Support custom sort order in outline panel (by type, alphabetical, position) #58782

tea4go · 2026-06-07T03:09:50Z

tea4go
Jun 7, 2026

The outline panel currently sorts entries only by their position in the source file. There is no setting to sort by symbol type or alphabetically.

Outline entries are displayed in the order they appear in the source file. The outline_panel settings section has no sort-related options:

{
  "outline_panel": {
    "dock": "left",
    "expand_outlines_with_depth": 0
  }
}

There is no way to group or sort symbols by kind (functions, types, constants, etc.) or alphabetically.

Add a sort_by option to outline_panel settings with the following values:

"position" (default) — Current behavior: sort by location in file
"type" — Group by symbol kind (functions, structs, interfaces, constants, etc.), then alphabetically within each group
"alphabetical" — Sort all entries alphabetically, regardless of type or position

Example:

{
  "outline_panel": {
    "sort_by": "type"
  }
}

When sort_by is "type", the outline could render with group headers like:

📦 Constants
  MaxRetries
  DefaultTimeout
🔧 Functions
  HandleRequest
  ParseConfig
🏗️ Structs
  Server
  Config
📎 Interfaces
  Handler
  Validator

In large Go/Rust/Java files with many symbols, finding a specific function by scrolling through position-ordered outline is tedious.
VS Code supports sorting by name, type, and position in its outline view.
Type-grouped sorting is especially useful for understanding the structure of unfamiliar codebases.
Alphabetical sorting helps when you know the name of a symbol but not its location.