Activity Bar Layout Issue

[opus131]

Happens with the following (admittedly silly) combination of settings:

 "workbench.activityBar.orientation": "vertical",
 "workbench.activityBar.location": "top" 

[danperks]

Thanks for flagging. While you are right that the combination of settings is slightly contradictory, it should still work properly regardless of that - will flag to the team!

[opus131]

The reason I’m using this combination of settings is that the new redesigned activity bar does not include the hamburger menu and also uses a bit more space:

(it also doesn’t seem to show badges, but I’d consider that a feature )

[MrNaif]

@danperks Sorry for pinging, just to link another similar issue if possible to pass to devs. Since cursor 0.46 series:
If using “workbench.activityBar.orientation”: “vertical”
The git tab number of committed files icon is now way smaller than it was before. Also the whole activity bar has smaller font/size than before.
So probably all combinations of orientation vertical + any other settings got broken. I’ve posted it in update discussion thread but might have got lost. Also linking relevant report opened by someone else:

The icons in the vertical activity bar have become smaller in size in v. 0.46.7

The icons in the vertical activity bar have become smaller in size in version 0.46.7, which makes it difficult to read (especially the number of changes in the git source contol) A huge request to return the normal size of the icons!

[danperks]

Thanks for flagging, I’ve passed this to the team!

[jensrst]

I also had been using this combination of orientation: vertical and location: top because it restored VS Code’s design for the activity bar.

After updating to 0.46.11 this combination now produces a Cursor-specific design:

that has several usability issues relative to VS Code’s version:

• Fewer activities fit in the same amount of screen space
• The icons are smaller and harder to distinguish
• The size of the click target for the icon has been reduced, so it is harder to click quickly, especially from a trackpad
• Badges are still clipped / do not render correctly
• If an extension adds a new activity when the bar is already full, the logic that should show the hamburger menu does not re-run unless the window or sidebar is resized.

[icahnchen]

This problem still exists today

[killik-dan-stubbs]

To further this point, we should also have the ability to see VSCode’s implementation of the horizontal activity bar on the secondary side bar. This looks so much cleaner than the cursor specific design.

At least giving the user more customisation controls with extra settings would be greatly appreciated. Perhaps adding a simple boolean setting to disable all custom Cursor workbench appearance settings (including activity bar settings) and reverting to VSCode’s implementation only. This will give the user a whole load of customisation options, and make cursor more usable for UI opinionated new users.