I tend to avoid setting up projects and making use of what is not called (but might benefit from being known as) the "sidebar", simply because it's inconvenient to mouse every time I want to open the file list, the project manager, etc. Fortunately SHIFT-F2 opens the "management" sidebar, but the "Open files list" is not covered in the same manner. (Yes, I can assign a hot key to it, which is nice).
What would be ideal, in my view, is to follow along the same technique used by Mozilla Firefox for the sidebar. When Firefox first appeared, I stuck with the old Mozilla browser, simply because it lacked some of the features that Mozilla provided. Since then it's come a long way, and I think the collective IDE work that's been done on it deserves emulation elsewhere.
One of the features I like the most (it can be annoying, tho) is that when the mouse is placed in the left margin of the Firefox browser window, the sidebar will appear. Move the mouse out and it goes away. You can also press a hot key to get it.
I'd find it a tremendous productivity gain if a Code::Blocks sidebar were to be done in this way. Similarly, at the top of the Firefox sidebar, a list-menu allows selecting the specific item you want to view. I think this could be put to use in Code::blocks, or in the least show the selections that are enabled in the view: menu.
For example, if I enable Open Files List and the Project List, opening the sidebar would present both of these.
I wish I had the time to get into coding for Code::blocks, as I would volunteer to create this feature. Unfortunately I am barely keeping up with my work which includes writing a lot of C for embedded systems using this excellent IDE. Having to work on a windows workstation, I'm really glad that Code::blocks is here. Otherwise I'd be stuck with a lot of inferior options.
Thanks for considering this!
