Outline

The Outline pane allows you to view and navigate the functions, classes, methods, cells and comments in open Python files. To show or hide the Outline pane, use View ‣ Panes ‣ Outline or Ctrl-Shift-O / Cmd-Shift-O. Click an entry in the outline to jump to its source file location, and use the Go to cursor position toolbar button to highlight the item corresponding to the current Editor position.

Outline pane

Options menu

The options menu in the top-right of the pane allows customizing how the outline is displayed.

Outline options menu

These customization settings include:

  • Show absolute path: Display the full path to each file instead of just the name.

  • Show all files: List every open file rather than just the current one. This allows using the Outline as a file switcher.

  • Group code cells: Group code cells in multiple nested levels in the outline rather than showing all cells in one level. You can create subsections by adding more % signs to the cell separator.

  • Display variables and attributes: Display top-level variable/constant definitions and class attributes in the outline.

  • Follow cursor position: Automatically highlight and expand the entry corresponding to the current cursor position in the Editor.

  • Show special comments: List special comments in the outline, which start with # ----.

  • Sort files alphabetically: Sort the file list in alphabetical order. When disabled, all tabs will be sorted by the tab order of the currently selected Editor panel.

Icons

The following icons are used for outline elements:

  • m for methods

  • f for functions

  • c for classes

  • % for code cells

  • # for comments