Create a new file with a relative path as argument

[merciremi]

👋 Hey folks,

Recent user of Zed, here. And so far, I like it a lot.

One behavior that I had in Sublime Text, through the AdvancedNewFile package, was the ability to create a file with a specified path. I miss it in Zed where creating a new file has a bit of friction.

The ST package would work like this:

• Use a dedicated keybinding alt-cmd n which would open a small panel at the bottom of my editor.
• Type in a relative path (app/models/some_model.rb for instance).
• The file would then be created at the specified path (if not already existing) and opened in a new tab.
• esc would close the panel and restore focus to the editor.

An added bonus, the input panel was aware of my project folder tree. So typing app/mo + tab would autocomplete to app/models/

Is this something that would be feasible?

Thanks again for your great work!

[amxmln]

I keep looking for something like this. It feels like the built-in opening/saving dialogs (when setting use_system_path_prompts is set to false) are halfway there, but unfortunately not quite (the save dialog for example always starts in my home directory, not the current workspace).

[LewisAlderman]

Similarly, in VSC there is a popular extension I enjoy using, with nearly half a million installs, at the time of writing:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=patbenatar.advanced-new-file

[mikerhodes]

If I understand this correctly this is possible (at least as of today) using the cmd-p dialog.

If you enter the path to a file that doesn't exist, you can instead hit enter to create it.

That affordance of having tab complete directory names would be nice :D

[amxmln]

It does create it, but in the project root, right? That’s not very useful. I didn’t find a way to pass a path.

[mikerhodes]

If I hit cmd-p and enter a path like internal/resources/configmap.go then Zed creates a new file at that path, relative to the project root. Zed will also create any folders along that path that don't exist.

As far as I can tell, you cannot create an absolute path, like /home/mike/foo.txt using the cmd-p method. Only one relative to the project root.

I'm running Zed 0.191.6.

[amxmln]

You’re right, that does work. When I tried it earlier, I must’ve done something wrong. It‘s not quite as ergonomic as the Atom / VS Code extensions, but it’ll do for now.

Having it start relative to the directory the currently open file is in and providing tab completion for the path would hugely improve the UX in my opinion, although that would probably clutter the standard CMD + P UI too much. 🤔

[LewisAlderman]

The fuzzy search is probably the pull for this, at least for myself. It's also super nice that it prepends the list with current-dir/last-selection/root-dir; completely alleviates having to use any neurons on project structure in the moment.

[joaqo]

It doesn't support saving files outside the project right? I am trying something like cmd+p ~/Desktop/short_note.txt and it just saves it to the root of my project.