Project tree file name filter preferences

[pthiess]

As a user I would like to define a customized list of filtered files in the Project file tree saved to my preferences.

This is somewhat complicated because the same ProjectManager._shouldShowName() filter is currently used as a low-level filter to make all of FileSystem ignore things (caching, watchers, Directory.getContents(), etc.). So it can't be changed easily at runtime, and has performance side-effects that may not be obvious to users.

Ideally we wouldn't need any special FileSystem-level filtering at all. It'd be great if we had a generic preference for excluding things from getAllFiles() clients without excluding them from the filesystem overall. That way we wouldn't traverse into those subtrees automatically, but they could still be exposed in the project tree for manual traversal (maybe with special styling indicating they’re "excluded" folders or such). With auto-recursive file watching on two of three platforms, we're tantalizingly close to that: if no one ever asks FileSystem to traverse into a subtree like .git or node_modules, it'll never be loaded, never take up cache space, and never be processed by a file-watcher listener. But Linux file watching throws a wrench in that pretty picture...

Use cases

• Show in tree, but not in Quick Open / Find in Files / etc. (exclude from getAllFiles() only).
  • Examples: node_modules, build output folders, folders full of CMS data (images, etc.), folders full of docs?
  • Question: Excluded from FS caching? Exclude from watchers?
• Exclude from tree and other places
  • Examples: .git, .svn, caches generated by tooling
  • Question: Exclude from FS entirely? (This is how we handle .git today -- though it leads to some unpredictable/buggy behavior, e.g. Accessing .git folder through Brackets file system adds it to the index and breaks Brackets brackets-userland/brackets-git#436)

[pthiess]

See PR #7166 for a contributed start of an implementation that does not take into account the filesystem piece of it.

[pthiess]

Exclude/ignore binary files, libraries, or subfolders from Find All & other searches

[peterflynn]

(more specifically, this came from Project tree file name filter preferences on Trello)

[ebordeau]

We have a lot of files that are used mainly for tooling and just clutter up the project tree. Ideally, I'd like to be able to set up a filter (e.g. don't show .* files) and be able to turn it on/off quickly (toggle button).

[redmunds]

@ebordeau You can filter using the https://github.com/gruehle/exclude-folders extension. You'll have to do some additional work to make it toggle "quickly", but that can be done.

[ebordeau]

Thanks! That worked great!