How to open a file quickly by name

Quick Open is the fastest way to reach a file in FTP by Zaweba. Press Ctrl+P, type a few letters from the file's name and pick it from the list, and it opens in the editor. You never have to expand a folder in the tree.

Websites collect files quickly. A small business site can have a header include, a footer include, three stylesheets, a contact form script and a folder of templates, and a long-lived site has many more. Clicking down through public_html every time you want one of them gets old within a day.

What you need

Only a site set up in Site Manager with its local folder, or a local folder opened with Open Folder. Quick Open looks through the files of the site you are working on, so it finds the local copies that the editor opens. If you have just set up a site for the first time, run Get Entire Site or Get Newer from Server first so the files are on your PC to find.

Opening a file in two keystrokes

With the site open, press Ctrl+P. A small window appears with a box at the top. Start typing part of the name. You don't need the whole thing or the folder it sits in: "foot" is usually enough for footer.php, and "contact" will find both contact.html and contact-form.php. Choose the one you want and it opens in a tab, ready to edit.

Because it is so quick, Ctrl+P also becomes a handy way of getting back to a file when you have a dozen tabs open and can't read their names any more.

Typing less to find more

Type the part of the name that is unusual. Many sites have several files called index.php in different folders, so typing "index" gives you a list to choose from. Typing a distinctive word from the file name narrows it faster.

Name files so you can find them. This is a habit more than a feature, but it pays off with Quick Open. A stylesheet called style2-final.css is harder to reach than one called gallery.css, and you will thank yourself on a busy day.

Use the tree for browsing and Ctrl+P for going. The file tree in FTP by Zaweba is good when you don't know what is there: it can be filtered by name, date or size with the funnel button, sorted, and you can type letters in a pane to jump to an item, Explorer style. Quick Open is for when you know the file you want and just need to be in it.

Where it fits in a working session

A typical edit goes like this. A client emails to say a phone number on the contact page is wrong. You press Ctrl+P, type "contact", open the page and press Ctrl+Shift+P to bring up Live Preview beside the code. Click the phone number in the preview and the editor selects the line that made it. Fix it, save, and with Upload on Save switched on for the site the file goes straight to the server, with the usual warning first if someone else has changed the server copy since you last fetched it.

If the number appears in more than one file, Quick Open is the wrong tool and Find in Files is the right one. It searches across the site and lists each hit in the bottom panel, so you can open each place in turn.

The tree still has its place

You can still open files the long way, from the local tree or from the server pane, and some people like to see where a file lives before they touch it. Both routes end in the same editor, with the same syntax colours, local history and conflict checks. Ctrl+P just removes the walking about. Once it is in your fingers, you will find you rarely open the tree to look for anything you already know the name of.