feat: improve sidebar UI with distinct sections and better empty states

[github-roushan]

Describe Your Changes

• Add distinct backgrounds for Projects and Chats sections
• Add proper spacing and padding between sections
• Fix empty state logic to show "No threads yet" when all threads are in projects

Fixes Issues

• Closes #

Self Checklist

• Added relevant comments, esp in complex areas
• Updated docs (for bug fixes / features)
• Created issues for follow-up changes or refactoring needed

[github-roushan]

Before
Screencast from 2025-10-06 15-37-29.webm

[github-roushan]

After
Screencast from 2025-10-06 15-40-00.webm

[github-roushan]

@louis-menlo, @urmauur

[github-roushan]

@urmauur . Can you review and merge this.

[github-roushan]

@LazyYuuki

[urmauur]

hey @github-roushan 👋
Thanks for the PR really appreciate the improvements around section spacing, padding, and the empty-state logic 🙏

However, we’d prefer not to introduce background color differences between the Projects and Chats sections for now. We’d like to keep the sidebar’s unified background style.

If you’re up for it, feel free to adjust the PR to keep the layout and logic changes but remove the new background colors (bg-left-panel-fg/5 and bg-left-panel-fg/3). Otherwise, we can close this and revisit the styling direction later.

Thanks again for helping make Jan better! 💪

[github-roushan]

hey @github-roushan 👋 Thanks for the PR really appreciate the improvements around section spacing, padding, and the empty-state logic 🙏

However, we’d prefer not to introduce background color differences between the Projects and Chats sections for now. We’d like to keep the sidebar’s unified background style.

If you’re up for it, feel free to adjust the PR to keep the layout and logic changes but remove the new background colors (bg-left-panel-fg/5 and bg-left-panel-fg/3). Otherwise, we can close this and revisit the styling direction later.

Thanks again for helping make Jan better! 💪

Sure will make the changes

[github-roushan]

@urmauur Done.

[github-roushan]

Hey @louis-menlo, @urmauur. Just giving this a gentle nudge — I’ve made all the requested changes! Would love to get it merged before the merge conflicts decide to throw a party .

[github-roushan]

@Minh141120 . Can you please merge this

[LazyYuuki]

Hi @github-roushan thank you for the contribution, but we reserve the right to decide when to merge or closed certain PR as it might not reflected well on our direction for the product.

Please avoid pinging our member repeatedly moving forward. We always actively review each PR every release cycle, so there is no need to do this as it would be disturbing our member from the other more prioritized task they are working on.

That being said, if you still feel strongly that the PR is needed, you can also fork our project and provide alternative to the users you are catering for. All good by us.