Gitpod: Gitpod should save user's preferred UI layout and preferences across all instances

[sr229]

Gitpod still has a friction when it comes to user preferences. Let's say I want my IDE layout and user settings to be persistent accross every Theia IDE I encounter, and apparently I can't do that because all instances has their own preference store and its ephemeral.

Possible use cases

Use cases of this are people who are migrating from desktop editors and wants their settings to be persistent when they enter Gitpod.

[svenefftinge]

Please note, that user preferences are stored across all instances and workspace preferences are shared per git repo. So it is the same as with a using e.g. VS Code locally.

UI Layout is not shared or persisted per user, because that often depends on the project. I.e. in some projects I prefer to work with two or more terminals in split mode. In others one is enough. I think this is rather something I want to share with everyone working on that project (to some extend).

But we store the exact layout per workspace instance. So you can close your browser tab and in case you want to come back tomorrow restarting it you'll get the exact same UI layout. This is also the case for workspace snapshots.

[sr229]

My only concern is a use case when user might want his layout across all of his projects from his configuration in project X (which seems to be the case for most of my colleagues during our Hackfest, when they want to sport their own IDE layout that they're most comfortable).

So I believe there is a need for this kind of customizability @svenefftinge

[svenefftinge]

Would be helpful to know what parts specifically they were changing and why. Do you remember?
Such a feature would need to work well with the shared and restored UI layouts described above.

[sr229]

@svenefftinge most of them doesn't want Outline view for example, and some want all of those icons in the left pane for a more VSCode-like experience (that includes me), and most of us don't want to reiterate the same change per workspace.

[justinmoon]

I want to hide the "open ports" widget at the bottom when the IDE first starts up

[svenefftinge]

Thanks. Do you want this for yourself or for all users of a certain repository?

[justinmoon]

All users of a repository

[svenefftinge]

All users of a repository

Ok, then it is different to what was initially requested in this issue.
We'll need to think a bout a way to describe layouts and also rules on how layouts are enhanced/adjusted through user-specific settings.

[stale[bot]]

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