Sidebar Dock System

Mosaic's sidebar system gives you four docking positions around your terminal area, each supporting split zones, draggable tabs, and resizable edges. It is designed to keep your tools visible and accessible without crowding your terminal space.

4-Slot Dock Layout

Panels can be docked to any of four positions around the terminal area:

Each slot is independent -- you can have panels docked in all four positions simultaneously, or just one. Unused positions take up no space.

Split Zones

Each dock slot supports top and bottom split zones. This lets you stack two panel groups vertically within a single slot.

For example, you could have:

• Left top zone: File Explorer
• Left bottom zone: Activity panel

Each zone has its own tab bar, so switching between panels within one zone does not affect the other zone. This gives you up to 8 visible panel areas (4 slots x 2 zones) if needed.

Panel Tab Bar

When multiple panels are assigned to the same zone, they appear as tabs in a strip at the top of that zone. Click a tab to switch the active panel. Only one panel per zone is visible at a time.

This works the same way browser tabs do -- each zone is like a mini tab group for sidebar panels.

Panel Toggle Bar

The titlebar includes toggle buttons for each registered panel, organized by their dock slot position. These buttons provide:

• One-click toggle -- show or hide any panel instantly
• Shortcut tooltips -- hover over a button to see its keyboard shortcut
• Visual grouping -- buttons are grouped by dock slot so you can see how your layout is organized

Drag and Drop Reordering

Rearrange your sidebar layout by dragging panels:

• Drag a panel tab to a different zone within the same slot (top to bottom or vice versa)
• Drag across slots to move a panel from left to right, top to bottom, or any combination
• Drop order determines the tab position within the target zone

This makes it easy to reorganize your layout as your workflow changes throughout the day.

Resize Handles

Drag the edge of any dock slot to adjust its width or height. Your resize preferences are persisted and restored on restart, so you only need to set your preferred sizes once.

Registered Panels

Mosaic ships with seven sidebar panels, each with a dedicated keyboard shortcut:

Tip: You do not need to memorize all shortcuts. Open the command palette with Ctrl+Shift+P and search for any panel by name to toggle it. The panel toggle buttons in the titlebar also show shortcut tooltips on hover.

Layout Persistence

The entire sidebar layout is saved automatically and restored when you reopen Mosaic. This includes:

• Which panels are in which slots and zones
• The size of each dock slot
• Which tabs are active in each zone
• Panel visibility state (shown or hidden)

You never need to reconfigure your sidebar layout after closing Mosaic.

Tips for Arranging Panels

• Start simple. Begin with the file explorer on the left and add other panels as you need them. You can always rearrange later.
• Use split zones for related panels. For example, put the File Explorer in the left top zone and Git Changes in the left bottom zone for a VS Code-like experience.
• Wide panels go top or bottom. The scheduler timeline and search results benefit from horizontal space.
• Right side for monitoring. The Activity panel and Project Board work well on the right where they do not interfere with file navigation.
• Toggle panels instead of closing them. Use keyboard shortcuts to quickly show and hide panels. Their position in the layout is preserved even when hidden.

Quick Reference

Related

• File Explorer -- details on the file tree, git integration, and content search
• Daily Notes -- goals, tasks, and notes panel
• Project Board -- kanban board with GitHub Issues sync
• Scheduler -- automated task execution and triggers
• Roadmap -- dependency graph and iteration planning
• Keyboard Shortcuts -- full reference of all rebindable shortcuts