# Floating toolbar obscures search facility

**URL:** https://talk.observablehq.com/t/floating-toolbar-obscures-search-facility/10871
**Category:** Feedback
**Created:** [September 22, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/floating-toolbar-obscures-search-facility/10871 "2026-09-22T18:26:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![mcmcclur](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/mcmcclur/32/2364_2.png) [@mcmcclur](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/mcmcclur)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/floating-toolbar-obscures-search-facility/10871/1 "2026-09-22T18:26:51Z")

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There’s a floating toolbar that allows you to perform cell actions like run, pin/unpin, and trash a cell - among other things. That toolbar completely obscures the code search window when you pull it up as well. The problem is particularly bad when you pull up search on a long code cell.

Here’s a screenshot illustrating what I’m talking about:

 ![Screenshot 2026-09-22 at 2.18.37 PM](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/observablehq/original/2X/a/a31853c7ad791b78496daf92f8e38cce11608351.png)

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### Author: ![tophtucker](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tophtucker/32/4781_2.png) [@tophtucker](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tophtucker)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2026, 6:32pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/floating-toolbar-obscures-search-facility/10871/2 "2026-09-22T18:32:55Z")

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I’ve run into this too. We’ve been leaning on the underlying [CodeMirror](https://codemirror.net/) editor’s built-in search toolbar (the obscured one), but we also need to implement notebook-wide find and replace. I wonder if at that point we’d pull it out of the cell editor and make it harmonize better with the notebook-wide toolbar.

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### Author: ![nxrix](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/nxrix/32/9852_2.png) [@nxrix](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/nxrix)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2026, 7:16pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/floating-toolbar-obscures-search-facility/10871/3 "2026-09-22T19:16:02Z")

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If it’s possible, making it stick to the top could be better.

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### Author: ![mbostock](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/mbostock/32/9_2.png) [@mbostock](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/mbostock)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2026, 10:22pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/floating-toolbar-obscures-search-facility/10871/4 "2026-09-22T22:22:09Z")

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The plan is to move the find-and-replace functionality into a side panel, similar to the old editor, allowing you to find-and-replace across the entire notebook rather than just one cell.