feature-20260331-navigation-and-discovery
Date
2026-03-31
Context
The desktop workspace shell already supported opening and editing Markdown documents, but navigation and discovery workflows were still limited by a placeholder search field and weak panel-level navigation controls.
Change
- Added unified workspace search (
filename/path/content) through new IPC + shared API contract:
- Implemented main-process discovery logic for:
- ranked search results with snippets
- Added internal-link navigation in the editor surface:
Cmd/Ctrl+Click on internal link text opens the target document- supports Markdown links, wiki links, and anchor-aware targets
- Kept document editing focused on a single active editor surface:
- removed multi-document tabs in the center panel
- removed side-by-side split view in the center panel
- removed document context-menu actions for
Open in New Tab and Open in Split View
- single document selection now always opens directly in the main editor
- Added top-bar panel controls:
- left side uses
panel-left-close / panel-left to collapse/reopen the left panel
- right side uses
panel-right-close / panel-right to collapse/reopen the right panel
- Removed the third right-sidebar tab and its document-discovery API from the feature scope.
- Moved workspace search into a dedicated left-sidebar
Search tab:
- removed the top-bar search input
- added a full-width search input at the top of the
Search tab
- uses native
type=\"search\" clear behavior for search inputs
- moved live search results from
Documents into Search
- kept realtime query behavior with debounce buffering
- highlighted active search matches in open documents with yellow in-editor marks
- Refined assistant sidebar ergonomics:
- restored quick-action example pills above the composer input
- shortened quick-action labels to concise wording (
Summarise document, Improve document)
- kept the composer region pinned to the bottom of the sidebar
- constrained thread-list titles to single-line ellipsis overflow
- Simplified primary shell actions:
- removed the top-bar quick
Publish button
- removed the
Documents-tab bottom New Document button in the left panel
- kept explicit publish via the
Unpublished tab footer action
- when
New Document is triggered from the top bar, the left panel now switches back to the Documents tab
- Standardized terminology across renderer, assistant runtime contracts, and docs:
- migrated remaining legacy copy to
document for current-product behavior
- renamed the assistant input field to
documentRelativePath
- Renamed workspace-opening UI labels to folder language for consistency:
- top-bar workspace selector fallback label:
Open Folder
- center empty-state CTA:
Open Folder / Opening Folder...
- file-menu entry:
File > Open Folder...
- Updated renderer styles for:
- simplified single-editor layout
- side-panel tab headers now use centered inline labels with underline-only active state
- removed full-width segmented tab-row styling and tab borders for left/right panel headers
- preserved the original left/right tab icons while applying the new underline treatment
- Added a design-system copy rule to keep user-visible language in British English spelling.
- Replaced renderer integration tests to validate the new navigation model and panel controls.
Decision
Mohio now treats navigation and discovery as first-class workspace behavior in the desktop shell:
- search and links are integrated into a simpler single-document editing flow
- panel visibility is user-controlled from persistent top-bar toggles
- v1 keeps panel visibility session-local while prioritizing predictable desktop editing ergonomics