Refactor site section tabs

[zenoachtig]

Simplifying the section tabs menu in anticipation of the new site section group headers.

• Refactor SiteSectionTabs to be solely responsible for the whole secondary nav bar, simplifying composition and layout
• Fix animation/rendering issues of site section group popover
• Use <Button> to show section tabs, giving us better and more consistent active and focus states
• Fix RND-7178

Examples

CleanShot.2025-09-15.at.18.26.22.mp4

Notice the bad sizing transition at the beginning, which isn't there in the new version

CleanShot.2025-09-15.at.18.26.58.mp4

CleanShot.2025-09-15.at.18.28.31.mp4

CleanShot.2025-09-15.at.18.27.51.mp4

[linear]

RND-7178 Mobile issue: site section groups not opening correctly

[changeset-bot]

🦋 Changeset detected

Latest commit: 16ea929

The changes in this PR will be included in the next version bump.

This PR includes changesets to release 1 package

Name	Type
gitbook	Patch

Not sure what this means? Click here to learn what changesets are.

Click here if you're a maintainer who wants to add another changeset to this PR

[github-actions]

Summary of the deployments:

Version	URL	Status
Vercel	https://gitbook-v2-45ycvij39-gitbook.vercel.app	✅
Cloudflare	https://1d24e655-gitbook-open-v2-preview.gitbook.workers.dev	✅

Test content

Site	2v	2c
GitBook	https://gitbook-v2-45ycvij39-gitbook.vercel.app/url/gitbook.com/docs	https://1d24e655-gitbook-open-v2-preview.gitbook.workers.dev/url/gitbook.com/docs
E2E	https://gitbook-v2-45ycvij39-gitbook.vercel.app/url/gitbook.gitbook.io/test-gitbook-open	https://1d24e655-gitbook-open-v2-preview.gitbook.workers.dev/url/gitbook.gitbook.io/test-gitbook-open

[argos-ci]

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Build	Status	Details	Updated (UTC)
customers-v2 (Inspect)	👍 Changes approved	7 changed	Sep 17, 2025, 3:19 PM
v2-cloudflare (Inspect)	👍 Changes approved	24 changed	Sep 17, 2025, 3:26 PM
v2-vercel (Inspect)	👍 Changes approved	31 changed	Sep 17, 2025, 3:22 PM

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR refactors the site section tabs to simplify the component composition and fix animation/rendering issues with the site section group popover. The refactor consolidates the SiteSectionTabs component to manage the entire secondary navigation bar and improves styling consistency.

• Simplifies SiteSectionTabs to handle the full secondary nav bar layout and composition
• Replaces custom tab styling with Button component for better consistency and focus states
• Fixes viewport positioning and animation issues for section group dropdowns

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 6 out of 6 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
packages/gitbook/src/components/primitives/Button.tsx	Adds focus and open state styling for blank variant buttons
packages/gitbook/src/components/SiteSections/SiteSectionTabs.tsx	Major refactor to consolidate navigation layout and use Button components
packages/gitbook/src/components/RootLayout/globals.css	Adds max-height for horizontal scrollbars
packages/gitbook/src/components/Header/SpacesDropdown.tsx	Adjusts padding for translations dropdown styling
packages/gitbook/src/components/Header/Header.tsx	Simplifies header layout by delegating to refactored SiteSectionTabs
.changeset/spicy-boats-change.md	Adds changeset for the refactor

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