Panel Layout

Loxel’s workspace is divided into five fixed zones. Within those zones, panels are free-form: you can move them between groups, split areas horizontally or vertically, and resize everything. The layout for each worktree is saved automatically and restored when you switch back.

The five zones

Left sidebar

The left sidebar holds dockable tool panels. By default it has:

• Project Files — the file tree for the active worktree
• Changes — your uncommitted changes; shows a commit’s or range’s files when commits are selected in the commit graph

Every tool panel has an icon in the tool bars at the window’s left and right edges; click an icon to show or hide its panel, or drag it to another zone’s tool bar. Toggle panels without touching the mouse:

The worktree sidebar to the far left lists your projects and their worktrees. Collapse or expand it with the sidebar button at the left of the top bar, or B. Collapsed, it is a narrow rail of worktree icons; expanded, drag its right edge to resize it (double-click the edge to reset the width).

Settings > Layout sets which panels each zone holds and opens by default, and the zones’ sizes, for new worktree layouts.

Center

The center area is the main content area. Every editor and interactive view opens here by default:

• Diff viewer — side-by-side or unified diff for commits and working tree changes
• Code editor — Monaco-based editor with language server features, format on save, and autosave
• Markdown editor — live preview markdown editing for repo files and drafts
• Excalidraw — whiteboard and diagram editor
• Terminals — full-featured terminal tabs
• Browser — web pages, see Browser panels
• Media viewer — images, SVGs, and videos

Double-click a terminal or file tab’s title, right-click the tab and choose Rename, or press R (Rename Tab in the command palette) to rename the active tab; renaming a file tab renames the file. Press Enter to apply the new name or Esc to cancel, and focus returns to the panel you were working in. The tab menu also copies a file’s name or path, closes other tabs, and on macOS offers Reveal in Finder and Open In.

Press T (Reopen Closed Tab in the command palette) to bring back the tab you last closed in this worktree; keep pressing to go further back. It returns to its place among its group’s tabs, or to the active group if its group is gone. Editors and browsers come back on the same file or page, a code editor with its cursor where you left it. A browser’s back and forward history doesn’t come back, and a terminal’s session ended when you closed it, so you get a new terminal with the same title. Closed tabs are remembered until you close the window.

Press Enter (Maximize Group in the command palette), or right-click a tab and choose Maximize Group, to let a group fill the center area. The other groups stay open behind it, and terminals in them keep running at their size. The tool panels and sidebars stay where they are. Next and previous tab stay inside the group, and Ctrl+Shift+Arrow skips the hidden groups. To get them back, press the shortcut again, choose Restore Group Size, or click the icon at the right of the group’s tabs. Going to a tab in another group, opening a new split, or reloading the window also restores them, and switching to another worktree and back does too.

Right sidebar

The right sidebar accepts any tool panel. By default it holds Comments (code review sessions and comment threads).

Bottom

The bottom zone holds views that benefit from a full-width horizontal strip. By default it has:

• Git — the interactive commit graph with branch and tag labels, and the branch list
• Logs — the Loxel server’s log stream

Status bar

The status bar runs across the bottom edge of the window and is always visible. It shows:

• Active branch — the current branch name for the active worktree
• Upstream tracking — ↑ X ↓ Y (commits ahead / behind) and the upstream branch name
• Working tree counts — staged, modified, untracked, and conflicted file counts
• Indentation and line endings — while a code file is the active editor, its indentation and where it came from, and LF or CRLF; click the indentation to change it (see Indentation)
• Python interpreter — while a Python file is the active editor, the worktree’s interpreter; click it to choose another (see Python environment)
• JDK — while a Java or Kotlin file is the active editor, the worktree’s JDK; click it to choose another (see JDK detection)
• Rust toolchain — while a Rust file is the active editor, the worktree’s toolchain; click it to choose another (see Rust toolchain)
• Chord progress — the keys typed so far while a chord shortcut such as \ is waiting for its next key
• New panel buttons — open a new markdown editor, drawing, browser, or terminal

Browser panels

A browser panel (B) is a full web view with back, forward, reload, an address bar, and DevTools. A new blank panel starts with the cursor in the address bar, so you can type a URL or a search right away. F finds text in the page, and R while the tab has focus does a hard refresh, reloading the page and bypassing the cache. Clicking the title of the active browser tab returns focus to its page.

A plain click on a link opens it in the same tab. Links you open in a new tab or window become browser tabs right after the current one, in the same group:

• Cmd-click or middle-click opens the link in a background tab and keeps you on the current page, so you can hold Cmd and click several links in a row. The new tabs keep the order you clicked them in.
• -click opens the link in a new tab and switches to it.
• Links that open a new window (target="_blank", or a page opening a window when you click something) open in a new tab and switch to it. Windows a page tries to open without you clicking or typing are blocked, and each click opens at most one tab.

Right-click in a page for a context menu that matches what you clicked:

• Link — open it in a new tab (next to the current one, in the background), open it in your default browser, or copy its address.
• Image — open it in a new tab, save it, copy it, or copy its address.
• Selected text — copy it or search the web for it. In a text field you can also cut, paste and select all.
• Page — back, forward, reload, or view the page source in a new tab.

Every menu ends with Inspect Element, which opens DevTools on the element you clicked.

All browser panels share one persistent session, so cookies and logins carry across panels and restarts. In the signed macOS app, sites can create and use passkeys with Touch ID. Open a URL in a browser panel with loxel <url> from a terminal, or by Cmd-clicking a link in terminal output.

When a page calls alert(), confirm(), or prompt(), the dialog opens over that page and names the site that asked. Only that browser panel waits for your answer; the rest of Loxel stays usable. Enter confirms and Esc cancels. Starting from a page’s second dialog, you can check Don’t allow this page to show more dialogs to silence it until it reloads or navigates. Reloading or navigating also dismisses any dialog that is open.

Rearranging panels

Grab any panel tab and drag it to:

• A different group to move it there
• The edge of an existing group to split that group horizontally or vertically
• A zone boundary to move it between zones

You can also split the current panel from the keyboard:

Keyboard panel navigation

Move focus between panels without the mouse.

Focus a specific panel by position:

1 through 9 focus the first through ninth panel in the center area, counting each group’s tabs in turn.

Cycle through open panels:

• Tab or ] — next panel
• Tab or [ — previous panel

Move a panel to an adjacent group:

Ctrl+Cmd+Arrow moves the active panel into the neighboring group in the arrow direction.

Move a panel into a new split:

\ then Shift+Arrow splits the current group in the arrow direction and moves the active panel into the new split.

Move focus without moving the panel:

Ctrl+Shift+Arrow moves keyboard focus to the panel group in the arrow direction, leaving the panel itself in place. Past the center’s edge it continues into the side tool bars and the worktree sidebar, and down into an open bottom panel. Space collapses or expands the sidebar or panel that holds focus.

Per-context persistence

Every aspect of the layout — panel positions, group splits, sizes, orientations, and the active panel in each group — is saved per worktree context. When you switch to a different worktree, Loxel saves the current layout and restores the layout from the last time you were in the destination worktree.

Layouts are saved by Loxel, not by the window, so they survive closing windows and restarting the app. See Worktrees & Projects for how layouts behave across multiple windows.

When a panel fails

If a panel hits an error, it shows an error message and a reload button in place of its content. The rest of the layout continues to work normally. A crash in the diff viewer does not affect your terminal or the file tree.