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Grid and Focus

The two ways to see the project's terminals: side by side in the Grid or one large in Focus, with the thumbnail strip, saved layouts and themes.

Updated for PrumoGrid 0.5.11

What it's for

The central area of the window shows the selected project's terminals in two ways. The Grid puts the terminals side by side, so you can keep an eye on several at once. Focus keeps one terminal large in the center and the others in a strip of thumbnails below, so you can read a long answer or talk to an agent without distraction. Switching views does not touch the sessions: the processes, the output and the history stay the same.

Watch the video

VIDEO 02 · 0:51

Project, terminals and Focus. A folder becomes a project, a PowerShell and a Git Bash open in it and Focus enlarges one of them. Captions and transcript ↗

When to use it and when not to

Stay in the Grid when two or three agents are working at the same time and you want to see who stopped, who asked for permission and who finished. Switch to Focus when you need to read a diff or a long test output, or answer an agent calmly.

The third option in the same bar, Flow, shows the stages in sequence instead of the terminals. It has its own page: Flow.

Switching views does not complete a task, does not interrupt any agent and does not change projects.

Step by step

Arranging the loja-api Grid

  1. Select the loja-api card in the Projects column.
  2. Open three terminals from the NEW row: one PowerShell and two agents (see Terminals and shells).
  3. In the bar above the terminals, under SPLIT, click 3×. The three sit in one row, each in its own column.
  4. Drag the PowerShell header by the ⋮⋮ handle to the right. From the keyboard, with the pane focused, use Ctrl+Shift+→ and Ctrl+Shift+←.
  5. In the Claude Code pane, press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to make it wide, spanning two columns. Press it again to go back.
  6. To see a pane on its own for a moment, press Ctrl+Shift+M. The same key, or Esc, restores it.

Auto picks the number of columns based on the window width. 1× to 4× fix that number of columns. The handle in the corner of each pane adjusts its size.

Reading an answer in Focus

  1. Click Focus in the bar.
  2. One terminal becomes large in the center. The others appear in the thumbnail strip below, each with its name, project, branch, state and usage.
  3. Click the Codex thumbnail to bring it to the center.
  4. To find a passage in the conversation, use the Search this conversation field at the top of the terminal, or Ctrl+F.
  5. Click Grid to go back to the terminals side by side.

Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab move to the next and previous terminal in both views. Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 go straight to the project's terminal number N.

What you see on screen

Grid with SPLIT at 3×. Each pane shows its name, the result of the last command and its state.
Focus: the chosen terminal becomes large and the others go to the thumbnail strip.
On screenWhat it means
Grid, Focus, FlowThe three views of the central area.
SPLIT Auto 1× … 4×How many columns the Grid uses. Auto follows the window width.
⋮⋮ in the headerThe handle to drag the pane and change the order.
Header buttonsGoal for this agent (Ctrl+Shift+G), broadcast, collapse or zoom, and the × to close. Hover to read each one.
Thumbnail in FocusA terminal outside the center, with state (at the prompt), CPU and memory.
Prompt guide · 0In Focus, the list of instructions in this conversation, with a filter. Clicking jumps to that point. See Prompt guide.
N earlier lines · showIn Focus, the older output, collapsed. Click to show or hide it.

Saved layouts

A layout saves the set of open panes, with each one's shell and folder, so you can reopen the same arrangement another day.

  1. Set up the terminals the way you want to save them, for example a PowerShell, a Claude Code and a Codex in loja-api.
  2. Open Tools → Saved layouts…. The Saved layouts section of Advanced options opens.
  3. In Layout name, write API + agents and click Save current layout….
  4. To use it, click Apply layout on the layout's row. If there are panes already open, the confirmation offers Add to the current ones or Replace.

Read the confirmation before choosing: Replace ends the processes of the open panes. Remove deletes the layout, not the terminals. Each pane's initial command is set by editing layouts.json, which Open layouts.json… shows.

Themes

In the Tools menu, under COLOR THEME, choose Graphite (default), Night blue or OLED black. The theme applies to the window and its terminals. Choose for readability: states always come with text, not just color.

The keyboard returns to the terminal

PrumoGrid tries not to leave the keyboard stranded. Clicking Grid or Focus after being in Flow returns the keyboard to the focused terminal, ready to type. Clicking the tabs in the right sidebar does not take focus away from the terminal. When you close the Tools menu, New stage, Notifications or Routines, focus returns to the terminal you were typing in, and the window scrolls to it. In the command palette (Ctrl+K), Grid and Focus, under Go to, do the same.

Tips

  • With narrow terminals, agent CLIs wrap lines. Collapse the sidebars with the ‹ and › buttons in the corners to give the panes more width, or use fewer columns.
  • A wide pane is good for the agent you read most; the others stay visible.
  • The numbers from Ctrl+1 to Ctrl+9 follow the order of the panes. Arrange the order once and use the numbers day to day.
  • To see all shortcuts, open Tools → Keyboard shortcuts….

Known limitations

  • The Grid and Focus show only the selected project's terminals. To see all of them, choose All projects in the selector at the top.
  • Applying a layout with Replace ends the processes of the panes that were open.
  • The layout saves shell, folder and initial command. It does not save the agents' conversations or the terminals' output.
  • Zoom and wide pane change only how the Grid is drawn. They do not give the process more memory or CPU.