Some of us need never the sidebar except for seeing sync status or using sync button. The bar consumes a lot of screen estate.
I suggest alternative sync button where it would be located above or below note list (see image where it is above). Or on right side of "New to-do button" (in that case it should be much narrower than current button).
There would be 2 approaches:
minimal approach. Just the button. Button provides clear feedback when A. everything is synced, B. there is unsynced changes, C. sync process is going on. Button style could be similar as note list button styles but color feedback for sync states (A=thickened green borders, B=thickened red borders, C=thickened yellow borders)
extended approach. In all other ways this would be like 1. but when sync process is going on there appears slice with text below note list (height so that it fits 2-4 lines of text), which shows "Updated remote items: X, Fetched items: Y, ..." which is normally in sidebar" After sync has finished this text slice remains on window for X seconds (1-3) and then disappears (until next sync).
Alternative sync button/slide would be only visible when sidebar is not visible. It could be enabled/disabled either in View menu or Options menu.
FYI you can use ctrl+s to trigger a sync, and sync happens automatically when you quit the app (with the option to quit early if it is long running). Also if you only use the markdown editor, you can use the Joplin Plugins - Extra Markdown editor settings plugin to show a sync indicator on the editor itself
Looking at the movie, the meaning of the sync icon states is not clear. I guess when it is synced the icon is grayed out? Or maybe it means it's syncing?
Please improve it if possible.
I'd like to clearly see following info:
sync is currently in progress (e.g. the arrows could spin clockwise)
sync is needed / we know we have local changes
sync is not needed / we dont have local changes.
(Not sure if this is the actual available information)
The main sync button does not and never has has a sync is needed state on mobile (this exists on desktop but was only introduced in Joplin 3.6). On Android it's not particularly important because sync always triggers after 1 second when a sync is needed. Basically if the button is grey it means a sync is in progress, if it is not syncing it is black. So as a general rule you can just assume if it is greyed out then you should wait for the sync to complete, if it is not greyed out then you can switch app. This is fine so long as you don't switch away in less than 1 second after making a change
It's designed this way because it's primarily intended to be a button to allow you to sync incoming changes. But as a bonus you can leverage it as a sync indicator for outgoing changes, if you are able to understand what the button state means
