Skip to content

Progressive disclosure in NewTaskDialog; Settings regrouping; no-agents-installed guidance #213

Description

@johannesjo

Problem

NewTaskDialog exposes ~14 distinct controls (project, prompt, name, branch prefix, agent, git isolation, base branch, steps tracking, skip-permissions + propagate, Docker + image + build, coordinator + max-concurrent + propagate, symlink dirs). Progressive disclosure is already well done for Docker/coordinator sub-options and the skip-permissions warnings — but the 90% case is "pick project, type prompt, hit Create", and name/prefix/agent/isolation/base-branch are always expanded, forcing a scroll on smaller windows even though all of them have good defaults (name derived from prompt, base branch auto-detected, prefix remembered per project).

Also: with zero CLI agents installed, the dialog silently defaults to store.availableAgents[0] ?? null (NewTaskDialog.tsx:214) and the user only learns at submit time via setError('Select an agent') (:578) — a dead end for brand-new users with no install hint.

SettingsDialog General tab is a single scroll of ~19+ controls across ~8 section headers (SettingsDialog.tsx:221-989). Terminal Font and Focus Dimming are appearance concerns living in General while a Themes tab exists; Updates/Diagnostics sit below a full font grid. And the coordinator-delay copy leaks implementation math into UI text: "Failed sub-tasks use max(10s, delay ÷ 4)" (:1403).

Proposed fix

  • Collapse name/prefix/isolation/base-branch behind an "Advanced" disclosure that summarizes current values inline (e.g. task/fix-login-flow · from main · worktree).
  • When availableAgents is empty, show an inline banner in the dialog ("No coding agents detected — install Claude Code / Codex / Gemini CLI…") with a docs link, and reflect it in the first-run empty state.
  • Move Terminal Font + Focus Dimming to the Themes tab (or rename it Appearance); consider a settings filter box.
  • Reword the coordinator-delay hint in plain language.

From a full design/UX audit (2026-07-07); adversarially verified. Line numbers as of b342bbd (v1.12.0).

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    enhancementNew feature or requestuxUX / design improvements

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions