how to efficiently jump between sections in a notebook?

Question

I have functions defined in some section of the notebook and some cells where I use these functions maaaaany pages below in the same notebook. If I want to go and change the definition of the function I need to climb up in the notebook, find the definition and change it, then climb down to the place where I was working and using these functions.

This is very inconvenient and looks like "navigation by sight". I was wondering how this can be made more efficient. For instance if it was a C++ or TeX source I would use the table of content of the file that my editor builds for me so that I can jump to the section where I define function clicking the TOC and then jump back to the original location either using "back" or again clicking the TOC.

Can anything like this be done in mathematica?

Answer 1

Here is one approach. This code is not re-entrant (cannot open on two windows at same time) - it uses a global variable for the gotoSection function - but this could be fixed.

SectionPicker[notebookName_String] :=
 (* problem running this twice *)
 (* simple fix = generate only one *)

 Module[{notebook, cells, sectionNames },
  notebook = Notebooks[notebookName][[1]];
  cells = Cells[notebook];
  Stan`Private`gotoSection[section_String] := 
   Module[{listOfLists, position},
    ShowNotebook[notebookName];
    listOfLists = 
     Position[NotebookRead /@ cells, Cell[section, "Subsection", ___]];
    position = First[First[listOfLists]];
    SelectionMove[notebook, Previous, Cell, 1000];
    SelectionMove[notebook, Next, Cell, position];
    ];
  sectionNames = 
   Sort[Map[First[First[#]] &, 
     Map[NotebookRead , 
      Map[cells[[#]] &, 
       Position[NotebookRead /@ cells, 
        Cell[___, "Subsection", ___]]]]]];
  Stan`Private`temp = sectionNames[[1]];
  Framed[
   ListPicker[
    Dynamic[Stan`Private`temp,
     Function[{v, e},
      (Stan`Private`gotoSection[v[[1]]];
       e = v
       ),
      HoldRest]],
    sectionNames,
    FieldSize -> {{20, Infinity}, {5, Infinity}}, 
    Appearance -> "Frameless"],
   FrameStyle -> Black, RoundingRadius -> 10, 
   Background -> LightOrange]
  ]


MakeNotebookIndex[notebooks_List, width_Integer, height_Integer] := 
 Module[{button, listPickers},
  button = Button["Close", FrontEndTokenExecute["Close"]];
  listPickers = SectionPicker /@ notebooks;
  CreateDocument[Prepend[listPickers, button], 
   WindowTitle -> "Index", WindowSize -> {width, height}, 
   Saveable -> False]
  ]

Button["Index Snippets",
 MakeNotebookIndex[{"Snippets.nb"}, 300, 800], Method -> "Queued"]