Setting IDE same to RAD Studio IDE

[Akira1364]

Maybe I do not know how to do that, but unless all non-modal IDE windows can be docked the docked IDE is not complete and very annoying.

They can.

See the screenshot I've attached for an example.

[Martin_fr]

It wouldn't matter much if, like in Delphi, you could for example access the main menu from the editor, and so on. Unfortunately you can't: you must swicth first to the "main" window.

On Windows that works without any issue.

Another pet peeve of mine is that in each new version there seems to be less and less "helping" for "keyboard-mostly" folks: menu items, buttons, etc. without accelerators, common key alternatives not working, etc. No "show-stopper" realy, but kind of annoying.

I work mostly keyboard myself. I even have key shortcuts to switch between several source editors.

Are this old shortcuts, that are missing now (regression)? Or new feature with none added? Which ones?

Should be able to add them via the options? Or are the entries also missing from the Keymap options?

[skalogryz]

... as PascalDragon said, you can end up with a dozen windows on your taskbar in Linux. I find easier (for me) to just alt-Tab between them and close/open those I want or not.

Tools -> Options -> Window -> Show single button in Taskbar.
(The option is only available for Linux platform)

I can also agree with Martin_fr. User interface issues has to be vetted carefully. Don't hesitate to bug report (requests for) UI improvement. It's much easier to fix it once, than to keep enduring the problem.

[Zoran]

... as PascalDragon said, you can end up with a dozen windows on your taskbar in Linux. I find easier (for me) to just alt-Tab between them and close/open those I want or not.

Tools -> Options -> Window -> Show single button in Taskbar.
(The option is only available for Linux platform)

This setting is ignored in some desktop managers. In Cinnamon I had this problem.
Now I have Mint Xfce and this feature work well.

Yes, it is a real nightmare when each window has it's own taskbar button. Then it becomes total chaos when you open two Lazarus instances.
However, I really prefer old Delphi user interface, so I rather switched to another distro, then install docking in the IDE.

[kupferstecher]

When I first came to Lazarus I was quite shocked of the floating windows. By time I saw the benefits compared to a strict one-window-layout and I now highly prefer the floating windows. But still the windows hiding each other often is a mess. The alignment is difficult (additional efforts) and large window borders take precious space.

There should be a better solution I thought, and came to a one as sketched in the attachement, a mixture of floating and fixed concepts. The cyan line shows the application window, this means there would be a free space on the right side, where the floating Forms and menues can be reached. I'm not sure if such window contours are possible on all platforms...
The application window would consist of the menu, the source editor, object inspector (and tabbed some other important tools) and message box. All other menues and forms would open in a seperate window as now. When they lose focus, a part of them still could be visible in the "cut-out" right area and thus easily clicked to bring back to front.

The source editor could be configured to dynamically overlay the menu and message box (focus controlled) so there is maximum space for the source code, like it is possible in the floating design.

Just a crazy idea that I wanted to share~

[devEric69]

Tools -> Options -> Window -> Show single button in Taskbar.
(The option is only available for Linux platform)

Thank you: it works under Ubuntu. On the other hand, I set up Nemo (the Cinnamon office), because Nautilus is too limited in terms of functionality.

[wp]

Maybe I do not know how to do that, but unless all non-modal IDE windows can be docked the docked IDE is not complete and very annoying.

They can.

Found the "Locked" checkbox in the context menu of the grab bars which, after unchecking, allows me to drag and redock the windows. Great! But still there are windows which do not seem to be prepared for docking at all: menu editor, leak & traces, editor macros, and maybe some more - they do not have grab bars. And the size of the anchor editor does not fit into the docked layout nicely. If it were very wide it could be docked to the bottom messages window and related, if it were very high it could be docked to project editor etc at the the right. But its aspect ratio is roughly 4:3 and thus it can only be docked usefully to the center source editor/form designer window, but now direct interaction between form designer and menu editor is no longer possible. (The way it is docked in reply #15 costs too much space on small notebook screens).

[Akira1364]

Found the "Locked" checkbox in the context menu of the grab bars which, after unchecking, allows me to drag and redock the windows. Great! But still there are windows which do not seem to be prepared for docking at all: menu editor, leak & traces, editor macros, and maybe some more

Do you have a screenshot that shows some / all of this as it looks on your system? Just trying to get a better idea. I have never once had to use the grab bar menus...

Also, do you have both Anchor Docking Design and Sparta Docked Form Editor installed?

[wp]

Here is a screen shot. It is on Linux Mint 18.1 Serena/xfce, Lazarus is trunk with qt widgetset. I opened the menu editor, it does not show the grab bar and thus cannot be docked.

The window is not completely maximized to leave a narrow stripe uncovered. This is to where I drag covered undocked windows for quick access.

And yes: both anchor docking design and sparta docked form editor packages are installed.

[Akira1364]

Here is a screen shot. It is on Linux Mint 18.1 Serena/xfce, Lazarus is trunk with qt widgetset. I opened the menu editor, it does not show the grab bar and thus cannot be docked.

Strange! It does not seem like there is any specific reason the menu editor should be undockable versus any of the other IDE forms.

I haven't tested docking the menu editor on Windows, but will later today, as that will make it clearer whether it's a widgetset bug, or a bug in the docking packages, or maybe just something different about the settings for the menu editor LFM.