feat: add search functionality to help menu by baggiiiie · Pull Request #334 · idursun/jjui

baggiiiie · 2025-10-11T06:26:20Z

summary

Add search/filter support for help page

see issue #329

feature

added search and filtering logic to the help page
- if a h.keyMap.*.Mode matches the user’s search, the whole group of help menu entries under that mode is displayed
- if an individual entry matches, that entry and its associated h.keyMap.*.Mode are shown
- basically: you can now search by mode or by any specific entry keyword
implemented search bar input with charmbracelet/bubbles/textinput
introduced new struct types to organize help content
- helpItem: represents an individual help entry
  - has display (what’s shown to user) and searchTerm (used internally for filtering)
  - searchTerm combines keybind, name, and description so you can match across multiple fields
- itemGroup: groups related helpItems under the same mode
  - e.g. everything under Rebase mode goes into the itemGroup for rebase
  - first entry of the group is treated as the header
extended the main tea Model with:
- defaultMenu – the full help menu
- filteredMenu – current filtered state based on search
- searchQuery – user’s input string

fixes

fixed wrong description for the revert key (was marked as “rebase”) — this was messing up search results. now correctly labeled as revert.

refactors

moved help menu rendering logic into a separate file for better structure and readability

others / notes

tried using charmbracelet/bubbles/list for the menu layout; didn’t work out since the menu uses 3 columns
current search logic is exact match only; no fuzzy find yet; plan to add fuzzy matching later
possible future UI polish: dimming + highlighting for search feedback
- unmatched itemGroups could be dimmed
- matched ones stay normal color
- matched characters within items could be highlighted, similar to fzf

preview of help menu with search

idursun · 2025-10-11T09:37:12Z

Hey @baggiiiie thanks for working on this.

I have a couple of suggestions:

Feel free to refactor the help page.
I'd recommend it to be in search mode from the get go. User opens help and starts typing to filter it down, or presses esc to close it. I don't think there's need to press / to filter it down as the initial view is not scrollable anyway.
I'd also like to see the mode names next to the bindings if I filter it down, because as you can see in the screenshot, I see a bunch of diff bindings but have no way to tell in which mode they can be used.

I'd probably try setting the entries to always belong to a mode/group by using something like this:

		h.modeEntry(h.keyMap.Rebase.Mode, "Rebase"),
			h.keyMap.Rebase.Revision,
			h.keyMap.Rebase.Source,
			h.keyMap.Rebase.Branch,
			h.keyMap.Rebase.Before,
			h.keyMap.Rebase.After,
			h.keyMap.Rebase.Onto,
			h.keyMap.Rebase.Insert,
		)

so that the each group/mode would filter down their own children. What do you think?

baggiiiie · 2025-10-14T15:41:26Z

hey @idursun , thanks for the feedback, im working on a newer version of help menu with search, will push my changes soon for review!

…to have a header

baggiiiie · 2025-10-15T17:18:57Z

hey @idursun i have pushed some changes and updated PR description.
sorry for the big PR, i've documented as clearly and concisely as possible, together with git commit history. lemme know if there's anything else i could help to make this review easier!

baggiiiie · 2025-10-16T11:49:33Z

internal/ui/helppage/help.go

-	return h, nil
-}

-func (h *Model) printKeyBinding(k key.Binding) string {


moved to internal/ui/helppage/help_item_groups.go

baggiiiie · 2025-10-16T11:51:04Z

internal/ui/helppage/help.go

-func (h *Model) View() string {
-	var left []string
-	left = append(left,
-		h.printTitle("UI"),


moved to internal/ui/helppage/help_item_groups.go

baggiiiie · 2025-10-16T11:51:48Z

internal/ui/helppage/help.go

+	}
 }

-func (h *Model) renderColumn(width int, height int, lines ...string) string {


rendering logic moved to internal/ui/helppage/help_menu_render.go

idursun

Beautiful work! Thank you very much.

There's one comment about the use of the Blink command, which I will fix it myself after merging this.

idursun · 2025-10-17T22:26:23Z

internal/config/keys.go

 		ExecShell:        key.NewBinding(key.WithKeys(m.ExecShell...), key.WithHelp(JoinKeys(m.ExecShell), "interactive shell command")),
 		Revert: revertModeKeys[key.Binding]{
-			Mode:   key.NewBinding(key.WithKeys(m.Revert.Mode...), key.WithHelp(JoinKeys(m.Revert.Mode), "rebase")),
+			Mode:   key.NewBinding(key.WithKeys(m.Revert.Mode...), key.WithHelp(JoinKeys(m.Revert.Mode), "revert")),


idursun · 2025-10-17T22:30:52Z

internal/ui/helppage/help.go

 func (h *Model) Init() tea.Cmd {
-	return nil
+	return textinput.Blink
 }


So, even though this makes sense, this is problematic because of how bubbletea simulates a visual cursor.

This will send a BlinkMsg at every blink interval, which is fine when help window is showing. However, it will keep sending it even when the help page is closed which will make jjui rerender unnecessarily. This only happens if the model is using a pointer receiver as it is the case here.

There's no way you would know this. I have sunk too many hours debugging similar issues in the past eventually gave up and don't use Blink anymore.

oh shoot, thanks for catching this!

This MR contains the following updates: | Package | Update | Change | |---|---|---| | [idursun/jjui](https://github.com/idursun/jjui) | patch | `v0.9.4` -> `v0.9.5` | MR created with the help of [el-capitano/tools/renovate-bot](https://gitlab.com/el-capitano/tools/renovate-bot). **Proposed changes to behavior should be submitted there as MRs.** --- ### Release Notes <details> <summary>idursun/jjui (idursun/jjui)</summary> ### [`v0.9.5`](https://github.com/idursun/jjui/releases/tag/v0.9.5) [Compare Source](idursun/jjui@v0.9.4...v0.9.5) This release contains some minor improvements and bug fixes. - Help window is now searchable. [#334](idursun/jjui#334) - changed **preview** to run in the background while getting the diff contents to improve UI responsiveness. [#336](idursun/jjui#336) - fix: async command executor used to append `--color always` to the end of the command to get colourful output but this broke some commands that expect arguments. This change moves the `--color always` to the beginning of the command. [#339](idursun/jjui#339) - Added `pgup` and `pgdown` bindings to the revisions view so that you can jump down/up without having to press `j`/`k` multiple times. [#347](idursun/jjui#347) - improved handling of bookmarks that contain `--` characters in their name. `jj` returns these bookmarks with quotes which `jjui` didn't handle well. [#346](idursun/jjui#346) - `JJUI_CONFIG_DIR` is changed to match the documentation where it will load the configuration from `$JJUI_CONFIG_DIR/config.toml` rather than `$JJUI_CONFIG_DIR/jjui/config.toml` [#343](idursun/jjui#343) - **ace jump** didn't highlight change ids in some template configuration. It should highlight change ids and commit ids correctly now. #### What's Changed - feat: add search functionality to help menu by [@baggiiiie](https://github.com/baggiiiie) in [#334](idursun/jjui#334) **Full Changelog**: <idursun/jjui@v0.9.4...v0.9.5> </details> --- ### Configuration 📅 **Schedule**: Branch creation - At any time (no schedule defined), Automerge - At any time (no schedule defined). 🚦 **Automerge**: Enabled. ♻ **Rebasing**: Whenever MR is behind base branch, or you tick the rebase/retry checkbox. 🔕 **Ignore**: Close this MR and you won't be reminded about this update again. --- - [ ] If you want to rebase/retry this MR, check this box --- This MR has been generated by [Renovate Bot](https://github.com/renovatebot/renovate).

baggiiiie added 11 commits October 16, 2025 01:12

chore: update helppage package comment

6eb8388

refactor(ui/helppage): split help page items into groups

e96663a

feat(ui/helppage): add search filter to help page

a77822c

fix(ui/helppage): menu width glitching while searching

5d66ead

perf(ui): improve help page search performance

402c66c

refactor(helppage): move menu rendering to separate file

fed0101

refactor(ui/helppage): remove isHeader field from helpItem struct

f67cb57

refactor(ui/helppage): remove header field as all itemGroup expected …

2aa07dd

…to have a header

fix(config/keys): correct help text for revert mode key

8d54acc

fix(ui/helppage/help.go): align prompts with menu

2b6f53e

test: add tests for help page

d8d1ccf

baggiiiie force-pushed the help-search branch from 02a8cd5 to d8d1ccf Compare October 15, 2025 17:15

baggiiiie added 3 commits October 16, 2025 01:55

style(helppage): adjust help menu width and column size

43ba4af

chore(ui/help): use type alias for itemGroup and menuColumn

868d7d0

refactor(ui/help): padding in group definition to keep menu compact

cd5a39d

baggiiiie commented Oct 16, 2025

View reviewed changes

idursun approved these changes Oct 17, 2025

View reviewed changes

idursun merged commit 087dd7c into idursun:main Oct 17, 2025
3 checks passed

baggiiiie deleted the help-search branch October 18, 2025 17:31

BrewTestBot mentioned this pull request Oct 20, 2025

jjui 0.9.5 Homebrew/homebrew-core#250410

Merged

baggiiiie mentioned this pull request Oct 23, 2025

feat: allow remote selection in git menu #349

Merged

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feat: add search functionality to help menu#334

feat: add search functionality to help menu#334
idursun merged 14 commits intoidursun:mainfrom
baggiiiie:help-search

baggiiiie commented Oct 11, 2025 •

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baggiiiie commented Oct 11, 2025 • edited Loading Uh oh! There was an error while loading. Please reload this page.

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summary

feature

fixes

refactors

others / notes

preview of help menu with search

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baggiiiie commented Oct 11, 2025 •

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