's _many_ forks. While having a UI like that for text search (our project search) is most requested the UX pattern is applied widely, from `find_all_references` to `bookmarks`. It enhances most pickers. Note that we have over 50 different picker modals! The community has tried to build something like this for Zed: - zed-industries#44530 - zed-industries#45307 - zed-industries#46478 - zed-industries#43790 These all became huge PR's that we could not merge for various reasons. This is a really hard feature to integrate in Zed! This PR got started as zed-industries#46478 and supercedes that. ### Design - Extend pickers to support an optional preview with minimal changes to the pickers themselves. - Make pickers resizable. - Complement the existing search do not replace it by having both UI's share the underlying search and allow freely switching between them. - Allow extending the preview to things other then files. - Maintain a clean design on all the pickers. ### Heigh level Implementation overview - Adds an `Option<Preview>` to `Picker` - Gives `PickerDelegate` a method to communicate a preview to the Picker - Overhaul the way pickers are drawn to allow for resizing them. Implemented on the `Shape` and `SizeBouds` structs. - Adds a high level way to draw the `footer` and `editor` so we do not need to change much to the pickers. - Adds a new text finder Picker - Adds a way to take a running search from project search and hand it to the text finder Picker and the other way round - Give the file finder a preview ### Next steps A more detailed list and how to help out will be added to the tracking issue for [Pickes with previews](zed-industries#56037) - Add more previews to more pickers! - Enable selectioning multiple items in pickers and performing actions on those - Open selected items in a multibuffer - Add a way to restore the last picker - Make popovers (picker attached to some menu) resizable as well ## Self-Review Checklist: - [x] I've reviewed my own diff for quality, security, and reliability - [x] Unsafe blocks (if any) have justifying comments - [x] The content adheres to Zed's UI standards ([UX/UI](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist) and [icon](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/crates/icons/README.md) guidelines) - [x] Tests cover the new/changed behavior - [x] Performance impact has been considered and is acceptable ## Showcase TODO (will be done post merge) --- Release Notes: - Added resizing via dragging to all picker modals. - Added a preview to the File finder, the preview can be to the right or below. - Added a Text finder picker with a preview as alternative project search UI. The search is shared and allowes switch between UIs while running. --------- Co-authored-by: ozacod <47009516+ozacod@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: ozacod <ozacod@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Danilo Leal <daniloleal09@gmail.com>

Overhauls Zed's pickers to make them resizable and give them a preview. Closes #8279 ### Background The most requested Zed feature has the last year has been a [Telescope like search box](zed-industries/zed#8279) [discussion](zed-industries/zed#22581). To understand why this is so popular we need to understand search can serve thee goals: - Navigation: fuzzy search is faster & easier then clicking in a file tree - Exploration: example, find a function by a word in its doc comment - Collecting: example, getting a list of functions to change The project search which shows results in a multibuffer is the perfect way to operate on a list of items. Navigation and Exploration need a lot of context around each result and offer fast navigation between them. For both of these live searching is also critical. The `telescope UI` is a picker with a preview to the right or below. It's offered in various editors and IDE's most famously Neovim (through the Telescope plugin), IntelliJ (natively), Helix (natively) and of course VScode (plugins) and it's _many_ forks. While having a UI like that for text search (our project search) is most requested the UX pattern is applied widely, from `find_all_references` to `bookmarks`. It enhances most pickers. Note that we have over 50 different picker modals! The community has tried to build something like this for Zed: - zed-industries/zed#44530 - zed-industries/zed#45307 - zed-industries/zed#46478 - zed-industries/zed#43790 These all became huge PR's that we could not merge for various reasons. This is a really hard feature to integrate in Zed! This PR got started as zed-industries/zed#46478 and supercedes that. ### Design - Extend pickers to support an optional preview with minimal changes to the pickers themselves. - Make pickers resizable. - Complement the existing search do not replace it by having both UI's share the underlying search and allow freely switching between them. - Allow extending the preview to things other then files. - Maintain a clean design on all the pickers. ### Heigh level Implementation overview - Adds an `Option<Preview>` to `Picker` - Gives `PickerDelegate` a method to communicate a preview to the Picker - Overhaul the way pickers are drawn to allow for resizing them. Implemented on the `Shape` and `SizeBouds` structs. - Adds a high level way to draw the `footer` and `editor` so we do not need to change much to the pickers. - Adds a new text finder Picker - Adds a way to take a running search from project search and hand it to the text finder Picker and the other way round - Give the file finder a preview ### Next steps A more detailed list and how to help out will be added to the tracking issue for [Pickes with previews](zed-industries/zed#56037) - Add more previews to more pickers! - Enable selectioning multiple items in pickers and performing actions on those - Open selected items in a multibuffer - Add a way to restore the last picker - Make popovers (picker attached to some menu) resizable as well ## Self-Review Checklist: - [x] I've reviewed my own diff for quality, security, and reliability - [x] Unsafe blocks (if any) have justifying comments - [x] The content adheres to Zed's UI standards ([UX/UI](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist) and [icon](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/crates/icons/README.md) guidelines) - [x] Tests cover the new/changed behavior - [x] Performance impact has been considered and is acceptable ## Showcase TODO (will be done post merge) --- Release Notes: - Added resizing via dragging to all picker modals. - Added a preview to the File finder, the preview can be to the right or below. - Added a Text finder picker with a preview as alternative project search UI. The search is shared and allowes switch between UIs while running. --------- Co-authored-by: ozacod <47009516+ozacod@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: ozacod <ozacod@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Danilo Leal <daniloleal09@gmail.com> zed-upstream: ccf4058b7a6b05207d4f1dd25106ec5fc439cc74

Overhauls Zed's pickers to make them resizable and give them a preview. Closes zed-industries#8279 ### Background The most requested Zed feature has the last year has been a [Telescope like search box](zed-industries#8279) [discussion](zed-industries#22581). To understand why this is so popular we need to understand search can serve thee goals: - Navigation: fuzzy search is faster & easier then clicking in a file tree - Exploration: example, find a function by a word in its doc comment - Collecting: example, getting a list of functions to change The project search which shows results in a multibuffer is the perfect way to operate on a list of items. Navigation and Exploration need a lot of context around each result and offer fast navigation between them. For both of these live searching is also critical. The `telescope UI` is a picker with a preview to the right or below. It's offered in various editors and IDE's most famously Neovim (through the Telescope plugin), IntelliJ (natively), Helix (natively) and of course VScode (plugins) and it's _many_ forks. While having a UI like that for text search (our project search) is most requested the UX pattern is applied widely, from `find_all_references` to `bookmarks`. It enhances most pickers. Note that we have over 50 different picker modals! The community has tried to build something like this for Zed: - zed-industries#44530 - zed-industries#45307 - zed-industries#46478 - zed-industries#43790 These all became huge PR's that we could not merge for various reasons. This is a really hard feature to integrate in Zed! This PR got started as zed-industries#46478 and supercedes that. ### Design - Extend pickers to support an optional preview with minimal changes to the pickers themselves. - Make pickers resizable. - Complement the existing search do not replace it by having both UI's share the underlying search and allow freely switching between them. - Allow extending the preview to things other then files. - Maintain a clean design on all the pickers. ### Heigh level Implementation overview - Adds an `Option<Preview>` to `Picker` - Gives `PickerDelegate` a method to communicate a preview to the Picker - Overhaul the way pickers are drawn to allow for resizing them. Implemented on the `Shape` and `SizeBouds` structs. - Adds a high level way to draw the `footer` and `editor` so we do not need to change much to the pickers. - Adds a new text finder Picker - Adds a way to take a running search from project search and hand it to the text finder Picker and the other way round - Give the file finder a preview ### Next steps A more detailed list and how to help out will be added to the tracking issue for [Pickes with previews](zed-industries#56037) - Add more previews to more pickers! - Enable selectioning multiple items in pickers and performing actions on those - Open selected items in a multibuffer - Add a way to restore the last picker - Make popovers (picker attached to some menu) resizable as well ## Self-Review Checklist: - [x] I've reviewed my own diff for quality, security, and reliability - [x] Unsafe blocks (if any) have justifying comments - [x] The content adheres to Zed's UI standards ([UX/UI](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#uiux-checklist) and [icon](https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/crates/icons/README.md) guidelines) - [x] Tests cover the new/changed behavior - [x] Performance impact has been considered and is acceptable ## Showcase TODO (will be done post merge) --- Release Notes: - Added resizing via dragging to all picker modals. - Added a preview to the File finder, the preview can be to the right or below. - Added a Text finder picker with a preview as alternative project search UI. The search is shared and allowes switch between UIs while running. --------- Co-authored-by: ozacod <47009516+ozacod@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: ozacod <ozacod@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Danilo Leal <daniloleal09@gmail.com>

Add browse actions

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cla-bot Bot added the cla-signed The user has signed the Contributor License Agreement label Dec 18, 2025

baldwindavid marked this pull request as ready for review December 19, 2025 01:12

baldwindavid mentioned this pull request Dec 19, 2025

Enhance workspace::Open to use as a more general directory explorer #45042

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baldwindavid changed the title ~~Add browse actions via modal~~ Add file explorer modal v2 Dec 19, 2025

P1n3appl3 self-assigned this Dec 19, 2025

baldwindavid added 5 commits December 19, 2025 07:42

Prefix unused variable

fbc32e7

Trigger CI

8f9ec5a

Formatting

68eccb0

Merge branch 'main' into browse-from-current-directory

4e103f7

SomeoneToIgnore assigned yara-blue and unassigned P1n3appl3 Jan 11, 2026

baldwindavid added 2 commits January 13, 2026 13:24

Merge branch 'main' into browse-from-current-directory

c6d300c

Merge branch 'main' into browse-from-current-directory

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baldwindavid closed this Jan 27, 2026

yara-blue mentioned this pull request Jun 19, 2026

Add preview to pickers and make them resizable #59604

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Add file explorer modal v2 - #45307

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`workspace::Browse`

`workspace::BrowseFromCurrentDirectory`