Composer Refresh -> Unify History -> Unify Chat and Composer

Discussion
1

The new Command/R shortcut that refreshes Composer is flawed, and brings up a deeper issue in Cursor.

I have my browser open side by side and often I will make a change in the code, and move to the browser, muscle memory Command R to refresh, and instead of refreshing the browser, I’ve refreshed Composer. My alt-tab to switch focus, or my click in the other window didn’t register.

Thankfully Composer remembers now but it’s a pain to open get back to where I was. I need to do these steps:

  1. Click the 3 dot menu top right corner of Cursor
  2. Mental energy: How do I get Composer history: “Open Composer As Bar”
  3. Click the 3 dot menu next to the +
  4. Click Show History
  5. Can’t see the full list in the list popup
  6. Move the Composer window down
  7. Click the 3 dot menu again
  8. Mental energy to read the list… is it alphabetical? chronological? reverse chronological? So I then I open the top item
  9. Mental energy: Wait a minute… these chats don’t look like the right chats… wtf… oh snap… this is for another project. Why would it do that? Oh I see, I had another Cursor workspace open in a different window… no idea how it switched without even noticing it
  10. Mental energy: Find the workspace/project I started with
  11. Composer docked itself back as a pane
  12. Repeat steps 1 through 8
  1. Ok I found the correct conversation
  2. Press escape to close the list popup
  3. Press the 3 dot menu
  4. Press Open Composer As Pane

Do you see the problem here?

How to fix this:
A) Persist buttons between states. It’s extremely frustrating to figure out “what state am I in now? how do I get back to the previous state I was in, so that I can then click that button I need, so that I can get the action I need to get done”.

B) Refactor the Composer mode selection flow (Pane, Control Panel, Tab)

C) Better yet, *Unify Chat and Composer. The pattern of use seems to be Chat for lighter, one-file things, and Composer for complex, multi-file things. I think this dichotomy is mistaken: instead of literally side by side things, it’s one thing (Composer) is an umbrella for the other (Chat).

Given this, if I want to do a simple task in Composer, then Composer should (and I already think can) perfectly handle that. If the case against this is, "yeah but there’s a whole file UI that goes along with complex tasks, that is a hindrance for simple tasks, then the better solution is push through those UX design blockers. In this aspect, maybe the file UI is collapsable.

(And btw, the only reason I still use Chat, is bc the History saving is still unreliable, so now I use more mental energy to think through, ok, this task is important, but it’s *really important, and I would rather go slower in Chat and know I can come back to it, then go fast and chance not finding it later.)

I feel like your team is investing heavily in SOTA ML/AI research, and it shows… but you are not investing nearly enough on SOTA UX.

I hope you can figure this out… I think someone will come along and figure this out holistically.

3 Likes
2

They did unify it, but this introduced a new problem.
The fact you can’t see whether it is a chat or a composer because the little window UI isn’t wide enough to fit the full sentences+category type makes it worse.

So now you have to click through the history to find out, and while you do, each historic chat/composer rearranges the order. Which is on itself not a problem. But when you are trying to find a specific one the order is the only thing the user has that can help them identify them (if you consider the type is rendered on the right (just outside of the UI).

Having them separated by pane did prevent this mixing/cluttering problem.
So if the UX team is dead set on unifying them it is essential to include a way to easily tell them apart aside from the title. It should be easy to scan quickly.
Because most of the time I’m looking for my composer and not my chats.

0.46. did bring some UX improvements like putting the x to close terminal contexts on the left instead of the right so they are easier to click.
But this Unified Composer is a big flaw from a usability