Add History Pane #10832

jmcphers · 2025-11-27T01:00:53Z

A little holiday week project to add a history pane to Positron:

Some placeholder services had already been created this early in Positron's lifecycle, and we already save inputs for navigation/search in the console, so this mostly just connects wires and adds UX on top of existing services.

Features:

Similar design and goals compared to RStudio's history pane, adapted for Positron (e.g. multi-language, handle longer blocks, etc.)
Tracks project-scoped input history by language.
Groups history entries loosely by time period.
Efficient scrolling of long, syntax-highlighted histories with react-window.
Affordances to send current entry to the console or to the current editor, and to clear individual entries (e.g. to remove secrets) or the whole history.
Case-insensitive search for history entries.
Keyboard accessible.

Addresses #5484.

Release Notes

New Features

Add a History pane to Positron, similar to RStudio's (Add equivalent functionality from RStudio History pane to Positron #5484).

Bug Fixes

N/A

QA Notes

It turns out that we have not been correctly saving the time an input was entered, so all input prior to this PR will just show up as 'older'
History is currently per project, so if you open a project you will only see commands you have run in that project

github-actions · 2025-11-27T01:01:09Z

E2E Tests 🚀
This PR will run tests tagged with: @:critical

^readme ^{valid tags}

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:26:52Z

Looks like we may need to tweak the css so that the white background for the "no matches" view extends the height of the panel:

Edit: Looks like the history parent container isn't extending the full height. I noticed that with more content, there is still a gap at the bottom. I tried to capture it in this video:

Screen.Recording.2025-12-02.at.5.02.12.PM.mov

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:28:06Z

Is deleting entries working for you? I found that deleting entries wasn't working for me. I tested against entries for R. The delete button doesn't do anything and I saw the following leaky disposable warning show up (they also appear during startup):

lifecycle.ts:51 [LEAKED DISPOSABLE] Error: CREATED via:
    at GCBasedDisposableTracker.trackDisposable (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/vs/base/common/lifecycle.js:28:23)
    at trackDisposable (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/vs/base/common/lifecycle.js:204:24)
    at new DisposableStore (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/vs/base/common/lifecycle.js:315:9)
    at PositronHistoryPanel (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/positronHistoryPanel.js:72:35)
    at $i (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/esm-package-dependencies/v135/[email protected]/es2022/react-dom.mjs:10:16950)
    at li (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/esm-package-dependencies/v135/[email protected]/es2022/react-dom.mjs:12:3130)
    at ca (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/esm-package-dependencies/v135/[email protected]/es2022/react-dom.mjs:12:44421)
    at oa (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/esm-package-dependencies/v135/[email protected]/es2022/react-dom.mjs:12:39453)
    at hf (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/esm-package-dependencies/v135/[email protected]/es2022/react-dom.mjs:12:39384)
    at jr (vscode-file://vscode-app/Users/dhruvisompura/development/positron/out/esm-package-dependencies/v135/[email protected]/es2022/react-dom.mjs:12:39243)

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:50:04Z

Noticed a strange resizing issue where the scroll bar is shifting!

Screen.Recording.2025-12-02.at.4.39.12.PM.mov

jmcphers · 2025-12-03T00:50:37Z

Is deleting entries working for you?

It is! I think the disposable leaks you're seeing are unrelated (just pushed a fix for those). Can you share more about the steps you're taking and what you're seeing?

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T01:10:03Z

Is deleting entries working for you?

It is! I think the disposable leaks you're seeing are unrelated (just pushed a fix for those). Can you share more about the steps you're taking and what you're seeing?

Are you supposed to be able to delete stuff that falls under the "Older" grouping? I just tested things again and noticed that it works for stuff under "Today".

Here are the steps:

Start Positron
Navigate to history panel
Select R from language dropdown
Click on first item in history under "OLDER" grouping and then click the delete button. OBSERVE that item is not deleted

Screen.Recording.2025-12-02.at.5.09.39.PM.mov

jmcphers · 2025-12-03T01:30:47Z

Noticed a strange resizing issue where the scroll bar is shifting!

This happens because we're using react-window, which requires that we supply an explicit width (and will only render in the rectangle supplied). We debounce the width we pass to react-window because asking it to redraw every time the size changes results in some pretty bad flickering artifacts that are worse than the behavior you see here. I think it's worth the tradeoff to get virtualized scrolling since these histories can get pretty long!

I toned down the debouncer in 275746a; LMK if you think it still feels too janky and I'll see if there are any other tricks we can use here.

jmcphers · 2025-12-03T01:31:35Z

Are you supposed to be able to delete stuff that falls under the "Older" grouping?

You are! But I've done so many state clears that I didn't have anything in that grouping, which is why I couldn't reproduce this. Thanks, I'll take a look!

dhruvisompura

Not done with my review and will continue it on the following day, but here's my feedback so far!

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:07:24Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/historyEntry.tsx

+				}
+			}}
+		>
+			<div className="history-entry-content">


super minor, but using double quotes for classnames normally throws an eslint error. These should be single quotes. There's a few places with this issue!

Suggested change

<div className="history-entry-content">

<div className='history-entry-content'>

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:08:57Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/historyEntry.tsx

+				{/* Show "... N more lines" above if smart excerpt hides lines above */}
+				{smartExcerpt && smartExcerpt.hiddenAbove > 0 && (
+					<div className="history-entry-line-indicator">
+						... {smartExcerpt.hiddenAbove} more lines


This string should probably be localized!

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:33:03Z

src/vs/platform/positronActionBar/browser/components/actionBarFilter.tsx

+	// Input key down handler.
+	const inputKeyDownHandler = (e: React.KeyboardEvent<HTMLInputElement>) => {
+		if (e.key === 'Escape' && filterText !== '') {
+			e.preventDefault();
+			e.stopPropagation();
+			buttonClearClickHandler();
+		}
+	};
+


This was a nice addition and we get it for free in the data explorer and variables pane!

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:43:29Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/historyEntry.tsx

+			onMouseDown={(e) => {
+				// Use onMouseDown instead of onClick to ensure selection happens before focus events
+				// This prevents the two-click issue when the panel is unfocused
+				if (e.button === 0) { // Only handle left clicks
+					e.preventDefault(); // Prevent default focus behavior that steals focus
+					onSelect();
+				}
+			}}


Do you have a video of this "two-click" issue? I'm trying to understand what may have been happening. Generally, an onClick handler would be what we'd want to use. Having to use onMouseDown makes me think there is a greater focus/selection bug.

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T00:48:16Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/historyEntry.tsx

+	const styleWithoutHeight = { ...style, height: 'auto' };
+
+	return (
+		<div


I know we have divs with click elements in quite a number of places but an unstyled button element would be a much better approach here. We get accessibility and keyboard navigation for free which means a lot less code and semantically divs aren't supposed to be used for interactive elements.

This does make me think a reusable unstyled button element would be really useful for most of our panes!

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T01:13:06Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/historySeparator.tsx

+	return (
+		<div className="history-separator" style={customStyle}>
+			<div className="history-separator-content">
+				<span className="history-separator-label">{label}</span>
+			</div>
+		</div>
+	);


Just a thought on a future improvement: while playing with this, I really wanted to be able to click this separator so I could collapse the groupings since I had a lot of OLDER entries and didn't want to scroll all the way to the bottom to see the history entries from TODAY.

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T01:16:13Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/components/positronHistoryPanel.tsx

+					{stickyHeaderLabel && listItems.length > 0 && (
+						<div className='history-sticky-header'>
+							<div className='history-separator-content'>
+								<span className='history-separator-label'>{stickyHeaderLabel}</span>
+							</div>
+						</div>
+					)}


I think we could just use the historySeparator component and pass in the history-sticky-header class as a prop.

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-03T01:36:39Z

src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronHistory/browser/positronHistoryView.tsx

-		);
-	}
+		// Create and append the Positron history container
+		this._positronHistoryContainer = DOM.$('.positron-history-container');


This container doesn't look to be extending the full height of the parent pane. We need a height: 100% on this element like we have for our other containers.

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-04T18:11:55Z

Just tested the delete functionality again, and noticed that deleting a single older entry still not working as expected. I tried to delete the only entry I had under "OLDER". That didn't seem to work and I noticed an entry below ended up getting deleted. 😭

Out of curiosity, is there an easy way to mock out a ton of history for the panel that is older for testing? I was hoping to dig into why that was happening but I can't reliably reproduce without older entries (anything not from "Today")

Screen.Recording.2025-12-04.at.9.49.14.AM.mov

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-04T18:14:25Z

Noticed a strange resizing issue where the scroll bar is shifting!

This happens because we're using react-window, which requires that we supply an explicit width (and will only render in the rectangle supplied). We debounce the width we pass to react-window because asking it to redraw every time the size changes results in some pretty bad flickering artifacts that are worse than the behavior you see here. I think it's worth the tradeoff to get virtualized scrolling since these histories can get pretty long!

I toned down the debouncer in 275746a; LMK if you think it still feels too janky and I'll see if there are any other tricks we can use here.

I just pulled down the changes and gave them a test run. I didn't notice a visible improvement with the debounce. It's still very noticeable that the vertical scrollbar is trying to run away 😂.

Screen.Recording.2025-12-04.at.9.46.56.AM.mov

dhruvisompura · 2025-12-04T18:18:21Z

I definitely think there is something wonky going on with the history container and getting it to take up the full height of the panel in the secondary side bar...the scrollbar isn't extending the full height and its causing some issues when you try and scroll to the bottom to see the last item.

Screen.Recording.2025-12-04.at.10.15.07.AM.mov

Screen.Recording.2025-12-04.at.9.46.56.AM.copy.mov

jmcphers added 30 commits November 21, 2025 12:41

hook up the basics

50cf916

get the font right

85a6c18

use existing trusted policy

0d92419

fix height/focus rendering on entries

04df753

fix live updates; rearrange toolbar

7695022

impl context menu

dd205ef

filter out duplicate history entries

5c0d3c0

better treatment for big items

f3ee8c3

resolve trusted types

ca3b805

fix build language menu

7d745f8

fix history toolbar buttons

763e6d4

group history entries by time

a2d22df

initial impl: search

8975edb

fix search highlighting issues

2ec74cd

fix truncation markers in search display

3cb12de

update toolbar

6c78265

fix some keyboard handling issues

0e0948a

fix search highlighting in dark mode

88ec325

also for selected

4f1041b

clean up some scroll issues

b67d361

fix jumpy rendering

d3604e1

better ux when there are no search matches

9badda8

fix jittery colorization on redraw

6c010d1

more robust redraw on visibility change

5a9d673

send to console on double click

650bbff

better startup behavior

a51da4c

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into feature/history-pane

66666af

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into feature/history-pane

51f4432

don't localize inline

7a657bc

impl "clear all"

0d85074

add utility to clear input history for a session

6e9ebea

jmcphers requested a review from dhruvisompura December 1, 2025 20:04

jmcphers added 2 commits December 2, 2025 16:46

ensure UI fills pane; use standard disposable pattern

1c3c9a2

Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into feature/history-pane

c63f367

tone down resize debouncer

275746a

dhruvisompura reviewed Dec 3, 2025

View reviewed changes

jmcphers added 6 commits December 2, 2025 19:19

singlequote class names in history entry

70b2edb

refactor focus & event handling

b8a9562

reuse history separator component

70596f0

better handling of missing dates from backend

afa80aa

allow 'falsy' when values to match; tweak margin

1907b1a

recover focus after delete; remove janky autoscroll

498f122

jmcphers added 7 commits December 4, 2025 14:08

static height computation

8210dad

recompute when list changes

5ffa435

render focus naturally

2fd0144

hide blanks

0169700

make room for the scrollbar

fe2bc5c

pre-trim the input

ac772d9

reduce height when search matches middle of long text

9e73b4e

	<div className="history-entry-content">
	<div className='history-entry-content'>

Add History Pane #10832

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Add History Pane #10832

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jmcphers commented Nov 27, 2025

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QA Notes

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