Viewer: How to search? (/) does nothing

[chipbite]

Hello! Ubuntu, using 2.1.1, installed from snap.

While viewing a file: Forward slash does not start search.

I have tried both / from numpad and shift-7. (using ISO nordic keyboard, but that should not matter for e g numpad is same)

Any other options?

BR!

[PanRoR]

Hey chipbite,
afaik you can only search for files not inside files.
I was wondering if this would be a nice feature to add to the app. I'd really love searching inside files for specific contents.
Maybe even search outside of a file for every occurence in all files glow is showing right now.

I really miss that feature in glow :( Would hugely boost the ability to read documentation with it.

[syjust]

it seems this PR #882 does exactly the job (and more with jump-to-line)

@meowgorithm , maybe you can validate the PR?

[truffle-dev]

The reason / does nothing here: in glow's TUI, / filters the file list, not the contents of the document you are viewing, so inside an open file it has nothing to act on. That is the gap PanRoR described and PR #882 (thanks @syjust for the pointer) would close.

For searching inside a file today, skip the TUI and use pager mode: glow -p yourfile.md. That renders the markdown and pipes it straight through less -r (glow's default when $PAGER is unset), so every less key works as you would expect: / to search the rendered content, n/N to step through matches, ? for the keymap. You lose the file browser, but it is the no-wait path to in-content search until #882 brings it into the TUI viewport itself.

[arievayner]

Picking this back up — @truffle-dev's answer above (use -p to pipe
through less) is the right workaround today, but it doesn't help if you
want to browse and search in the TUI without giving up the file
listing, and there's clearly been a long-running ask for this
independent of this thread (#183, #193, #323, #420, #834).

I put together a working implementation of in-TUI pager search along the
lines @PanRoR described, and wanted to share it here per CONTRIBUTING.md
before opening a PR (also flagging: #882 already proposes overlapping —
and broader — pager navigation changes; happy to redirect effort there
instead if that's preferred, more on that below).

What it does:

• / opens a search prompt in the pager's status bar
• enter confirms: highlights every match (with the current match in a
  distinct color) and jumps to the nearest one; status bar shows
  Search: <query> — N/M matches
• n / N cycle forward/backward through matches, wrapping around
• esc cancels while typing, or clears an active search without leaving
  the document
• Case-insensitive, literal-substring matching

Code, for reference:

• Branch: https://github.com/arievayner/glow/tree/pager-search
• Match-finding: ui/search.go
• Pager state machine + rendering: ui/pager.go
• Top-level key routing fix (so typing q/r/etc. into the search box
  doesn't trigger global bindings — the same bug class as the closed
  search: when search string contains "r" reload is triggered instead #659/Can't find files that contain the letter 'r' #702): ui/ui.go

A note on #882: it already implements search plus jump-to-line and a
page indicator, but the top community complaint on it is that matches
aren't visually highlighted. This implementation specifically solves
that (via lipgloss.StyleRanges baked directly into the rendered
content — turns out viewport.Model's own built-in highlight API has a
correctness bug on ANSI-styled content, more detail in the PR if useful).
Given #882's been open ~6 months without review, I don't have a strong
opinion on reviving it vs. a smaller focused PR — genuinely deferring to
whichever maintainers would rather see.

This first pass is deliberately minimal — literal, case-insensitive
substring search only. I'd like to follow up later with optional regex
and fuzzy-match modes, likely toggled via config file settings rather
than always-on, so the default stays simple and predictable. Wanted to
flag that direction now in case it affects how you'd want the initial
scope shaped.

Let me know if this is something you'd want as a PR, and whether against
this branch directly or contributed onto #882 instead.

[maxamiri]

Thanks for putting this together, @arievayner. I cherry-picked your pager-search commits into my own checkout and it's working well: substring highlighting, n/N navigation, and the ANSI/wide-rune-aware match handling in search.go are all solid, and the test coverage gave me confidence it's correct.

For glow maintainers: I'd recommend pulling this in if you can. Looking at this thread and the related issues (#183, #193, #323, #420, #834), there's clear, repeated demand from people used to vi/less-style / search for document content, not just the existing file-list filter. This implementation closes that gap cleanly.

Thanks

[arievayner]

@andrinoff @andreynering — tagging you both since you've been the ones
actively merging on this repo lately, and this thread doesn't seem to
have reached a maintainer yet.

Quick recap: this is a proposal for in-TUI pager search (/, n, N,
match highlighting) — see my comment above for details, working branch
at https://github.com/arievayner/glow/tree/pager-search. @maxamiri tried
it independently and confirmed it works well (highlighting, navigation,
ANSI/wide-rune handling, test coverage).

Given there's also an overlapping, unreviewed PR (#882) open since
February, I wanted to check with you directly rather than just open a
competing PR: would you rather see this contributed onto #882, or as its
own smaller PR? Either way works for me — just want to avoid duplicating
effort or stepping on anything already in progress on your end.

Happy to open a PR right away if that's easier than discussing it further
here.

Yeah, open up a PR, will be happy to review (please cc me there)