feat ui/ux: overflow button in header actions

[dlab-anton]

Context

Overview:

This PR cleans up the Roo Code view header by moving less frequently used actions into the standard VS Code overflow menu (...). This provides a less cluttered primary header focusing on core actions like 'New Task', 'Prompts', and 'Settings'.

Before

After

Drop-down (note no styles, icons, etc. this is standard vs code overflow)

Pros:

• Helps mental burden a lot because those icons are always present
• Can guide user to important pages like Prompts

Cons:

Maybe frustrating if someone uses something in the overflow frequently. The one I'm least confident is open in editor if someone has this in their workflow to click it every time or something (I don't know).

Problem:

The Roo Code view header previously displayed all action buttons directly (New Task, Prompts, MCP Servers, History, Open in Editor, Settings, Help). This leads to a cluttered UI, mental burden, especially in narrower view layouts. It also allows easier dev in the future as can easily add a new page without affecting layout.

Solution:

Leveraged the standard VS Code menu contribution mechanism (contributes.menus) to control item visibility. By modifying the group property for specific actions within the view/title and editor/title contexts in package.json, we can signal to VS Code which items are primary (navigation@<number>) and which are secondary (no group assigned). VS Code automatically places these secondary items into the built-in overflow menu (...).

Changes Made:

• Modified Roo-Code/package.json:
  • In contributes.menus["view/title"]:
    • Kept group: "navigation@1" for roo-cline.plusButtonClicked.
    • Kept group: "navigation@2" for roo-cline.promptsButtonClicked.
    • Updated group to navigation@3 for roo-cline.settingsButtonClicked.
    • Removed the group property entirely for roo-cline.mcpButtonClicked, roo-cline.historyButtonClicked, roo-cline.popoutButtonClicked, and roo-cline.helpButtonClicked.
  • Applied identical changes to contributes.menus["editor/title"] for consistency when the view is popped out.

---

Important

Improves Roo Code view header by moving less used actions to VS Code overflow menu, focusing on core actions.

• UI/UX Improvement:
  • Moves less frequently used actions to VS Code overflow menu in Roo Code view header.
  • Focuses primary header on core actions: 'New Task', 'Prompts', 'Settings'.
• Changes in package.json:
  • In contributes.menus["view/title"] and contributes.menus["editor/title"]:
    • Keeps group: "navigation@1" for roo-cline.plusButtonClicked.
    • Keeps group: "navigation@2" for roo-cline.promptsButtonClicked.
    • Updates group to navigation@3 for roo-cline.settingsButtonClicked.
    • Removes group for roo-cline.mcpButtonClicked, roo-cline.historyButtonClicked, roo-cline.popoutButtonClicked, roo-cline.helpButtonClicked.

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[sachasayan]

I'll happily endorse this, but here's my suggestion, and where I was thinking of going with this when I caught a spare moment:

1. Yeet the "+ new task" and "? docs" buttons — we don't have stats on these but I'm almost sure they're never used.
2. Move "Open in Editor" to the overflow you just made. Also, borrow "Open in New Window" from Copilot.
3. Move Prompts, MCP, and Task History elsewhere, possibly in the task area or under the Roo logo.

Final version could look like:

All of these are elective, happy to hear your thoughts.

[dlab-anton]

All of these are elective, happy to hear your thoughts.
Yeet the "+ new task"

Thanks for the feedback good ideas. I will yeet.

Move Prompts, MCP, and Task History elsewhere, possibly in the task area or under the Roo logo.

This is the only one I would very strongly push back on -- there are standard patterns for menus/pages in VS Code and everyone expects navigation at the top right. This also lets them be present on all screens. This pattern is too strong and we can't change I think. But we can add, in addition to top links, a quick links section below, however I would prefer to reserve this for a different task.

[mrubens]

Maybe we should add some telemetry for the button clicks before making a decision here? (Just one data point, but I hit the new chat button all the time)

[mrubens]

How about we get this out in the next release and then use it to inform this change / track the impact? #3108

[dlab-anton]

Maybe we should add some telemetry for the button clicks before making a decision here? (Just one data point, but I hit the new chat button all the time)

I actually was thinking we keep the New Task, but remove the identical function button near it in the Task Header (X) so that the task header has a clean one-function title area for expand/collapse. I may be wrong but I believe they are duplicate functions and difference is the top one is persistent on all pages (better, easier to remember, etc.) and the one in task header is redundant.

Dual-function accordion row is a little funky for mental burden and the chevron is on the left , where on other items it is on the right. So we can also move the chevron to the right to match other accordions on chat page if remove the redundant x there.

[mrubens]

Here’s some early data on button clicks. Seems like a no brainer to remove the help button (especially since we have the link to docs in the chat view now).

[dlab-anton]

Here’s some early data on button clicks. Seems like a no brainer to remove the help button (especially since we have the link to docs in the chat view now).

Great to see the data.

Time on page would let us segment out users that spend, say more than 3 seconds on the tab. If time isn't tracked then we could take one interaction per page and segment out users who did not interact, or scroll, etc. (Some way to use your existing data to essentially measure bounce rate).

Based on that data and intuition I would keep Settings, Plus, MCP as the three that are always persistent, and the rest in the overflow. We could make it responsive eg. from showing all icons on wide to only overflow icon on super narrow but I prefer overflow more than 3 icons for better clarity.

[daniel-lxs]

Hey @dlab-anton, Would it make sense to change the buttons currently shown based on the usage data?
Please let me know if you'd like to discuss the change further.

[hannesrudolph]

@dlab-anton I take it back! yeah lets do this. Thanks @MuriloFP for correcting me on this. I should have never closed it. Hasty me.

[hannesrudolph]

@mrubens

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR declutters the Roo Code view header by moving less-used actions into the VS Code overflow menu and refining group assignments for primary actions.

• Adjusted contributes.menus in package.json for both view/title and editor/title contexts.
• Removed group properties from secondary actions so they appear under the overflow (...) menu.
• Ensured primary actions (New Task, Prompts, Settings) remain in the main header with correct navigation@ group numbers.

Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

src/package.json:260

• Settings in the editor/title block has no group. If it should remain a primary action, re-add "group": "navigation@3"; otherwise, confirm it belongs in the overflow.

					"command": "roo-cline.settingsButtonClicked",

[daniel-lxs]

Thank you @dlab-anton!

LGTM