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Terminal > Windows, tabs & panes

Tab customization

Density, titles, subtitles, and hover details for the tab rail.

The sidebar rail is configurable: how tall the rows are, what each row shows, and whether hovering reveals extra detail. Open the sliders icon (Customize the tab list) at the top of the vertical tabs rail to reach the customization popup. At its top, View as switches the rail between one row per pane (Panes) and one row per tab (Tabs); in Tabs view, Tab item chooses Focused session or Summary.

Density

Two row heights:

  • Compact — tighter rows for many sessions.
  • Expanded — taller rows with more breathing room.

Pane title as

What the first line of each row shows. Choose one of:

  • Command / Conversation — the session name (default).
  • Working directory — the pane's cwd.
  • Branch — the pane's git branch.

Additional metadata

The lines under the title, from two options — Branch and Working Directory, working directory by default. Pairing "Command" on top with "Branch" underneath is handy when several sessions share one repo across worktrees.

Show details on hover

When enabled (the default), hovering a row opens a small detail sidecar beside the rail with the row's full information — useful in Compact density where titles and paths are ellipsized to fit.

Persistence

All of these choices — plus whether the sidebar itself is shown (Ctrl+Shift+B, or ⌃⇧B on a Mac) — persist in ~/.mel/tab_settings.json and survive restarts. See Settings files for everything Mel stores on disk.

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