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My problem: I'm becoming the maintainer on a medium-sized module; around 10,000 lines of code. I know that somewhere in there, there's a variable called "foo". I don't know if it's a class member, or a global, or whatever. I just know it exists. So, how do I find it? I try some things: 1. Use "Find in files", but that's a bit crude; it's just a glorified "grep". 2. Open the "Classes" inspector and start typing "foo", but since the search here only finds *class names*, not *members* as well, it's useless for my purposes. 3. Use the "Go to Function or Variable" feature. But what do I enter? I try "foo" -- no luck, so it's probably sitting somewhere in a class. I then try "*::foo" but still no luck, nor with "*foo" or "*foo*" That's not very useful. So I have to use option 1, which, IMHO, isn't the way it should be.
I've recategorized the IZ to an enhancement since it is unclear how the workflow needs to be modified to address the particular situation described. It would be helpful to get a sense of how you'd like the product to behave when the symbol type is "unknown".
How about this: Replace the current feature with a "Go to Symbol" box. In it, we have the same elements as we currently do (but see (*), below), but we add a set of checkboxes: Search in: [x] Class names [x] Class member variables (<-- perhaps also separate entries for static members?) [x] Class member functions [ ] C-style Variables [ ] C-style Functions [ ] typedef's ...etc... Generally utilize the power of the C/C++ parser [ ] All of the above So now there's no "unknown" symbol types, and the user gets the option of narrowing in on his/her search. Furthermore, we get rid of the "Go to Type" dialog; its functionality is neatly folded into this one. Optionally, one could add some presets: "C++ construct", "Types only", "Functions only" and the like. But that's not essential. (*): When results are displayed in the "Elements Found" list, there must be a column indicating what the actual type of symbol is.