boogoo619/dsh-focus-overlay

Features

• Full-screen reading — an overlay registered additively into shell.overlay, covering header / composer / sidebars, giving all vertical space to the conversation
• Folded tool calls — an assistant turn collapses into one official TurnProcess-style count line, clickable to expand the full work detail
• Turn navbar — a right-side rail 1:1 replicating the official TurnNavigator: one mark per turn, hover previews, click to jump
• Bottom dock — a compact input bar appears at the live edge and shares the main composer's draft; AI questions and approvals expand into an in-place answer card, so you never leave focus to reply
• Auto-focus & reminders — after a reply completes normally, optionally auto-enter focus at your question; while in focus, get a toast for a new reply or when the AI is waiting on you
• Width handles — draggable strips beside the content column (official WidthHandle replica) that resize the reading column live and persist
• Hotkey F — press F anywhere to enter focus mode instantly (toggleable in settings); typing in an input never triggers it
• Focus counter — the settings card keeps a running total of your focus-mode entries; past 100 entries a GitHub Star nudge appears, is remembered after the first use, and then becomes a direct "open the project page" button

These features are designed to give small screens more content space: tucking away the persistent header/composer and tool steps lets the conversation use as much of the screen as possible.

Screenshots

Off — the normal chat view

On — focus mode

Once in focus mode, an assistant turn no longer shows every step — it folds into a single official-style count line:

12 tool calls · 4 messages · 1 subagent

Click the line to expand that turn's full work detail (per-category one-line summaries: commands, edits, searches, reads, and more).

Capabilities

Feature	Description
Full-screen overlay	Registered into shell.overlay (additive, replaceRisk: none) — covers header / composer / sidebar; the thin top bar keeps only the session title and an exit button
Official rendering primitives	Assistant text through official MarkdownText (GFM + code highlighting + TeX + code copy buttons + footnotes); user messages through the official projectUserText projection; buttons, modals and icons are all official primitives
Image resolution	Assistant image blocks resolve through uiConversation.imageUrl (the dsh 0.1.2+ session-authorized image cache), falling back to the legacy resolver on older dsh
Tool-call folding	Follows the official "transcript view" preference (normal / compact); compact mode folds each turn's work part into a "N tool calls · M messages · K subagents" disclosure line ("Thought for a while" when nothing is countable), clickable to expand the full detail; steering messages always stay top-level, never buried; the last turn stays unfolded while streaming
Categorized summaries	The expanded detail counts tools by family: commands / edits / searches / reads / directory listings / subagents / todos / goals / workflows / skills / questions / plans / background jobs / context injections
Full-history load	dsh 0.1.2 pages history by turns; opening focus drives loadOlder to the session start (bounded, aborted on unmount) for a complete reading view
Precise scroll preservation	Opens at the message you're reading in the chat (chat anchor key → seq); an anti-drift corrector re-steadies the position against history prepends and async layout shifts
Turn navbar (TurnRail)	A 1:1 replica of the official TurnNavigator: one mark per turn, the active mark follows scroll, a hover/focus preview card (1-line prompt + 3-line response), click to jump, 24px fade bands at each end, prefers-reduced-motion support; auto-hidden under 2 turns
Width handles (WidthHandle)	A drag strip on each side of the column, 1:1 replica of the official WidthHandle: symmetric on both sides (2× outward), rAF-throttled live drag, pointer glow indicator, commit-on-release persisted; 640px floor + 88px edge budget per side
Back to latest	A centered "↓" floating button when you scroll away from the bottom with no draft
Bottom dock	Five mutually exclusive forms decided by one pure selector: answer card / waiting toast / input bar / collapsed pill / jump-to-bottom; the compact bar appears when you reach the bottom (48px hysteresis band)
Shared draft	The bar wires the official per-session input machine (conversation.input.for): text typed before entering focus is already here, and text typed here is still in the main composer after leaving; on older dsh without the input service it degrades to a plugin-local draft
Input bar details	Enter sends (queue delivery — queued while the AI runs, with a "Queued N" badge), Shift+Enter newlines, IME-composition safe, auto-growing; send failures surface an error line; a draft containing references/commands warns to edit outside focus mode; with a draft, clicking the conversation folds the bar into a blue-dot pill, one click back with the caret in place
Reveal-on-send	After sending a long message from the live edge, the view scrolls up just enough to fully reveal the row — never hidden behind the dock; sending from up in history never scrolls
Answer card (pending interaction)	Built on the dsh 0.1.2 uiSession pending-interactions service: the question card replicates the official QuestionComposer (numbered single-select / checkbox multi-select, a "Recommended" badge, custom answers, one batched submit, an "answer everything" nudge); the approval card replicates the PlanReviewPanel warn strip (allow / deny, showing tool name and reason); a rejection keeps its error on the card; older dsh falls back through a legacy adapter
Auto-enter focus	After a reply completes normally, auto-open focus at your question; abnormal endings (stop / error / max-tokens / interrupt) never fire — the judgement waits for a stable snapshot (streaming tail drained) first
Reply / waiting reminders	In focus, a one-shot "New reply ready + View" toast on completion (auto-dismissed after 6s); a question/approval raises "AI is waiting for your reply + Answer", whose button expands the in-place answer card — auto-cleared once answered, never leaving focus
F hotkey	Press F anywhere to enter focus mode instantly (default on, toggleable in settings); never fires while typing in an input or editable element, modifiers and auto-repeat ignored
Focus counter	A row at the bottom of the settings card totals your focus-mode entries (auto-entries included), persisted to localStorage; past 100 entries a Star nudge appears — after the first use it is remembered and replaced by a direct "open the project page" button
Esc peels layer by layer	Answer card → input bar → focus mode, one layer per press; Esc mid-IME-composition cancels the composition first
i18n	Chinese / English copy registered under the focus namespace, follows the UI language
Plugin configuration card	A collapsible card under "Settings → Plugins → Plugin configuration", preferences persisted to localStorage; the Node half registers the same settings namespace (schemastery schema) so the tab dispatches it
First-run onboarding	After installing, the welcome page shows a one-time "Focus Mode" intro (feature overview + in-place configuration) as a settings.onboarding step with its own versioned seen-flag
Official preference sync	Reads the official "transcript view" preference (normal / compact); flipping it applies immediately
Render error boundary	The overlay content is wrapped in an error boundary: one render crash never bricks the Focus button — the next open retries
DSH-better-sidebar compatibility	While in focus, a <body> marker makes the package stylesheet hide better-sidebar's top-right panel toggles and any open right/bottom panels (and release the squeezed layout); restored on exit
Legacy compatibility mode	On dsh < 0.1.2 missing the new services, the overlay degrades gracefully (legacy snapshot adapters) with a one-time console notice — no crash

Install

Requires the dsh CLI (>= 0.1.2-rc.1) and Node >= 22.19.0.

From npm (recommended)

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-focus-overlay
dsh web

If add doesn't install the latest version, pnpm's minimumReleaseAge (minimum release age) security policy is at work: by default it won't resolve a version as latest within 24 hours of publication, falling back to the previous stable release. To install the latest immediately, pin the version explicitly:

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-focus-overlay@<version>

Or wait 24 hours, then re-run the plain add command.

From GitHub

dsh plugin --profile web add github:boogoo619/dsh-focus-overlay
dsh web

A git install pulls the source and builds it in place via the prepare script. pnpm ≥10 refuses to run prepare until you allow it; the first add fails, then follow the dsh hint and add the exact package key to that profile's pnpm-workspace.yaml:

allowBuilds:
  dsh-focus-overlay: true

Then re-run add. This authorization lets the package's code run on your machine at install time — only grant it to sources you trust, and pin the commit (github:boogoo619/dsh-focus-overlay#<sha>).

Restart dsh web after install.

First run: after restarting, the welcome page shows a one-time "Focus Mode" intro that explains the features and lets you configure them in place; all of these settings can be changed anytime in "Settings → Plugins → Plugin configuration".

Usage

1. Open a session and click the "Focus" button in the session header action row (or press F — toggleable in settings).
2. You enter the full-screen focus view: the thin top bar keeps only the session title and exit, the conversation only, with tool steps folded into count summary lines; history pages in automatically for the full session.
3. Hover the right-side navbar to preview and click to jump; drag the strips beside the column to resize it live. The compact input bar appears when you reach the very bottom (a "↓" button shows when you scroll away with no draft).
4. Reply right in the bar: Enter sends, Shift+Enter newlines (queued while the AI runs), drafts shared with the main composer; clicking the conversation folds it into a blue-dot pill. AI questions/approvals raise an "Answer" button that expands the in-place card for options, free text, or approvals.
5. Esc peels back layer by layer (answer card → input bar → focus mode); or click "Exit focus" to return — the original UI is untouched.

Compatibility note: if DSH-better-sidebar is also installed, entering focus mode auto-hides its top-right panel toggle buttons and any open right/bottom panels (releasing the squeezed layout); they're restored as they were on exit, without touching that plugin's layout state.

Settings

In the sidebar "Settings → Plugins → Plugin configuration", expand the "Focus Mode" card:

Option	Description
Auto-enter focus mode when the AI finishes a reply	On a normal completion: auto-open at your question when closed, or a "New reply ready" toast when open (default off)
Press F to enter focus mode	Press F anywhere to enter focus mode instantly; never fires while typing in an input (default on)
Sync the current reading position when entering focus mode	Open at the message you're reading; off opens at your most recent question (default on)
Show right-side turn navbar	One rail mark per user message (turn) — hover to preview, click to jump (default on)

Text width is not in the settings card: drag the handles beside the content column while in focus mode to resize it live; the value persists on release (default 760px, minimum 640px).

License

MIT