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FeaturesDepositClearUpdated March 14, 2026

Fixing the 'More Tools' UX Gap: One Navigation Pattern to Rule Them All

Fixing the 'More Tools' UX Gap: One Navigation Pattern to Rule Them All

Release: v0.1.297 · Category: UI/UX · Navigation

The problem

Our sidebar has always had a small secret: the 'More tools' button at the bottom of the nav opened a completely different kind of menu to everything else in the application.

When you clicked it, you got a custom role="menu" popover — anchored to the bottom of the sidebar, no search, no keyboard navigation, no memory of what you'd opened recently. It was functional, but it was a dead end compared to the rest of the app.

Meanwhile, pressing ⌘K (or clicking the search trigger in the header) launched the Command Palette — a genuinely powerful experience with fuzzy search, recent items, and full keyboard navigation. The exact same tools (CSV Import, Jobs, Archives, Activity, System Admin) were available there as dedicated shortcuts.

The result: two classes of user.

  • Power users who discovered ⌘K got a first-class experience.
  • Casual users who clicked 'More tools' got a stripped-down popover and probably didn't know a better path existed.

That's not a fair split.

Why it matters

CSV Import, Jobs, Archives, and Activity aren't obscure admin utilities. They're tools that a meaningful portion of users need regularly — and they deserved to live somewhere consistent and discoverable, not behind a one-off UI pattern that exists nowhere else in the sidebar.

The inconsistency also creates a subtle trust issue: if navigation behaves differently in different parts of the UI, users lose confidence that they know how the app works.

The fix

The solution is to close the gap between what the sidebar offers and what the Command Palette offers — not by reducing the palette, but by elevating the sidebar.

Option A — Collapsible 'Tools' group (recommended)

Move CSV Import, Jobs, Archives, Activity, and System Admin into a dedicated 'Tools' collapsible group in the sidebar nav, using the same defaultCollapsed=true pattern already in use for the 'Admin' group.

Sidebar
├── Dashboard
├── Properties
├── Tenancies
├── Admin          ← already collapsible
└── Tools          ← new, collapsed by default
    ├── CSV Import
    ├── Jobs
    ├── Archives
    ├── Activity
    └── System Admin

This means:

  • Tools are discoverable via standard sidebar keyboard navigation
  • The pattern is immediately familiar — it works exactly like 'Admin'
  • The custom popover and its inconsistencies are removed
  • ⌘K continues to work as the fastest path for power users

Option B — Remove sidebar entry; strengthen ⌘K

If the sidebar should stay lean, the popover can be removed entirely in favour of routing all tools access through the Command Palette. To make this work for casual users, a visible 'All pages →' link should be added to the Command Palette footer — giving everyone a clear onramp to discover tools without needing to know ⌘K exists.

What stays the same

  • The Command Palette (⌘K) is unchanged. All existing shortcuts, recents, and search behaviour are preserved.
  • All five tools (CSV Import, Jobs, Archives, Activity, System Admin) remain accessible — they're just moving to a more consistent home.

File changed

  • src/components/sidebar-nav.tsx

Good navigation isn't about having fewer menus — it's about every menu behaving the way users expect it to.