Views & Panes

A view is a split layout of panes. Each pane shows a service log, a browser or an agent terminal. Views are the tabs in the second row of the window. A pane can come from any workspace, and the same service can be in several views.

Create a view

Press ⌘T or click + in the view row. The new view has one empty pane that asks "What do you want to open?" with these choices:

• Terminal: a shell in your home folder, a project folder, or another folder you pick.
• An agent (Claude Code, Codex, and the other installed agents): pick the folder to run it in.
• Browser: type an address or pick one of the workspace service addresses.
• Service: pick a service, or New service… to add one.
• Install <agent> for each built-in agent whose CLI is not installed.

Use the arrow keys and Return to pick, and Escape to go back. The view is named after what you open first, such as "Claude Code · app" or "Browser · api".

Split, move and resize panes

• ⌘D splits the active pane and adds an empty pane on its right. ⇧⌘D adds it below.
• Drag a pane by its header, or drag a service from the project menu, onto another pane. Drop on an edge to split, or in the center to replace that pane.
• Drag the line between two panes to resize them.
• Click a pane header to collapse it to a single row. ⌘-click a header to expand only that pane in its column. Collapsed panes still show their links and quick commands on hover.
• Each pane has a fullscreen button that fills the view with that pane.
• ⌘W closes the active pane. When it is the last pane, ⌘W closes the view. ⇧⌘W reopens the last closed pane or view, with agents resuming their conversations. Services keep running when their pane is closed.

Layout presets

With two or more panes in a view, the presets button at the right end of the view row rearranges the panes that are already there: equal columns or rows, a main pane with a stack, 2×2 grids, and browser or agent arrangements when the view has a browser or an agent. Presets never add or remove panes.

Switch views

⌘1 to ⌘9 select the view in that position of the view row. Hold ⌘ for half a second to see each tab's number. The command palette (⌘P) also lists every workspace and view.

With "Collapse views with nothing running" on (Settings → General → Behavior, on by default), views with nothing running show only their icon, and running views come first in the row. A view tab turns red when a service in it failed.

View tab menu

Right-click a view tab for Add to Focus or Remove from Focus, Start All, Stop All, Restart All, Edit (name, color and icon), Rename and Close View. Drag tabs to reorder them.

The same service in several views

A service runs once, but its pane can be in any number of views. Its header shows "in N views" when that is the case. A restart from any view restarts the one process. This is useful when several frontends share one API: add the API to each of their views.

Floating windows

Agent and browser panes have a "Detach to floating window" button in their header. The pane moves into its own window that stays above other windows, also when Highwind is not the active app. Click Reattach, or close the window, to put the pane back. Service panes cannot be detached.

Zen mode and hiding rows

• ⌘` (View → Toggle Zen Mode) hides the workspace row, the view row and the status bar, and shows them again.
• ⌘⌥1 toggles the view row, ⌘⌥2 the workspace row, and ⌘⌥3 the status bar.
• ⌘\ hides and shows the project menu.
• All shortcuts keep working while the rows are hidden.

Command palette

⌘P opens one searchable list of quick commands, new agents, files in the selected view's projects, Start/Stop/Restart for the view and each of its services, links, and every workspace and view. Commands of the services in the current view come first. ⇥ limits the list to one group at a time. Return runs the item. On a link, ⌘Return opens it in the default browser.

Sidebar

Files picked in the command palette open as tabs in the sidebar on the right of the window. ⇧⌘E shows and hides it. Text files up to 5 MB can be edited and saved with ⌘S. Markdown opens rendered, with a Source switch to edit it. Files changed on disk are reloaded.

Zoom

⌘= and ⌘- zoom the active pane, ⌘0 resets it. Add ⇧ to zoom all panes. Zoom goes from 0.5× to 2× and is saved per pane. The base font and size for terminals and logs are set in Settings → Appearance → Terminals and Logs.