ivy-quick-find-files.el

• Introduction
• Motivation
• Installation
  • Prerequisites
  • 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

Prerequisites

First of all, make sure either find (which is fairly standard, it should be there by default) or fd are installed on your system, as this package relies on one or the other depending on your choices (find by default).

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.