Chapter 16 — Workspaces and Layouts

Workspaces and layouts are how AidaIDE remembers what you had open and how the panes were arranged. This chapter explains both, plus the Layout Wizard for quickly recasting the IDE for a specific kind of work.

Workspace ≠ layout — what is the difference?

Workspace — the content. Which connection tabs are open, which files, which feature tabs, the current file tree root.
Layout — the shape. Sidebar positions, pane sizes, layout mode (Classic Tabs vs Grid), tab strip placement.

You can mix and match: load a workspace into any layout, and vice versa.

Saving and switching layouts

The toolbar's Workspace: label is followed by a layout-preset combo box:

Pick a saved layout to apply it instantly.
The floppy icon saves the current layout under the selected name.
The sparkle icon (✨) opens the Layout Wizard.

Layout presets live in ~/.aidaide/layouts/ as JSON files. Bundled presets:

Code Editor — left sidebar (files), main editor, AI sidebar collapsed.
Fleet Ops — Fleet Manager tab + Monitoring Dashboard side by side.
Embedded Dev — connection tab in foreground, Serial Monitor docked at the bottom.
AI Lab — Hierarchy Builder in a primary tab, AI sidebar always-on.
Network Audit — Port Scanner, Topology, Packet Capture in a grid.

Replace any of them by saving over the name.

Layout modes

View → Layout Mode switches the high-level layout engine:

Classic Tabs (default) — single notebook in the center. Tabs across the top. Familiar IDE shape.
Grid — splits the main area into resizable cells. Each cell holds a different feature tab. Useful for dashboards (e.g. four monitoring tabs visible at once).

Switching modes preserves your open tabs; it changes how they are arranged.

Layout Wizard

The sparkle icon in the toolbar opens a guided dialog:

What are you doing today? — Code, Manage Fleet, Audit Network, Build AI Pipeline.
Which sidebars do you want? — Files / AI / both / none.
Preview — live preview of the resulting layout.
Apply / Save as Preset.

The wizard is a faster way to get to a known-good arrangement than dragging splitters manually.

Recent things

The File menu has three "recent" submenus, surfacing whatever you most recently opened:

Recent Files — last 20 files (local or remote).
Recent Connections — last 10 hosts.
Recent Workspaces — last 10 saved workspaces.

Clear from Settings → General → Recent items.

Workspaces

A workspace is a snapshot of:

Open connection tabs.
Open feature tabs.
Open editor tabs with file paths.
Project folder root.
Active layout name.

Saving a workspace

File → Save Workspace — overwrites the current named workspace (if any).
File → Save Workspace As… (Ctrl+Alt+S) — prompts for a name and writes a new workspace JSON to ~/.aidaide/workspaces/.

Opening a workspace

File → Open Workspace… — picker.
File → Recent Workspaces — most recent ten.
On launch, AidaIDE optionally re-opens the last workspace (toggle in Settings → General → Startup behaviour).

"I lost a tab when I restarted"

The workspace serialiser used to drop tabs whose tab_type was just feature (no specific branch in _restore_tab). All Network / Camera feature tabs were among them — the fix lives in workspace_manager.py and is tracked as a current open bug. Until the patch lands, save your workspace explicitly and reopen workspace JSONs manually; for missing tab types, the workaround is to re-open from the menu.

Tab management

Drag a tab to reorder within the notebook.
Right-click a tab for:
Close / Close Others / Close to the Right.
Pin (keeps the tab when "Close Others").
Move to New Window (tear-off).
Move to Right Group (split view).
Connection tabs stay on the left of the strip; feature tabs stay on the right. You can rearrange within each side but not across.

Multi-window

Drag a tab title out of the main window to spawn a new window. Useful for putting a monitoring dashboard on a second monitor.

Each window has its own toolbar but shares the menu state, the LCOT panel (per connection tab), and the AI sidebar (one sidebar in the primary window).

Floating panels

Sidebars can be floated:

Click the small "pop out" icon at the top of a sidebar.
The sidebar becomes a free-floating window you can park anywhere.
Drag back into the main window to re-dock.

Terms & Setup

"Why are my tabs in a weird order after restart?"

Workspaces save tab order. If you used the global "remember last session" toggle without an explicit workspace, the auto-saved session is the source of truth — and it may have ordering nuances if you reordered tabs after opening.

The workspace file is plain JSON. Pass it along; they drop it in their ~/.aidaide/workspaces/. Caveat: file paths and connection names will only match if they have the same hosts in their Connection Manager.

Layout presets vs project workspaces — which to use?

Use a layout preset when the shape matters and the content is per-host (e.g. "Embedded Dev" is the same shape regardless of which Pi you are working on).
Use a workspace when you want to come back to the same set of files / tabs (e.g. "Customer X support session" with three connection tabs and a specific notes file open).

Pinning tabs

A pinned tab survives Close Others and shows a pin icon. Pin frequently used reference tabs (a runbook file, a Monitoring Dashboard) so they do not get culled when you tidy.

Auto-save of the workspace

On every tab open/close, AidaIDE writes a hidden "last session" workspace.
If a named workspace is open, that workspace updates too. Disable in Settings → General → Auto-save workspace.

"Grid mode looks broken"

Grid cells have a minimum size. If your window is too small the cells stack vertically and lose the grid look.
Resize the AidaIDE window larger or remove some panels.