Back then, in the old screenshots of the sneak peek preview of Panda, there was a search field visible in the sidebar. On Lettera’s website however only a “Quick Search” is promoted. Can I assume that the search field inside the file browser won’t be implemented?
Quick Search (not to be confused with “Quick Open” as in Bear) has many advantages, especially if you mainly work with the keyboard. And yes, it’s fast when you just need to find and open a specific file.
The major drawback however is that the search results are outside the main UI and are therefore not persistent, which would be necessary if you want to work with the search results themselves.
To describe just one of many workflows:
I’m working on a file. In a new window or tab I open a subfolder of the same workspace and search within the sidebar, where the results remain displayed as long as I don’t close the search. I can then view the results in the editor and copy whatever I need to the other window using drag-and-drop.
The key point is that the search results remain in the same window as the location where you are searching, namely the file browser. Here’s another example: I’m not looking for a specific file, but rather for multiple files that contain the same search term. Once the results are listed in the sidebar, I can view the files one after another in the editor and then open in its own tab those of them which I need.
As for the layout of the search results, I would display a filtered folder tree in which empty folders are hidden. Displaying the remaining folders provides context for the results that a linear list of individual files does not offer.
As far as visual presentation goes, you could use this nifty display style with text excerpts from iA Writer. It’s especially useful for searches:
