Activity Bar extensions create unwanted top-level menu that hides icon an tree on click

[NikolaiRadke]

Describe the problem

When a VS Code/Theia extension defines a custom viewsContainers with an Activity Bar icon, Arduino IDE automatically creates a top-level menu entry.

Clicking this menu hides the extension's view from the Activity Bar instead of showing a dropdown menu. There is no way for extension developers to:

• Prevent the menu from being created
• Control what happens when clicked
• Add menu items to the dropdown

To reproduce

Create a VS Code extension with a custom Activity Bar icon by adding this to package.json:

"contributes": {
  "viewsContainers": {
    "activitybar": [
      {
        "id": "myextension-activitybar",
        "title": "My Extension",
        "icon": $(rocket)"
      }
    ]
  },
  "views": {
    "myextension-activitybar": [
      {
        "id": "myextension.view",
        "name": "My Extension View"
      }
    ]
  }
}

Expected behavior

Click on the "My Extension" menu entry
Bug: The extension's Activity Bar icon and view disappear (view is hidden)

Arduino IDE version

2.3.6 & 2.3.7

Operating system

N/A, Linux

Operating system version

Linux Mint 64 Bit & Windows 11

Additional context

The problem appears to be inherent to how Eclipse Theia handles custom Activity Bar extensions.

Issue checklist

• I searched for previous reports in the issue tracker
• I verified the problem still occurs when using the latest nightly build
• My report contains all necessary details

[dankeboy36]

Thanks for taking the time to report this, and for all the work you've put into IDE2 extensions. It's very visible that you're pushing what's possible there, and that's appreciated.

My take is that Arduino IDE 2.x has never really positioned itself as a full VS Code–compatible extension host. Extension support exists mostly to unblock external tools and workflows (see #58), not to provide full parity with VS Code UX concepts like Activity Bar semantics or menu control (https://eclipse-theia.github.io/vscode-theia-comparator/status.html).

I ran into similar constraints when building the ESP decoder extension. In practice this meant designing a UX that IDE2 and Theia actually support, while still taking advantage of the VS Code APIs that are there (for example terminal link providers). Some UI patterns that feel natural in VS Code just don't work reliably in IDE2, so I ended up avoiding them altogether (Quency-D/esp-network-monitor#1).

The behavior you're describing is real, and from a VS Code point of view, it's clearly broken. Unfortunately, based on past discussions and issue history, it's also unlikely to be prioritized. IDE2 is generally treated as stable and feature-complete at this point.

If you’re open to it, you might want to try your extensions with BoardLab. It targets Visual Studio Code as the primary runtime, so things like Activity Bar behavior, menus, and view containers work natively.

Either way, thanks for opening the issue and for contributing so much to the ecosystem.

[NikolaiRadke]

Thanks for the explanation. I'm developing specifically for the Arduino IDE because I have several friends who prefer a simple and convenient environment without feeling like they're sitting in a satellite control center.

If this issue isn't addressed, everyone will survive :-)

Perhaps BoardLab is the approach I'm looking for myself! I'm very excited to see how it develops.

Best regards,

Nikolai