UX: Workspace Windowing & Layout Strategy

[austincondiff]

This discussion is in reference to the wiki page found here.

I think this is the best approach to handle how our windows change according to the file/project lifecycle and how we are layout out our workspace UI. Please let me know if I am missing something or if we could be handling this better. I have been wrong before and I hope that we can discuss this to either validate these usability patterns or come up with something even better. I look forward to your comments! 👀

[matthijseikelenboom]

I don't really have any objections to this. I've two questions tho

1. The button that is present at the child window, when clicked, does that pop it back into the main window?
2. Should it be possible to move other tabs into the child window to add them to that? For example, in most browsers you can move tabs back and forth between windows. Finder also has that functionality.

[matthijseikelenboom]

I've recently used it to rewrite the ExtensionManager for CodeEdit. It's also convenient when you have a screen that is 27" or larger with high resolution. If you go full screen there is a lot of unused remaining space (If you're not building UI and using previews).

[austincondiff]

This is what that would look like...

Edit: This has flow been included in the original comment under "Dragging additional tabs on the breakout window"

Thoughts? Does this make sense? Is this expected or does this over-complicate the breakout window?

[pabloscloud]

It does make sense and that's what I'd expect when dragging a tab over a breakout window.

[austincondiff]

Awesome, I will update my original comment above to reflect this.

[jasonplatts]

I've never used split view in Xcode ever. What's the matter? The only reason I would ever do this is, if I wanted to compare files. Maybe you have another use case that I didn't find yet? :)

I use split view most of the time on a 27" monitor. It is very useful when working on an MVC project, where I can have a model open in one and either a view or controller open in the other.

[jasonplatts]

This looks great Austin. I think the window behavior makes sense and I really like the "pop out" and "pop back in" feature.

[jasonplatts]

The zero-state" of the project navigator makes sense. One question: I am a bit confused by the buttons in the project navigator in the screen below. If the user has opened "App.jsx" and now has the option to open the folder containing this file using the "Open Folder" button, what exactly would the "Open TodoListApp" button to the left do? Does this show an open folder dialog to select the project root? Is an existing project detected and this provides the ability to open the project? I apologize if you explained this and I didn't follow.

[austincondiff]

I probably could have done a better job explaining this. The intention was to open the containing folder making this the project root. This folders tree would then show in the navigator in place of the zero-state. I guess in accordance to these mockups the containing folder is "components" so it should say 'Open "components"'. However I have thought about what you suggest which is if it detects a parent project this file is a part of it would suggest it instead of the containing folder.

[pabloscloud]

Thats why I said you could use the space in the navigator to explain what the button does o.O :)