How to achieve two-step searching with :FzfLua tabs by tab_title and filepath?

[nyngwang]

Description

I use another plugin to set a title when necessary for a given tab to remember the sub-task I want to do in that tab. While fzf-lua creates a virtual entry for each tab and provides tab_title to embed more information, these entries are not very useful if I want to "use embedded information in a tab title to list all buffers under those related tabs". For example,

If I type some possible keywords for the tab title I want to search, and these keywords belong to tab#12 in the end, then it would be great if fzf-lua could list all buffers under tab#12.

But we can't, currently:

Instead, we can only use tab number(with --with-nth set correctly for sure):

But now if I enter more keywords for buffer name or file path, the tab title entry is gone:

Use Case

Because it's Vim under the hook, It's always possible that the same buffer might appear under two(or more) different tabs. In such a situation, I need to use info in tab titles to "choose" the buffer(well, albeit they're all identical) under the correct title. To do so, my current idea is to facilitate tab_title. As explained above, I encountered some difficulties.

Expected Behaviour & Proposals

It would be great if:

1. Enter keyword(s) for tab title entry can also list buffers under these tabs

   This is possible if we can embed tab_title into each entry without showing it. e.g. make each entry very long and append it to the right end. Or maybe provide an action for these tab entries to add all buffers under the tab back.

2. Enter keyword(s) for buffer name / file path won't filter out tab title entry

   This is possible if fzf-lua can provide an action to add tab title entry(or entries) back for the remaining buffers.

Ty for reading.

[ibhagwan]

This is possible if we can embed tab_title into each entry without showing it. e.g. make each entry very long and append it to the right end. Or maybe provide an action for these tab entries to add all buffers under the tab back.

That’s a similar “solution” to path.filename_first “v2” but I don’t really like it as you get a “match” but cannot see the highlight so it’s hard to know where it’s coming from.

This is possible if fzf-lua can provide an action to add tab title entry(or entries) back for the remaining buffers.

Maybe we can provide a format where you can add whatever you want to the entry, otherwise these requests are very niche IMHO, personally I only use buffers and do not organize my neovim in tabs, I only use tmux left/right panes each with a different neovim instance.

[nyngwang]

It's indeed a very niche use case and I was too eager to get help from fzf-lua without first trying it myself. With the current fzf-lua this can be achieved it's just that I need to call an action between the two search steps! I will share it in another comment, and I feel really sorry that I closed this thread days ago(I was kinda discouraged&disappointed when I thought that this was something I could not achieve when I use :FzfLua tabs a lot from fzf-lua)

[nyngwang]

A Solution

We can achieve the title by simply toggling the query between {keywords_in_title} and ^{tabnr}: , using an action:

1. Type some potential keywords, the query becomes {keywords_in_title}.
2. Then, call an action to replace the query into a string the form ^{tabnr}: . Now the list will only show the buffer(s) in {tabnr} including the "tab title entry". (I need both in my usecase.)
3. Finally, if the buffer I want to find is not under {tabnr}-th tabpage, I can all the same action again to replace the query by an empty string. (doing this we rollback to step 1.)

Reference

• I put the code of "the action" described above in another thread:
  How to reload `:FzfLua tabs` with different query by an action? #1901.
• To create a toggle keymap for fzf-lua command under hide-profile:
  How to create a toggle command with `require('fzf-lua').resume()` in `hide`-profile #1900.

DEMO

fzf-lua-demo-1889.mov