UI and UX overhaul

[stevencl]

The VS Code UI and UX has evolved to a point where we need to take a holistic and top down view on the experience and look for improvements and inconsistencies. We should define our principles and design language and use that to evolve the product.

In particular, we need to focus on

• iconography Inconsistent weight and use of color in iconography throughout UI #8017
• panels Allow multiple panels to be displayed at once #7161
• colours Find widget does not blend well when tabs enabled #7649, Wrong input box color in dark theme #7648
• commanding Commanding UX #1136

[bgashler1]

We also should touch on typography tune-ups #9152

[bgashler1]

We don't need to get all of these, but here's a barrel of UX issues to keep in mind when we get a chance to do some holistic UI work.

Workbench

#1135 Notifications
#12377 Inline title bar, Mac
#8655 Status bar commanding (Git sync confusing)
#9853 search canceling and progress feedback
#8961 left, right, center (shift down and too much space)
#3112 theme entire workbench with themes

Workspace management

#5910 empty layouts?
#7987, #8544 , #4742 tab-focus work
✅ #12940 distraction free mode

Editor

#2352 Focus indication for editors
#11354 selection colors need to be improved greatly (also user customizable?)

Panels

#2806 Panel position configurable
#3888 Multiple panels at once
#10546 Terminal management (request for tabs, splitting)
#13534 Panel background color, visual hierarchy

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Smaller work items that should be addressed at some point...

Accessibility

#12826 Peek UI contrast
#6065 Light theme text hard to read
#9819 warning color
#2503 tab-focus mode

[bgashler1]

We also should do some exploration on how the workbench could enable more advanced extensions that require different layouts, for example SQL database exploration or things that need to be horizontal.

[dilijev]

If I may humbly submit an additional item for discussion: #12543 Improve horizontal screen real-estate

[Stanzilla]

statusbar, too?

[RoyTinker]

May I ask for #10121 to be considered? I think it's a top priority for a lot of developers who work on multiple monitors...

[jjwilliams42]

Agree with @RoyTinker, I feel like it's the big elephant in the room that no VSCode team member has responded or commented on (or maybe I missed it, I do a lot of GitHub browsing on my phone).

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