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Sidebars

Zelos has two resizable sidebars, one on each side of the workspace. Each sidebar is topped by a horizontal rail — a row of tabs that switches what the sidebar shows. Signal trees, extensions, layouts, AI chat, and Settings are all sidebar items you can rearrange however you like.

Zelos workspace with both sidebars open

The Workspace view on the left, Data on the right, each behind its own rail.

The Rail

Every sidebar has the same rail at the top:

Sidebar rail anatomy

1 — Search  ·  2 — Pinned views  ·  3 — All views menu
  1. Search (always on the far left) — filters the active view. It dims when the active view has nothing to search (for example AI Chat).
  2. Pinned views — one icon per pinned item. Click an icon to switch views; the highlighted icon is the active one.
  3. All views menu (the chevron, always on the far right) — lists every item on that side, including ones that aren't pinned or don't currently fit in the rail.

Hover any icon for its name and keyboard shortcut.

Rail Items

Item What it shows / does Default side
Workspace Signals, Actions, and Extensions trees Left
Extensions Installed extensions and the Marketplace Left
Settings Opens the Settings tab in the main area Left
Data Saved layouts, connections, and trace files Right
AI Chat The Zelos AI assistant — Cmd+I / Ctrl+I opens it from anywhere Right
Installed app extensions Opens the extension in its own tab Left

Settings and app extensions open as tabs in the main area, and their rail icons highlight while that tab is active. Everything else shows its content in the sidebar itself.

Organizing Your Sidebars

Open the menu and hover a row to reveal its actions:

All views menu with pin and move actions

Each row has a pin toggle and a "move to other sidebar" button.

Pin and Unpin

  • Pinned items get an icon in the rail.
  • Unpinned items stay available in the menu only — useful for things you open rarely.

Click the pin icon on a menu row to toggle it.

Reorder

Drag rail icons left or right to reorder them. You can also drag rows up and down inside the menu.

Order matters when space runs out: if the sidebar is too narrow to show every pinned icon, the last items overflow into the menu. The active view always stays visible, no matter how narrow the rail gets.

Move Views Between Sidebars

Two ways:

  • Drag a rail icon onto the other sidebar's rail, dropping it exactly where you want it.
  • Or use the move button on its menu row.

Dragging a rail icon over the other sidebar's rail

Mid-drag: the Extensions icon hovering over the right rail, about to drop in front of Data.

A moved view becomes active on its new side, and that sidebar opens.

Extensions view active on the right sidebar after a move

The Extensions view after moving it to the right sidebar.

If you move everything off one side, the empty sidebar tells you how to bring views back:

Empty sidebar message

Your arrangement sticks

Placement, order, pins, the active view on each side, sidebar widths, and each view's section heights all persist across restarts.

Click the search icon (or press Cmd+F / Ctrl+F for the left sidebar, Cmd+Shift+F / Ctrl+Shift+F for the right) to expand the search field across the rail.

Rail search filtering the signal tree

Searching the Workspace view: matches are counted, highlighted, and auto-expanded.
  • Search filters the active view — signals/actions/extensions in Workspace, installed and marketplace extensions in Extensions, layouts and data sources in Data.
  • The shortcut opens a collapsed sidebar for you and focuses the search box.
  • The X button clears the text but keeps the search open.
  • Done or Escape close the search and clear the filter. Switching views or workspaces does the same.

Search shortcuts are context-aware

With focus inside a Log panel, Cmd+F / Ctrl+F targets that panel's log search instead of the sidebar.

Badges

A violet NEW pill above an icon means something inside is worth a look:

NEW badge above a rail icon

A newly installed app extension carrying its badge in the rail.
Where Meaning
Settings An app update is available
Extensions Updates are available for installed extensions
An app extension Newly installed — the badge clears the first time you open it

Badges Always Find You

A badge never hides with its icon:

  • If the badged item only lives in the menu (unpinned or overflowed), the chevron shows the pill, and the menu row spells out the reason ("Update available", "Newly installed").
  • If the whole sidebar is closed, the pill appears on its title-bar toggle instead.

Chevron carrying the badge with the menu open

The chevron carries the pill; the menu row explains why.

Title-bar toggle carrying the badge

With the sidebar closed, the badge moves to the title-bar toggle.

Resizing and Collapsing

  • Drag a sidebar's inner edge to resize it; drag it all the way toward the window edge to close it.
  • Double-click the divider to reset the sidebar to its default width.
  • Sections inside a view work the same way: drag the divider between them to adjust their heights, double-click it to reset the split.
  • Toggle sidebars from the title bar buttons or with Cmd+B / Cmd+J (Ctrl on Windows/Linux).

A collapsed sidebar leaves an invisible grab handle at the window edge — hover it and it lights up; drag or double-click it to reopen the sidebar:

Collapsed sidebar edge handle highlighted on hover

The collapsed left sidebar's handle lighting up on hover.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Action macOS Windows / Linux
Toggle left sidebar Cmd+B Ctrl+B
Toggle right sidebar Cmd+J Ctrl+J
Open AI Chat Cmd+I Ctrl+I
Search the left sidebar Cmd+F Ctrl+F
Search the right sidebar Cmd+Shift+F Ctrl+Shift+F
Close search (while typing) Esc Esc

The Workspace View

The Workspace view is home to your data: collapsible Signals, Actions, and Extensions sections. Click a section header to expand or collapse it, drag the dividers between sections to adjust their heights, and use each section's menu for section-specific operations. Section states persist per workspace.

Mode-Based Visibility

Actions and Extensions are only visible when connected to a live agent. When working with trace files, only Signals is available.

Signals

Browse and add data signals from your connected agent or trace file.

Signals are organized hierarchically with support for nested events:

📁 Source
  └── 📁 Event (supports nesting: event/sub_event/...)
      └── 📊 Field

Example: robot/sensors/temperature.value

  • Source: robot
  • Event: sensors/temperature (nested)
  • Field: value

Visual cues: data-type icons, indent guides, full-path tooltips on hover, and muted colors for fields without data.

Adding Items

Method Action Result
Drag & Drop Drag item into the center of a panel Adds the signal to that panel
Drag & Drop Drag item near the top or bottom of a panel, or between rows Creates a new panel at that row
Double-Click Double-click item Creates a new panel at the bottom
Folder drag Drag a folder Adds all items within (respects search filter)

For signals, new sidebar-driven panels are Plot panels. If the active tab is not a layout tab, Zelos creates a new layout tab and places the Plot there instead.

Insert Between Panels

In non-empty layouts, dragging a signal near the top or bottom of a panel, or into the gap between panel rows, shows a full panel preview and shifts the surrounding panels to show the final result before you drop.

Multi-Select

Action Shortcut
Toggle selection Cmd+Click / Ctrl+Click
Range select Shift+Click
Select all visible Cmd+A / Ctrl+A
Deselect all Esc or click outside tree

Once selected, drag any selected item to add them all to a panel. When searching, Cmd+A / Ctrl+A selects only visible search results.

Search Patterns

The rail search understands signal paths and glob patterns:

Pattern Finds Description
temp temperature, temp_sensor Partial match (auto-wraps to *temp*)
*inv*voltage* inverter/power/voltage_input Multi-wildcard across paths
motor?1 motor01, motorA1 ? matches one character

Matching folders auto-expand, a match counter appears, branches you manually close stay closed, and clearing the search restores your previous tree state.

Show Idle Signals

In Live mode, the Signals section menu includes Show idle signals. By default the tree lists signals with recent data; turning this on also lists every signal the agent has produced and retained, shown muted, so you can find and add a signal that has gone quiet. Trace files already list their full signal catalog.

Actions

Execute commands and operations on your connected agent. Actions are organized by namespace and category. Double-clicking an action or dragging it from the tree creates a new Action panel; actions cannot be dropped onto Plot, Table, Log, or Value panels.

Extensions Tree

Control installed agent extensions without leaving the Workspace view: start or stop an extension, open its configuration, or click it to open its detail page. For installing and updating extensions, use the Extensions view.

The Extensions View

The Extensions view manages your integrations in two sections:

  • Installed — every extension on this agent, with state indicators and quick controls.
  • Marketplace — browse and install community extensions.

The rail search filters both sections. See Extensions for the full guide.

The Data View

Everything that feeds your screen: saved Layouts on top, Data Sources below.

Layouts

Save, load, and manage panel arrangements:

  • Save updates the current layout; Save as new creates one from the current arrangement.
  • Personal/Shared toggle controls visibility (you vs. your team).
  • Per-layout actions: rename, share with team, delete.
  • The active layout is highlighted, and modified layouts show when unsaved changes exist.

Data Sources

Your connections and trace files, split into:

  • Active — currently connected agents and open trace files, with status dots (green = connected, spinner = loading, red = error).
  • Pinned — sources you keep at hand; pinned items persist across sessions.
  • Recent — previous connections and traces, sorted by last use, with per-item removal.

Action Method
Connect to agent Click "Add agent" or click a saved connection
Open trace file Click "Open trace" or double-click a file

The rail search filters layouts (by name, creator, ID) and data sources (by address, filename, ID) together.

Next Steps