Add command palette with fuzzy search of all commands (and allow to rename the commands)

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es
Posts: 114
Joined: Sun Dec 04, 2022 6:24 pm

Add command palette with fuzzy search of all commands (and allow to rename the commands)

Post by es »

With the wealth of commands that GC (a great thing!) comes the issue of organizing and finding them to actually use what you need.
One way is via shortcuts, but that covers only the more commonly used ones as it's impossible to remember all the commands
Another way is via carefully crafting the top menu bar with various icons and submenus etc.
I know there is this global Mac function that allows you to search all the menu commands, but it's not great as it's not a fuzzy search

I'd like to propose one of the best things for such UI complexity that exists in some other apps like Sublime Text:
  • command palette with
  • fuzzy search
  • user-customizable command names
The command palette is an extra dialog with a single search line that would show you any commands (it should have the full list of all possible commands to chose from) that match (fuzzily) the text you type in the box, that would also show you keybinds for the commands and execute the selected command on Enter

For example, compare the results of a simple typo "cpy" instead of "copy"
Default Mac menu search fail (no fuzzy search):
Mac's default non-fuzzy search fail
Mac's default non-fuzzy search fail
FuzzyMac.png (62.85 KiB) Viewed 24068 times
Sublime Text's success with fuzzy search:
ST's fuzzy search success
ST's fuzzy search success
FuzzyST.png (28.44 KiB) Viewed 24068 times

However, there is also an extra beauty of customizable command names: you can have your own little groups of commands that you can find with a single shortcut.
For example, I have ⌥R insert a special character ◊. Then I can add this symbol to all the rotate commands, and then I can use the mnemonic "rotate" to hit ⌥R and it would only show me the list of commands that rotate the image!!! So a single memorable shortcut to find a whole bunch of commands instead of the full word "rotate" that can be ruined with a single typo

Below is an example from Subime: typing ⌥R inserts ◊ and then you only see "Regex" commands (one shown in this example)
Sublime Text command palette with a custom command name
Sublime Text command palette with a custom command name
STpal.png (15.29 KiB) Viewed 24068 times
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