---
title: "Find a comment"
description: "Find a comment again: the side panel, searching a server, switching and managing projects, and repairing a page whose comments came unstuck."
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://commentware.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Find a comment

Find a thread on a page you are not on, a comment somebody left last week, or a
pin that has come unstuck. The comment overlay shows only the page in front of
you; everything else is found from the **side panel** or the **options page**.

## Prerequisites

- The extension installed and connected to a server. See [Install a server](/docs/install-server/).

## Open the side panel

1. Click the extension's toolbar icon.

The panel is browser furniture rather than part of the page, so it stays put as
you browse and no website can block it or draw over it. Each browser
window has its own.

It holds two views behind one header:

- **Search**, which lists this page's threads when the box is empty and replaces
  that list with results when it is not.
- **Thread**, which holds one thread — from this page or from anywhere else.

Switching between them loses nothing. A query you typed is still there when you
come back.

Opening a thread in the panel does not move the page. Going to the page is a
separate control, so a search result from another site can be read here without
navigating away from what you are doing.

This page's threads are listed with the open ones first, ordered by the last
thing that happened in them, so a reply lifts a thread. Resolved threads are
under their own heading below.

## Search a server

1. In the side panel, type into the search box.
2. Optional: pick a scope to narrow the results.
3. Open a result. A thread opens in the panel without moving the page.

One box, three kinds of answer: **sites**, **comments** and **people**. They
come back as three lists rather than one ranked one, because there is no honest
way to rank "a domain whose name matched" against "a comment whose body
matched".

A search is scoped, and the scope narrows all three lists at once:

| Scope        | Looks in                          |
| ------------ | --------------------------------- |
| Everything   | The whole server.                 |
| This project | One project and every site in it. |
| This site    | One site and every page on it.    |
| This page    | The page you are on.              |

The options page has the same search without the scope picker, across every
domain, every comment body and every person on the server.

## Switch and manage projects

Every comment is filed under a project you name, and which one you are in is
this browser's choice, per server. Learn more about [projects, sites and
pages](/docs/concepts/projects-and-sites/).

To switch projects:

1. Select the project's name, in the side panel's header or on the toolbar on
   the page. Both open the same picker.
2. Search for the project and choose it. A project is a name you invented
   rather than an idea with an icon, so the picker is a search field.

**Create, rename or delete a project** on the options page, under
**Projects**, where you can also move a site from one project to another. A
project that still holds sites cannot be deleted; move them out first.

**Claim an address for a project** on the same screen: type it into the field
on the project's row — `staging.example.com`, `*.example.com`, `localhost:5173`,
or `example.com/admin` for one part of a site. Picking another project on a
page at a claimed address switches that tab alone, until it leaves the address.
The row counts comments already filed in another project and offers to move
each site.

## Repair a page whose comments came unstuck

The options page's **Sites** screen lists every site with its counts and the
project it is in. Opening one lists its pages, **most drifted first** — which is
the point of the screen: it is where you find a comment that has come unstuck
from the page it was about.

Two repairs live there:

- **Change a page's URL**, which moves that page's threads to where the content
  moved to. Any key may do this.
- **Merge two pages into one**, when the same content has been filed under two
  addresses. This one needs a key holding `can_admin`, because taking over a
  page that already exists cannot be undone.

## Copy a permalink

Every thread card has a control that copies a **permalink** — a link to that one
comment that you can paste into a chat, a ticket or a commit message. Following
it opens the thread on the page it belongs to. Learn more about [links to a
comment](/docs/concepts/comment-links/).

## Check that it worked

The thread you opened shows in the side panel, and the page behind it has not
moved. Going to the page is a separate control on the thread.

## Next steps

- [Move a pin and edit its screenshot](/docs/using/pins/): put an unstuck pin back
  on its element.