Add "item size" to toggle between rows / cards for the Packages pane by bricestacey · Pull Request #13156 · posit-dev/positron

bricestacey · 2026-04-22T19:43:46Z

See #12925

Adds "Item Size" action button to the Packages pane.

Toggles between two views: One that looks like a row and the other a card.
Adds description and authorship metadata to the get packages API.
For python, authorship is not a simple lookup but some combination of author -> author email -> maintainer -> maintainer email

This PR adds ark support to supplement R packages posit-dev/ark#1165

Release Notes

New Features

Add support for card / row views on the Packages pane.
Add additional metadata including description and author to the Packages pane.

Bug Fixes

N/A

QA Notes

Until the ark PR lands, you'll want to build that.
Otherwise, you can test for python.
When you expand to card view, everything should kinda just stay the same but turn into cards.

@:packages-pane

github-actions · 2026-04-22T19:44:05Z

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

^readme ^{valid tags}

Introduces a 'card' item size mode alongside the existing compact row layout. Cards show the package name and version on the first line, a description on the second, and the author on the third, with long values truncated to a single line. The mode is toggled from the view title (Show as Cards / Show as Rows) or via the 'Toggle Packages List Layout' command and persisted per-user. Python and R RPCs now return description and author fields populated from distribution metadata and DESCRIPTION, respectively. See #12925

- Expose `author?` on the public LanguageRuntimePackage API so extensions can populate what the cards render. - Python: fall back through Author, Author-email, Maintainer, and Maintainer-email, stripping trailing `<email>` so packages that only set a maintainer (e.g. click -> "Pallets") still show one. - Persist the card/row preference in profile storage instead of application-wide storage. - Search filter now matches description and author in addition to name. - Tighten the card's left padding. See #12925

Drop the IStorageService integration so the item size resets to 'row' on each window. We can revisit persistence (profile vs. workspace, or with additional state) in a follow-up. See #12925

Drop the `_itemSize` field on PositronPackagesService; read through `_itemSizeContextKey.get()` instead. The RawContextKey's default supplies the initial 'row' value. See #12925

PackageMetadata (the protocol typing importlib.metadata.Distribution.metadata in 3.14) doesn't expose .get(), so pyright rejects the calls that parse Summary/Author/Maintainer. The runtime object (email.message.Message) still has .get(); bind it through an Any local so the calls pass type-checking. See #12925

Copilot

Pull request overview

Adds an “Item Size” toggle to the Positron Packages view so users can switch between a compact row layout and an expanded card layout that shows additional package metadata. This extends the runtime package model/API to include description and author information and wires the new layout into the Packages UI.

Changes:

Add row/card layout toggles (View Title actions + command palette toggle) and propagate layout state through the packages service.
Extend package metadata with description and author, and include these fields in filtering + card rendering.
Populate Python package description/author from distribution metadata with reasonable fallbacks.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 8 out of 9 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/vs/workbench/services/runtimeSession/common/runtimeSessionService.ts	Extends `ILanguageRuntimePackage` with `description`/`author`.
src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/positronPackagesService.ts	Tracks item size state via context key + emits change events for UI.
src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/positronPackagesContextKeys.ts	Adds `positronPackages.itemSize` context key and `PackagesItemSize` type.
src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/positronPackages.contribution.ts	Registers actions/commands to switch between row/card layouts.
src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/interfaces/positronPackagesService.ts	Exposes item size API and change event on the service interface.
src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/components/listPackages.tsx	Renders row vs card layout, filters by description/author, updates list item heights.
src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/components/listPackages.css	Adds styling for row/card layouts and card metadata lines.
src/positron-dts/positron.d.ts	Updates public typings to include `description`/`author` for packages.
extensions/positron-python/python_files/posit/positron/ui.py	Adds Python backend fields for package description/author.

…ositronPackagesService.ts Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Signed-off-by: Brice Stacey <bricestacey@gmail.com>

- Add JSDoc to ILanguageRuntimePackage description/author fields - Fix misleading CSS comment about card padding alignment - Revert filter scope to name/displayName only (description/author matches surprised users in row mode where the field isn't visible)

softwarenerd · 2026-04-28T19:08:36Z

For the sorting option:

Why don't we follow VS Code's lead here and rename the "Sort" context menu item to "Sort By":

softwarenerd · 2026-04-28T19:12:11Z

When I expand packages using "Show as Rows", I see:

The entries turn into "rows", and are bigger, but they don't contain any additional information.

softwarenerd · 2026-04-28T19:16:11Z

I'd add a little "air" above and below the "Filter packages" box, as well as a bottom border:

So the scrollbar tops out at a border, which it doesn't now:

softwarenerd

I approve of the code. I left some notes for things I ran into and observed.

ntluong95 mentioned this pull request Apr 22, 2026

Consider updating Package pane for Julia ntluong95/positron-julia#12

Open

Copilot AI mentioned this pull request Apr 22, 2026

Add Julia package metadata for Packages pane card/row compatibility ntluong95/positron-julia#13

Draft

bricestacey force-pushed the 12925/packages-card-view branch from 8189712 to 7b6f0ca Compare April 23, 2026 18:52

bricestacey added 5 commits April 23, 2026 14:53

Remove storage persistence for Packages card/row toggle

cebfef5

Drop the IStorageService integration so the item size resets to 'row' on each window. We can revisit persistence (profile vs. workspace, or with additional state) in a follow-up. See #12925

Use the item-size context key as single source of truth

199b366

Drop the `_itemSize` field on PositronPackagesService; read through `_itemSizeContextKey.get()` instead. The RawContextKey's default supplies the initial 'row' value. See #12925

bricestacey force-pushed the 12925/packages-card-view branch from 7b6f0ca to 41ecc76 Compare April 23, 2026 18:53

bricestacey requested a review from Copilot April 27, 2026 16:30

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of bricestacey April 27, 2026 16:31 View session

Copilot AI reviewed Apr 27, 2026

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bricestacey and others added 2 commits April 27, 2026 12:40

Update src/vs/workbench/contrib/positronPackages/browser/interfaces/p…

37d0ab5

…ositronPackagesService.ts Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com> Signed-off-by: Brice Stacey <bricestacey@gmail.com>

Address PR review feedback

bc5021f

- Add JSDoc to ILanguageRuntimePackage description/author fields - Fix misleading CSS comment about card padding alignment - Revert filter scope to name/displayName only (description/author matches surprised users in row mode where the field isn't visible)

bricestacey requested a review from softwarenerd April 28, 2026 12:57

softwarenerd reviewed Apr 28, 2026

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Add "item size" to toggle between rows / cards for the Packages pane#13156

Add "item size" to toggle between rows / cards for the Packages pane#13156
bricestacey wants to merge 7 commits intomainfrom
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bricestacey commented Apr 22, 2026

Release Notes

New Features

Bug Fixes

QA Notes

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softwarenerd commented Apr 28, 2026

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github-actions Bot commented Apr 22, 2026 •

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