Chapter 16 — Workspaces and Layouts

Ships in the current Windows download, 1.0.0-rc19. The Workbench has been in the desktop app since 1.0.0-rc18. Windows is the primary supported path. macOS and Linux builds are in progress. Linux experimental (soft peer). This chapter describes the Workbench in the desktop app. Android stays a separate Lite-class app, not a desktop host download. The Cloud Portal is unchanged.

AidaIDE's window is a workbench: every tab is a panel you can split, stack, or tear off into its own window, and your setups save by name. View → Workbench → Use the workbench shell is on by default. The Workbench is not a Pro feature. Pro tools stay Pro inside it. Existing tools open as they are. Plugins need no changes; the plugin API did not change for this.

Split the view

Drag a tab to the left, right, top, or bottom edge of another panel. A compass shows where it will land. Drop it on that edge to split the view.

Stack panels

Drop a tab on the middle of another panel to stack them.

Tear off into a new window

Drag a tab outside the window, double-click it, or right-click and choose Float. Drop more tabs into that window and move it to a second monitor. Close the window and its tabs come back.

A connection tab, and that connection's Sidebar, Editor, and Intelligence panels, stay in the main window. The connection's Terminal can leave. See Take the terminal anywhere.

Add any panel

Open the list with Ctrl+Shift+B, the toolbar's + Panel, or the + on any tab strip. One searchable list holds every built-in tab, installed marketplace widgets, the Dashboard, panel tools, and the pages of running plugins. They dock the same way as the built-in panels.

Ctrl+Shift+A is AI Chat, not Add panel.

A layout that names a widget you do not have installed opens without that widget and says so. AidaIDE does not install the missing widget for you. Running plugins reopen their own pages; a saved layout does not restore plugin pages.

Pick up where you left off

The arrangement saves itself as you go: windows, splits, stacks, floating windows, and their positions. After a restart the arrangement comes back. SSH sessions do not reconnect by themselves. Connections start fresh.

The current arrangement autosaves to ~/.aidaide/workbench_layout.json.

Save named layouts

The toolbar Workspace list holds layouts you name yourself. Save writes the current arrangement. Right-click any strip for Save layout as... or Open layout. The same commands are under View → Workbench and Settings → Workspace.

Switching layouts keeps connections connected. Each layout is a file under ~/.aidaide/layouts/ that you can copy to another PC. Layouts are not in the Marketplace.

Settings → Workspace lists those layouts:

Open
Save current as...
Delete

There is no bundled set of presets, and no Layout Wizard.

Take the terminal anywhere

Press Pop in a connection's terminal header. The live shell becomes a panel you can dock anywhere, including another window, with its scrollback, the shell switcher, and the AI agent's bash attached. Close the panel and it returns to the tab.

The connection's live SSH session stays registered with the connection service, which hands the shell to wherever the Terminal panel is docked. That is why the terminal can leave the tab and keep running.

Add panel → "Sidebar - user@host" (Editor and Intelligence the same way). Their icon bars travel with them. These panels stay in the main window.

Classic layout

View → Workbench → Classic layout for this connection lays out a toolbar row, then Sidebar, Editor, Intelligence, and Terminal below. They are panels you can move later.

Go back to tabs

View → Workbench, then uncheck Use the workbench shell, and restart. You get the classic tabbed window. Reset layout clears the arrangement.

The per-tab Grid Layout mode, the Layout Wizard, Layout Presets, and the Widget Palette do not come back. Old grid layouts are not carried over. Save a named layout instead.

Where layouts live

Layouts are plain files on your PC:

Named layouts: ~/.aidaide/layouts/
Current arrangement: ~/.aidaide/workbench_layout.json

Copy or back them up. On Windows the AidaIDE user-data directory is %APPDATA%\AidaIDE\ (see Chapter 20).