Icon request: move chat back into sidebar

[bpasero]

A chat session can be inside a floating window and there is desire to have a 1-click gesture to move it back into the sidebar:

I am using layout-sidebar-right codicon but wonder if a new icon could be made to make this gesture clearer. I imagine a combination of sidebar and an arrow to indicate its moving there?

[mrleemurray]

We will either require 2 icons - left & right - or a single icon that encapsulates any position

[bpasero]

Yeah its tricky, in theory chat could also be in the panel 🤯

[mrleemurray]

Is it possible to programatically update the icon depending on the last "docked" location?

[mrleemurray]

Also, this is the behaviour on Visual Studio

Perhaps this is also a suitable approach?

[bpasero]

Is it possible to programatically update the icon depending on the last "docked" location?

Yeah we know the location and could show a per-location icon.

Also, this is the behaviour on Visual Studio

I think VS has a generic support for any view to be either floating or docked, we only have this for editors and selected components:

"Open Chat in Side Bar"

[mrleemurray]

I chatted with the icon designer & we agreed that using the existing panel / sidebar icons in a per-location method would be the best solution - they are known metaphors, which the user understands & also gives context to what location in the UI the chat will return to.

[bpasero]

There is a slight difference though: in the main window these icons toggle the view visibility, while here in the floating window, many things happen:

• the floating chat window closes because the chat view moves back into the main window
• the main window sidebar opens to show that chat view

Users might be a bit confused and might have expected a secondary sidebar to become visible in the floating window, hence I was thinking about a combination of the existing icon and something that makes it clear this is moving the view.

[mrleemurray]

Understood - we will explore some modifiers in conjunction with the per-location method

[mrleemurray]

@bpasero here are the proposed designs, inspired from Teams:

[bpasero]

@mrleemurray really nice! My feeling is that 1, 3, 4 would suffice and carry enough information.

[mrleemurray]

Awesome - I will get those codicons ready for you

[mrleemurray]

Icons added as per #250111

[bpasero]

The icon is great.

Fixing via https://github.com/microsoft/vscode/pull/250263