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UI cleanup: rework per-session action icons and reduce overall button clutter #29
Description
Problem
The small action/icon buttons next to each shell window (sleep, close, etc.) currently make the UI/UX confusing. They enable convenient one-click actions, but their placement and density work against clarity:
- Icons appear in multiple places (sidebar entry, terminal toolbar) with overlapping responsibilities
- It's not always clear which icon affects which session, especially in grid layouts
- There are simply a lot of buttons across the app — even the Settings window has grown too large
Highest priority: per-session action icons
These are the biggest source of confusion and should be fixed first.
Proposed direction (open to discussion):
- Action icons should most likely always live in the top-right of the terminal pane, consistently
- They don't necessarily need to appear in the sidebar / shell overview at all — or this could be controlled by a setting
- Consider: hover-to-reveal vs. always-visible, and whether secondary actions belong in an overflow
⋯menu
Options to consider:
- Icons only in terminal pane top-right (clean overview, one canonical location)
- Icons in both places, but minimized in the sidebar (e.g. only ✕ visible, others in overflow)
- User setting: "Show action icons in sidebar" on/off
Secondary: general button/UI cleanup
- Audit the main toolbar — which buttons are actually used regularly?
- Settings window has gotten too large; consider grouping into tabs or sections, or hiding advanced options behind a "Show advanced" toggle
- Look for redundant entry points to the same action
Acceptance
- Per-session action icons have a single, consistent location (likely top-right of the terminal pane)
- Sidebar entries are visually calmer — either no inline actions or a much reduced set
- Optional setting governs sidebar action visibility if we keep them there
- Settings window is reorganized so it no longer feels overwhelming
- Overall button count across main UI is reduced or grouped
Activity
feat(ui): hover-to-reveal sidebar action icons + toolbar close (#29)
AThraen commentedon May 12, 2026
Partially shipped via #34 (merged 2026-05-12)
The highest-priority piece — per-session action icons in the sidebar — is done.
Shipped
SidebarActionIconsModesetting (Appearance → "Sidebar action icons"):On hover (default)/Always show/Hide (use right-click instead). OnHover keeps the panel laid out (no text reflow when hovering in/out) but transparent + non-interactive until the row is hovered. Hidden collapses the panel and reclaims the horizontal space for the session text.✕close at the far right, so it is a complete canonical home for per-session actions — matches option 1 in the issue.Acceptance check
Deferred — leaving this issue open
Happy to split the remaining work into separate issues if that's easier to triage.
AThraen commentedon May 15, 2026
Partial progress in v0.5.0:
SidebarActionIconsModesetting:OnHover(default) /Always/HiddenStill open from the acceptance list: