Our project contains over 1,500 source code files. As such we've found that navigating to the files we want to edit via traditional hierarchical project views is not sufficient and takes to long. I propose three possible solutions:

1) quick search in 'workspace' - add a "Search" label followed by a text input box (with a MRU dropdown for previous searches), entering text into this input box and clicking "go" or pressing return would search the workspace for files matching the given pattern (e.g. entering 'CDate*' would match CDateTime.php, CDate.php, CDate.doc) regardless of where they are located in the directory structure. The results could then be listed in a docking window or in a splitter window that's part of the workspace docking window. It should list all the files. There should also be a context menu option on each result which would locate and select the file in the workspace view. (could also be implemented as a search window toolbar button that toggles on/off automatic locating when search results are selected)

2) show a coloured, sortable list of recently accessed files as a docking window. Default sort is alphabetical. Other sorts might be extension,name (list php files first, then xml ones, etc). When files are MODIFIED the colour is changed to white which should slowly cycle through blue then red (colours to be configurable) depending on how many other files have been modified since. e.g. you open three files, a,b and c in that order, a starts as being white, when b is opened a fades one step closer to the first color (blue), when c is opened a fades another step closer to the first color and b does to. If you then switch to file and modify it it should change it's color back to white. when a file fades to the first color the next time it is told to fade it should fade to the second color. a configurable amount of fade steps would be nice. i belive the KDE text editor KATE does something very similar to this.

3) project filters - define a project filter (just an object with a name and a collection of files), right click a file in the workspace and select "add to filter" then select previously defined name of project filter from a sub menu. right clicking a project itself should let you select which filter to use from a sub menu or 'clear filters'

This would greatly aid anyone working on a very large project, it would also be a nice feather in the cap of phped as i've not found a single ide that lets you do these things easily and locating files is a very, very common task which would be greatly speeded up if all three of these ideas were implemented.

comments welcome.