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Bug 126575

Summary:	full featured docking for undocked components
Product:	platform	Reporter:	mbien <mbien>
Component:	Window System	Assignee:	issues@platform <issues>
Status:	NEW ---
Severity:	blocker	CC:	anebuzelsky, geertjan, olangr, saubrecht
Priority:	P3
Version:	6.x
Hardware:	All
OS:	All
Issue Type:	ENHANCEMENT	Exception Reporter:
Attachments:	Emulating splits :-)

Description mbien 2008-02-03 23:39:55 UTC

currently you may undock a component and dock it only as tab into an other undocked window. It would be a lot more
useful for several multi head applications (IDE included) to allow full featured docking (eg. horizontal/vertical split,
minimizing of tabs...) identical to the main window.

This would reduce the amount of opened windows for many applications to the count of displays.

With this feature enabled it would probably also make sense to enable maximize/restore buttons for all undocked
components (not only for undocked editor components).

Comment 1 Petr Dvorak 2008-05-18 00:39:02 UTC

*** Issue 134576 has been marked as a duplicate of this issue. ***

Comment 2 Petr Dvorak 2008-05-18 00:50:48 UTC

The issue 134576 (it is now marked as a duplicate of this one, as this one is more general) speaks about the window
split for an editor window. I think it would be nice to have the window split feature in NB (at least for an editor), as
it might simplify working with a large files.

Maybe it even won't be so hard to implement it - the window system works pretty well at this moment (thanks to the
dev-guys there) and I think many of current features could be reused (you can actually do quite a lot of "fake
splitting" at this moment - see the attachment).

Comment 3 Petr Dvorak 2008-05-18 00:52:17 UTC

Created attachment 61524 [details]
Emulating splits :-)

Comment 4 mbien 2009-08-19 15:43:09 UTC

remember: the original report was about weakening the current restriction to have only *one* main window which supports
docking/splitting/whatever. The proposal is to allow all features of the main window to be also available for undocked
windows.

Comment 5 pwilly 2010-12-06 10:45:45 UTC

I am working in the financial industry where multi monitor configurations with 6 monitors are common.

For us it is essential to have the full docking/sliding functionality of the main application window available in any other undocked (external) window.

Then the user can configure his complex workspace for his needs. Currently only the main window is nicely configurable with split dock and sliding. Others (undocked) windows support only tabbed docking, so only one TopComponent can be visible per window. 

Any application with more than 3 different TopComponents would also benefit. 

Actually I don't understand why this docking restrictions has been made, as the docking/sliding already works very well for the main window, so I shouldn't be difficult to adapt it to undocked windows.

Comment 6 Geertjan Wielenga 2010-12-06 11:17:30 UTC

Could we prioritize this or investigate it at least?

Comment 7 mikbra 2010-12-08 09:15:22 UTC

(In reply to comment #5)
I agree fully with pwilly. 

I also work in the finance industry where the users of our trading client, built on the Netbeans platform, have many monitors and need to customize their workspace across these monitors.

It would also be nice if the toolbar (and the menu in a non-Mac environment) was a little more flexible, e.g. could be shown/hidden in external windows as well.