Theia: Missing button/context menu to close minibrowser side area

[joazvsoares]

Description

Currently, we don't have a very intuitive way to close the minibrowser widget, one has to use the context menu, i.e. right click on the icon in the side area.

It would be nice to have the close icon there and also the context menu should work from the title the same way as in the main area.

Reproduction Steps

1. Go to > Preview: Open Url
2. Type any URL
3. There is no close icon and also no context menu

OS and Theia version:
Theia 0.8.0

[akosyakov]

Generally, it is not nice that a widget toolbar in side areas does not provide the same actions like the toolbar in the main area. For first time user it is confusing to find.

[akosyakov]

@eclipse-theia/eclipse-theia Does anyone oppose an idea or have a better idea? If not i could guide how to implement it.

[vince-fugnitto]

I guess it's just something that is understood the more you use the IDE regularly.
It will only be confusing at the beginning if at all.
If we were to fix the issue however, it should be for all widgets, not only the preview.

[vince-fugnitto]

@eclipse-theia/eclipse-theia Does anyone oppose an idea or have a better idea? If not i could guide how to implement it.

Perhaps for sidebar widgets, right-clicking the tabbar title (preview label in this case), can trigger a context menu with the ability to close? Not sure how much more intuitive this is either.

[akosyakov]

Perhaps for sidebar widgets, right-clicking the tabbar title (preview label in this case), can trigger a context menu with the ability to close? Not sure how much more intuitive this is either.

Yes, I also was thinking about the separate action group in the toolbar context menu.

I'm a bit unsure about close button for all widgets. It makes sense for editors and previews, but for views it does not feel good somehow. I have not seen such button in side areas in other IDEs.

[joazvsoares]

@akosyakov have you decided on the approach we should take for this issue? Maybe I can collaborate if you can provide some guidance on the implementation.

[akosyakov]

@joazvsoares I think everybody agrees that having a group in the context menu will be nice. Let's do it first. I will investigate what should be done and write down here.

Adding a close button is not so clear, it makes sense for some widgets but not others, i.e. views.

[akosyakov]

That's a bit tricky because of view containers, i.e. the navigator and scm, since they are hijacking the context menu rendering for tab bars already.

But if you are up to it there are 2 steps:

• Customize SidePanelToolbar to render SHELL_TABBAR_CONTEXT_MENU context menu for the title container: https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/blob/71c11c36171398975779c925bbc0ca3910189853/packages/core/src/browser/shell/side-panel-toolbar.ts#L25.
  
  
  
  • You can look at the standard tab bar for the inspiration: https://github.com/eclipse-theia/theia/blob/71c11c36171398975779c925bbc0ca3910189853/packages/core/src/browser/shell/tab-bars.ts#L397
  
  
• Change the view container to contribute its action group to SHELL_TABBAR_CONTEXT_MENU when necessary instead of rendering own. Such action group should go before other actions in the context menu.