ivy-quick-find-files.el

• Introduction
• Motivation
• Installation
  • Local installation
  • Straight + use-package
  • Other methods
• Customizing
• I don’t want to use Ivy, I want to use <insert ivy alternative here>
• Upcoming changes
• License

Introduction

ivy-quick-find-files.el is a utility package for all of you out there that often find themselves looking for the right file in the right place, but you can’t be bothered to have a specific keybinding for that particular file for one reason or another.

Now, you have a utility for finding files by directory with an associated extension! Let’s say you often open files with a .org extension from your directory ~/org/, this package will try to find it insantly for you!

Motivation

I often find myself opening a specific set of files, but they are too numerous to make each one of them a keybinding. Well, I actually could, but I end up with way too much for my taste. In fact, at the time I’m writing this, I would have to manage a hundred keybindings for my various org files alone! Unmanageable!

Installation

Local installation

The vanilla way of installing this package would be to clone this repository somewhere in your Emacs’ load-path, or add the following line to your .emacs or init.el:

  (add-to-list 'load-path "/path/to/ivy-quick-find-files.el")

Then add the following lines to your .emacs or init.el:

  (require 'ivy-quick-find-files)

Straight + use-package

My personnal choice in terms of installing packages is using straight with use-package. If you are using it too, add the following code to your .emacs or init.el:

  (use-package ivy-quick-find-files
    :defer t
    :ensure t
    :straight (ivy-quick-find-files :type git
                                    :host github
                                    :repo "Phundrak/ivy-quick-find-files.el")
    :config ; Depending on your preferences of course
    (setq ivy-quick-find-files-program 'fd
          ivy-quick-find-files-dirs-and-exts '(("~/org" . "org"))))

Other methods

I am aware other methods are available for installing packages in Emacs, such as quelpa or Spacemacs’ and DoomEmacs’ package managers, however I am yet unsure how to install this package with them. If you do, feel free to submit a PR with new instructions!

Customizing

A couple of variables can be editer by the user in order to configure ivy-quick-find-files.el:

ivy-quick-find-files-program

The program to use in order to find your files. The two currently supported options are 'find and 'fd.

ivy-quick-find-files-fd-executable

Specify the executable to use when using the option 'fd.

ivy-quick-find-files-find-executable

Specify the executable to use when using the option 'find.

ivy-quick-find-files-dirs-and-exts

List of pairs between directories and extensions. For one directory, the program will be searching recursively all files with the specified extension. Possible value:

  '(("~/org" . "org")
    ("/tmp" . "html")
    ("~/code/C" . "h"))

This specific example will recursively search for all .org files in ~/org, all .html files in /tmp, and all .h files in ~/code/C.

I don’t want to use Ivy, I want to use <insert ivy alternative here>

You can still use this package then! I made the function ivy-quick-find-files-list-files specifically for this kind of situation. For instance, if you are an ido user, you could write an ido-quick-find-files-list-files function like so:

  (defun my/ido-quick-find-files ()
    (interactive)
    (find-file (ido-completing-read "Open file: "
                                    (ivy-quick-find-files-list-files))))

Upcoming changes

Plans exist to customize the maximum depth at which find and fd are to search for files.

License

ivy-quick-find-files.el is available under the GNU GPL-3.0 license. You can find the full text in LICENSE.md.