View panels that are not Extensions, when added in the Activity bar showing on top, lose their name and icon.
In fact, the only way to add new Views on the Activity bar when is showing on top, is by changing its orientation to be vertical on the side and add them there.
Then, after adding them this way and switching the Activity bar to be on top, those view panels lose their icon and name.
For example, for the view panels of “Outline” and “Maven”.
Steps to Reproduce
Set the Activity bar to be vertical on the side. Example:
“workbench.activityBar.location”: “default”
“workbench.activityBar.orientation”: “vertical”
Add view panels that are not extension there. For example in the Explorer view drag&drop the views of Outline and/or Maven to the side Activity bar (depending on the programming language used, in my case Java).
Then switch the Activity bar to be on top. Example:
“workbench.activityBar.location”: “top”
“workbench.activityBar.orientation”: “horizontal”
The view panels will still be there but broken with lost icon and name.
Hey, thanks for the detailed report. The repro steps and screenshot really help. I can see the empty User View Container entries with no icon or name in the top Activity Bar.
This looks like a client-side layout bug. The generated view containers you drag around, like Outline or Maven, render correctly in the vertical Activity Bar, but when you switch to location: top and orientation: horizontal, they lose the icon and name. I followed your steps, reproduced the behavior, and filed an internal report.
I can’t share an ETA for a fix yet. Once I have an update, I’ll reply in the thread. If you notice any other related symptoms, please drop them here.
Related to this topic. It seems to also be inconsistent the amount of options in the ‘top’ Sidebar and the amounts of views it should display.
For example, as you can see in this attached picture, I am expecting that the ‘top’ Sidebar to have the Spring Boot Dashboard, but it disappeared from my ‘top’ Sidebar. Which is strange because the view is available as you can see when I click on the “Open View…” option, it is there.
Expected behavior is that the ‘top’ Sidebar to show all possible enabled Views (like in the regular vertical Sidebar), hiding in the dropdown the ones that are not pinned and/or don’t fit.
Thanks, the screenshot is clear. I can see Spring Boot Dashboard in Open View…, but it’s not in the top Sidebar itself.
This looks like a separate issue from the original bug where the icon and name disappear, but it’s in the same top Activity Bar area. I’ve reported it on our side so we can track it separately.
To make this easier to investigate: does the view disappear after Reload Window, and does pinning it via Open View… help, or does it disappear again? For the original bug, there’s no fix timeline yet. I’ll post an update here as soon as I have one.
The Spring Boot view was always there. Before it was showing normally in the top, and then one day I just noticed it disappeared and was not there when I wanted to click on it.
Not only this one disappeared, but also one of the two “User View Container” views I had there.
As soon as I set the Activity bar to be vertical, then immediately all shows fine there (Outline, Maven and Spring Boot Dashboard views all show there fine without doing anything at all). And then when I switch back the Activity bar to be on top, then the missing ‘Spring Boot Dashboard’ and the second ‘User View Container’ views return and show good again.
Thanks, that’s a helpful detail. The fact that switching the Activity Bar to vertical and then back to top brings the missing views back (Spring Boot Dashboard and the second User View Container) fits the same pattern we’re seeing with the top horizontal Activity Bar. It looks like in top mode, some generated view containers don’t restore correctly from the saved state when the UI renders.
I’ve added this note to our internal report. We’re tracking the issue, and I’ll post an update here as soon as we have one.
For now, toggling the Activity Bar (vertical → top) is a good temporary workaround to bring the missing views back. If you notice any other conditions where they disappear, like after Reload Window or an update, please share them here. That’ll help us narrow down the cause.
