List, manage, and open workspaces from VS Code Desktop

[gtsiolis]

See relevant discussion (internal) and relevant discussion point (internal). Cc @akosyakov @loujaybee

[gtsiolis]

Re-posting some elements from VS Code Desktop working with GitHub Codespaces as following a similar approach could help users navigate through Gitpod alternative using the same flow.

Sidebar, Target, and Login

• Sidebar: Area 1️⃣ describes an existing path that GitHub Codepsaces is using through Remote Explorer. This could help users associate similar functionalities and create a single point of start for remote development. Area 2️⃣ describes a path we could take to build our own sidebar section to bundle all Gitpod-related functionality like managing workspaces, opening new workspaces, and more. This could be considered in future iterations.
• Target: Once the users open remote explorer in the sidebar, we can populate the targets in the remote explorer dropdown so that users can switch between providers like GitHub Codespaces and Gitpod, see area 3️⃣. Additionally, we could consider automatically selecting Gitpod.
• Login: If the user never signed in on Gitpod, we could surface a simple login form with a button to login if needed, as described in area 4️⃣.

Sidebar	Target	Login

Workspaces List, Context Menu, and Deleting Workspaces

• Workspaces List: Once the user is logged in, we can simply list all active workspaces as seen in area 5️⃣ and 6️⃣, differentiating running and stopped workspaces. Instead of listing all user workspaces, we could list only active workspaces (see relevant changelog for definition of inactive workspaces).
  • Other points to consider, include splitting each workspace entry to two lines so that the use the first line for the workspace ID that is generated from the org-repository names and the second line for the repository name and the branch name.
• Context Menu: Besides the entry action button which could include opening a workspace and deleting a workspace, we could populate these on a context menu (right click) along with other options in future iterations, as seen in area 7️⃣.
• Delete Workspace: Deleting workspaces through the action button or the context menu can be handled by a simple prompt dialog, as seen in area 8️⃣.

Workspaces List	Context Menu	Delete Workspace

New Workspace Button and Modal

• New Workspace Button: Following the design language of VS Code and Remote Explorer, we could allow users to open new workspaces by surfacing an action button, as seen in area 9️⃣.
• New Workspace Modal: Besides the action button a command palette action could trigger a modal, as seen in are 1️⃣ 0️⃣, to open a new workspace, adopting the behavior of the new workspace modal that exists in the Gitpod dashboard.
  • Since this relies on the API status and feasibility, the first iteration could simply prompt users to enter a repository URL as it's done with the JetBrains integration.

New Workspace Button	New Workspace Modal

Connecting to Workspace and Workspace Details

• Connecting: One a user clicks a repository or enters a repository URL, ideally, we would handle the start-up process inside VS Code as a notification as seen in area 1️⃣ 1️⃣.
  • Alternatively, as a first iteration, we could simply open the workspace start page and link back to VS Code once the start-up process in complete.
• Workspace Details: Once the workspace is up and running, we could replace the workspaces list with the workspace details, as seen in area 1️⃣ 2️⃣, and still allow users to open a new workspace through the action button and the command palette.
  • On the workspace details, we could start by listing basic workspace details like the workspace ID, the repository name, and the branch name.
  • In the first or future iterations, we could consider including the workspace class, pending changes, and more.

Connecting to Workspace	Workspace Details

[stale]

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