How to access search results in CustomTextEditor

[vaclavHala]

I have registered a CustomTextEditorProvider with "priority": "default". Now when a user does text search through the native Search view and clicks some result from file covered by my custom editor, the custom editor opens but always scrolled to the top.

Is there some way to know what search result user wanted to go to from inside my custom editor provider so I can try to move to it/focus it somehow in the custom editor? Alternatively, is there some way to disable the custom editor when user tries to open the file at specific location rather than opening the custom editor?

[jsimonrichard]

This is an old question, but I'd love to see an answer... I've been digging through the events that VS Code exposes, and none of them seem to trigger when the search result is clicked

[KaloudasDev]

Hello! For CustomTextEditor providers, you can access search result selections through the options parameter in the resolveCustomTextEditor method. Here's the implementation:

class MyCustomTextEditorProvider implements vscode.CustomTextEditorProvider {
    
    async resolveCustomTextEditor(
        document: vscode.TextDocument,
        webviewPanel: vscode.WebviewPanel,
        token: vscode.CancellationToken,
        options: { selection?: vscode.Selection }
    ): Promise<void> {
        
        if (options?.selection) {
            const { start, end } = options.selection;
            await this.revealSearchResult(webviewPanel, start.line, start.character, end.line, end.character);
        }
        
        this.setupWebview(webviewPanel, document);
    }

    private async revealSearchResult(
        webviewPanel: vscode.WebviewPanel,
        startLine: number,
        startChar: number,
        endLine: number,
        endChar: number
    ): Promise<void> {
        webviewPanel.webview.postMessage({
            type: 'NAVIGATE_TO_SEARCH_RESULT',
            payload: {
                start: { line: startLine, character: startChar },
                end: { line: endLine, character: endChar }
            }
        });
    }
}

vscode.window.registerCustomEditorProvider(
    'myCustomEditor',
    new MyCustomTextEditorProvider(),
    {
        webviewOptions: {
            retainContextWhenHidden: true
        },
        supportsMultipleEditorsPerDocument: true
    }
);

Key points:

• The options.selection parameter contains the range from clicked search results
• Use webview messaging to communicate the selection to your custom editor UI
• Ensure your webview handles the navigation message and scrolls to the specified location

This approach provides seamless integration with VS Code's native search functionality for your custom text editor.