Sticky & Pinnable Search Filters for Object Explorer Pane

[sameerpremji]

Hello,

When working with Databases, say, using either Microsoft SQL Server or Oracle or Snowflake, there's always an Object Explorer pane where we can expand say, a Table menu tree branch, which then expands to show hundreds and thousands of tables created in that Database and Schema.

Given the volume of tables in a given schema (hundreds and thousands), our Analytics team would like to always see a Search bar in any type of Object Explorer or File Explorer or similar, such that any keyword searched (contains) can be pinned and made "sticky" so that Data Scientists, Analysts, Data Engineers can only laser-focus on those objects that are relevant to their search criteria.

When VS Code is re-launched, the user can simply connect to the Database in question (SQL Server or Oracle or Snowflake or whatever) and gets to click on the pinned "sticky" search filter to automatically jump to and navigate to those objects that meet that criteria.

Example:

1. Connect to any Database.
2. Navigate to a Schema within that Database.
3. Expand the Tables (or Views) tree branch and it loads thousands of tables (wastes time and resources for no reason!).
4. User searches for a term, say "claims" (case insensitive) and the results show only those tables that contain the term "CLAIMS" or "claims" anywhere in the object name. So, it is a CONTAINS search back and forward.
5. User "saves" this search filter criteria as a pinnable navigation object for re-use everytime, until the pinned search criteria is deleted permanently.

Instead of contacting every Database vendor in the world to ask them to add this feature in their corresponding VS Code extensions, it would be better to have the Microsoft VS Code team to provide a Universal Search bar for any Object/File Explorer pane to ensure all vendor-made extensions continue to work with this new "sticky" search functionality.

Thanks!

[vs-code-engineering[bot]]

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