Fast File Search

Fast File Search

Kaizen Plugin ⚡ tab → File group

The Fast File Search feature allows you to quickly find and open files using wildcards and REGEX patterns, making it faster than standard Flare search.

To search for files

1. Click Fast File Search in the File group (or press the F key tip).
2. Enter a file name pattern (semicolon-separated wildcards):
   • The default is *.htm;*.flsnp;*.css — topics, snippets, and stylesheets.
   • Add more patterns as needed, e.g. *.fltoc;*.flvar;*.flmco;*.fltar for TOCs, variables, micro content, and targets.
   • Note: *.htm also matches .html files (Windows treats 3-character extension patterns as matching longer extensions too), so .html topics are always included.
3. Optionally enter a file content pattern to only list files containing that text:
   • Normal mode does a plain text search.
   • REGEX mode treats the pattern as a regular expression (you get a clear message if the expression is invalid).
   • Both modes ignore case.
4. Optionally pick a Tag filter to only list files carrying a specific tag (see below).
5. Select a file from the results.
6. Press Enter or double-click to open the file.

Search by tag (file tags and meta tags)

If your project defines File Tag Sets (.flfts) or Meta Tag Sets (.flmeta), a Tag filter row appears with two dropdowns, so you can find e.g. all topics with Status = "In Progress" without crafting a find/replace query:

• The first dropdown lists every file tag set (shown as File tags: SetName) and every meta tag name defined in the project (shown as Meta tag: name). Choose (no tag filter) to switch the filter off.
• The second dropdown lists the values of the chosen set — the tags of a file tag set, or the known values of a meta tag. Choose (any) to match files carrying any value from the set. For meta tags you can also type a value directly.
• The tag filter is combined (AND) with the file name pattern and the content pattern.

The check is XML-aware: file tags are matched against the topic's MadCap:fileTags attribute and meta tags against the <meta> elements in the topic head — plain body text that merely mentions a tag name never causes a false match. Files that are not valid XML simply don't match.

If the project has no tag sets at all, the Tag filter row is hidden.

Preview matches

The pane to the right of the results shows why the selected file matched:

• With a content pattern, each matching line is listed as line 123: ... with the matched text highlighted, so you can triage many hits without opening them in Flare.
• Up to 20 matching lines are shown per file, and very long lines are truncated, keeping the preview instant even for large files.
• Without a content pattern, the first lines of the selected file are shown instead.
• The window is resizable, and the splitter between the result list and the preview can be dragged.

Right-click a result

Right-click one or more results to get a context menu with:

• Open in VS Code — opens the selected files in Visual Studio Code, e.g. for raw XHTML/CSS editing or multi-file regex work. The plugin looks for VS Code in the standard per-user and machine-wide install locations, then for code.cmd on your PATH; if VS Code is not installed you get a short message instead of a silent failure.
• Open in Flare — same as double-clicking or Open selected topics.
• Copy full path — copies the full path(s) of the selected files to the clipboard (one per line).
• Show in Explorer — opens a Windows Explorer window with each selected file highlighted.

All context menu actions work on multi-row selections (Ctrl-click or Shift-click to select multiple results).

Tips

• The search is much faster than built-in Flare search for large projects
• Searches content files (topics, snippets, stylesheets, and other XML files) and project files
• Stylesheets are searched too: find any CSS class or property with a content pattern like PageTitle or font-family
• If Flare cannot open a result (some file types, such as stylesheets, may be rejected by Flare's editor), the file is opened in your system's default editor instead
• Your last-used file pattern and search mode are remembered between sessions