---
title: Find
---
# Find
!!! note
Start this with `cadmus find`
## What does it do
This starts a find dialog with a preview of the note on the side.
## How Do I use it
After running the command type in the name or directory of a note and the fuzzy matches will be presented with an instant preview to the side.
Press Ctrl+Q to toggle searching inside the note for a string, any matches will be highlighted.
Pressing Enter on a note will open it in the default app, [^1] if you want to do something else with it copy the path to the clipboard with Alt+w as described below in [Keyboard Shortcuts](#keyboard-shortcuts).
[^1]: `xdg-open` / `open` on Linux/Mac respectively
### Keyboard Shortcuts
| Keys | Description |
| --- | --- |
| PgUp / PgDn | Scroll Preview |
| Ctrl-w | Copy Absolute path to note [^2] |
| Alt-w | Copy Relative path to note |
| Ctrl-o | Open the note in the default app without exiting |
| Alt-y | Copy File Contents to Clipboard [^3] |
[^2]: TODO: this only works on Xorg at the moment
[^3]: This is really good for *Zulip* / *Discord*
## When Would This Be Used
Imagine you're sitting at your desk and you forgot how to pipe with *Mathematica*, you're solution is `cadmus find` and then type something like `computer algebra` then Ctrl-Q `->`.
### Example
## How does it Work
So essentially this just uses ~skim~ and ~bat~ to filter/preview the notes, the interactive command is used with ~ripgrep~ and piping (that took me forever to figure out!!) to highlight the match in the preview.[^4] This is the code that achieves it:
```bash
sk --ansi -m -c 'rg -l -t markdown --ignore-case "{}"' \
--preview "bat {} 2> /dev/null \
--color=always --line-range :500 \
--terminal-width 80 \
--theme=TwoDark |\
rg --pretty --colors --context 20 {cq} \
--no-line-number --ignore-case \
--colors 'match:fg:21,39,200' \
--colors 'line:style:nobold' \
--colors 'match:style:bold' \
--colors 'match:bg:30,200,30'" \
--bind 'ctrl-f:interactive,pgup:preview-page-up,pgdn:preview-page-down' \
--bind 'ctrl-w:execute-silent(echo {} |\
xargs realpath |\
xclip -selection clipboard)' \
--bind 'alt-w:execute-silent(echo {} | xclip -selection clipboard)' \
--bind 'alt-v:execute-silent(code -a {}),alt-e:execute-silent(emacs {})' \
--bind 'ctrl-o:execute-silent(xdg-open {})' \
--bind 'alt-y:execute-silent(cat {} | xclip -selection clipboard)' \
--bind 'alt-o:execute-silent(cat {} |\
pandoc -f markdown -t html --mathml |\
xclip -selection clipboard)' \
--bind 'alt-f:execute-silent(echo {} |\
xargs dirname |\
xargs cd; cat {} |\
pandoc -f markdown -t dokuwiki --mathml |\
xclip -selection clipboard)' \
--color=fg:#f8f8f2,bg:-1,matched:#6272a4,current_fg:#50fa7b,current_bg:#381070,border:#ff79c6,prompt:#bd93f9,query:#bd93f9,marker:#f1fa8c,header:#f1fa8c
```
[^4]: This highlighting works with both ~bat~ and *MDCat*, I prefer *MDCat* but there is a bug with footnotes preventing me from being able to use it right at the moment.