Fuzzy search doing a bad job of prioritizing search results

[PaddyMann]

• VSCode Version: Code 1.16.1 (27492b6, 2017-09-14T16:24:39.530Z)
• OS Version: Darwin x64 16.6.0
• Extensions:

Extension	Author (truncated)	Version
vscode-eslint	dba	1.3.2
prettier-vscode	esb	0.24.0
atom-keybindings	ms-	3.0.2
vscode-todo-highlight	way	0.5.11

(1 theme extensions excluded)

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Steps to Reproduce:

If you've got a large code base, the fuzzy search picks up too much noise and doesn't prioritize the sensible results.

For example, I have a file settings.html that's in a directory called participants. So I search for parti settings.

Here's what VSCode shows:

vs. Atom (with the file I'm after listed second):

This seems to have been an issue for a long time, but related issues have been closed without fixing it. e.g. #968

Reproduces without extensions: Yes

[bpasero]

@PaddyMann did some tweaks in this area this week, can you either let me know if I could access the same sources (if open source) or give this insider build a try on it: https://az764295.vo.msecnd.net/insider/2e2613f7739c31832496f617356f5fb8eadc2ca1/VSCode-darwin-insider-unsigned.zip

[PaddyMann]

You legend @bpasero - that works a treat 😄

I'm not familiar with your release cycles - when will this drop into a full release?

[bpasero]

@PaddyMann unfortunately another month because we just wrapped up our 1.17 release. But you can stay on our insider releases, they are typically quite stable.

Marking as duplicate of #34210

[fluffynuts]

This is a great improvement over the existing search! Would it be possible to have some way to make this search box wider? I have a rather deep solution, such that file searches, which are making far better hits now, are still not obvious until I mouse over each entry in the list to get the full text. At the moment. this search box only takes up like 1/4 of the width of my screen -- I have plenty of screen real estate which could make this easier to read, if I could just resize the box...

[sluongng]

I have not follow discussions about this for long but have you guys considered giving user the option to choose their own search implementation?

For example I want to use https://github.com/junegunn/fzf/ or https://github.com/lotabout/skim.

I wish to have configurable search options, similar to configurable run/debug settings. There I can link the search call to my own binary(ies) with parameters to further customize the search.

[grothkopp]

@bpasero I downloaded your insider build, but my results were not as great. As you can see in the screenshot I have a directory named "lioshop" but the files in there are only listed on position 11 & 12 and not even all of them.

Here are some suggestions to improve the matching:

• make it "greedy". In the screenshot of @PaddyMann settings should match settings in settings.js and not setting + the s in the extension.

• make a priorisation like:

1. longest match in file or path ("lioshop")

2. matching uppercase characters or first character in files (No one would probably search for ListOffersHistoryResponse by entering "lioshop", but "lohr" or "listhr")

[bpasero]

@grothkopp this is a consequence of us always treating a match in the file name higher than anything else. There is still #25925 opened to cover that case.