Zed v1.9 is out, and the headline feature is one the community has been asking for loudly: resizable picker modals with live file previews. The feature resolved a GitHub issue that had accumulated 860 thumbs-up reactions, making it one of the most-demanded quality-of-life improvements in the editor's history. If you've ever used Telescope in Neovim, the new experience will feel immediately familiar.
Pickers That Actually Show You What You're Picking
The core change is that Zed's file finder and search modals are now draggable and resizable, and they show a live preview pane alongside the results list. The preview renders to the right or below the results depending on how much space is available. No more opening a file blind just to check if it's the right one.
- Resizable picker modals , drag the edges to set your preferred size; Zed remembers it
- File finder preview , see the file contents before committing to opening it
- Text finder with live preview , a new search modal that shows matching lines in context as you type, opened via
text finder: togglein the command palette - Pre-filled queries , the text finder automatically picks up whatever you were searching in the project search or buffer search, so context carries over
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