Provide "Search or go to..." functionality

[josevalim]

The functionality should mirror the "search or jump to" functionality on GitHub.

Once the user types "foobar" in the search box, the first entry will be "Search foobar..." but below we will show any existing matching entry:

 |-----------------------------------|
 | -> | to_charlist                  |
 |-----------------------------------|
 | Search to_charlist...             |
 | Atom.to_charlist/1 (function)     |
 | Kernel.to_charlist/1 (function)   |
 | List.to_charlist/1 (function)     |
 | CharList (module)                 |
 |-----------------------------------|

As we press up and down, we can choose the search or to go straight to a given entry. Note this autocomplete functionality is exactly how the search works today, so we can likely just reuse the inner logic.

I am also aware we may need to change how the search is styled today or even move it elsewhere completely. Suggestions on this area are welcome.

Extra: to improve the usability we also should: provide shortcuts to all entries in the top right of the sidebar. For example, pressing s should start "Search". Pressing "c" should "Collapse/expand". And pressing "n" should toggle "Night/day mode".

[archdragon]

I've created a quick prototype to get a better sense of how this feature might work - I think it might be a good starting point to get the conversation going :)

Demo

➡️ Example generated with Elixir repo

Summary

I think this feature can work well with existing search and page layout.

I imagine it as an autocomplete that appears in the sidebar - immediately after you start typing.

Since the sidebar space is limited and some function/module names can be quite long I've decided to display the result type underneath the result name, instead of aligning it to the right:

Right now, for functions, I moved the module name to the subtitle/description section. For modules it just shows the Module subtitle.

I'm not happy with it yet and still experimenting with ideas. Maybe something like:

Map
module

map/2
function in enum

to clearly and explicitly mark functions as functions. Or maybe different icons for functions and modules?

(I also I need to add some special rules for exceptions and tasks right now they both will be displayed with the module tag.)

When it comes to the code - demo uses existing search functionality and filters/sorts results differently.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Since keyboard shortcuts are not coupled with search, I've decided to create a separate PR for them. :)

#976

Crazy ideas for the future versions

Short description/snippets

I've seen that we were thinking about extracting short snippets/descriptions (ie. in #971 ). If, in the future, we have access to things like that we can even display the snippets right in the search ie:

I've even started experimenting with this, using json generated by the #974

Quick (and quite broken) prototype here: http://krowinski.com/ex_doc/autocomplete_snippets_demo/readme.html :)

It's also possible for results to overflow the sidebar, if we really need some extra space (ie. for snippets/tags):

[josevalim]

Closing in favor of PR #985.