What are the advantages of non-docked mode?

[Mario]

My first reflex seeing the default mode of Lazarus was 'hey how do I make this docked'. But now that I have solved that I wonder what I am missing.

So, I'm really curious about why the community prefers the non-docked mode of Lazarus. What are the advantages?

Regards,
          Mario

[440bx]

I find the biggest advantage to be the more efficient use of screen space and the ability to have only the windows of interest occupy visible space on screen.

For instance, I find it often convenient to have two editor windows side by side.  This can often make editing easier.  The "messages" window is almost always covered by some other window, either another editor window, or a watches window.  I see no need to have the "messages" window occupy visible screen space when editing and this is true of a good number of other windows.

Also, since I don't use components of any kind, the entire menu and component palette is, more often than not, wasted space.  I only use the menu to open a new file or change the build mode or some other purpose that is not nearly done as often as other tasks carried out in the development cycle.

Essentially, I find the docked state to be inflexible and often use screen space to display information that is not useful at a particular time.

[Martin_fr]

Actually, I am not sure what a vote would reveal as preference....

So there are 2 questions here:
1) why is the default non-docked?
2) what do those using non-docked like about it?

1) There are people who want to use non-docked. Including people  in the team. A pre-build IDE that supports docking therefore needs an option to turn it off. And turn it off in such way, that the next upgrade will leave it off. That needs to be implemented.

Once that is implemented, some one needs to take the time to put it all together, so the installer builds will incorporate it.

"The maximum bother a docked IDE may be allowed to cause to any non-docked-prefering user, is a *once-off* (life time once off) prompt to turn it off."

At least afaik that is what it boils down to... There may be more, but I don't think anything big.

On a personal note, there are also some bugs, that would prevent me from using docked (if I wouldn't prefer non-docked anyway). But that isn't really a concern, since they wont affect me.

2) I can only give my personal reasons for liking non-docked.

I have several screens. The desktop formed by them isn't even a rectangle (some have more height than others).
My IDE has windows distributed across all of them. That just wouldn't work with docked. It could still work with several dock-sites...

I rearrange some of my windows in size and position. For example on average I have 2 or 3 source editors next to each others.
- I may resize one of them, if I have search results open.
- I may open further editor windows and size them to fit individual code blocks, and arrange them on my screens.
=> Resizing them shouldn't affect other Windows. It may temporarily overlap them.

Docking would not save me (much) space either. Most of my Windows are next to each other. Docking would automatically align them "perfectly", but then it would also restrict my abilities to arrange them (because it forces them to allocate the full rectangle of the dock site, and without docked I can spare a tiny corner to see my desktop underneath, or leave a corner for the running application so it wont be covered by the IDE while debugging).

I also don't wont to have the dock-handles take space. They could be hidden, but then I am even more restricted if I want to change layouts.

[VisualLab]

It depends on the size of your screen and personal preferences. I, for one, really like comfort. And that's why I don't like working on a laptop. Small screen, small uncomfortable keyboard. On the other hand, a laptop with a 17-inch screen is too large and too heavy when it needs to be moved. And the screen is still too small. That's why I still prefer a desktop computer with a large monitor. Some people use 2 or 3 monitors. And monitors with 22"-27" screens have been quite cheap for at least several years.

A few years ago, my 24" monitor from 2008 began to seriously fail - there was a problem with "swelling" capacitors in the power supply of the CCFL lamps illuminating the LCD matrix. After several years of periodically replacing them, I decided that it was high time to do something about it - buy a larger monitor or maybe 2 or 3 24" monitors. And the Covid madness sped up my decision. In 2020, I bought a 55" monitor. I can now have several large windows open without any major problems. For example: Lazarus/Delphi, a web browser with documentation for libraries, a PDF viewer with a microcontroller catalog note and 2 or 3 folders with files (and sometimes even NetBeans). In such a situation, I work much better with Lazarus with docked windows.

[cdbc]

Hi

I find the biggest advantage to be the more efficient use of screen space and the ability to have only the windows of interest occupy visible space on screen.

@440bx nailed it!  +1 =^

Essentially, I find the docked state to be inflexible and often use screen space to display information that is not useful at a particular time.

...and again, nailed it! =^
Regards Benny

[Joanna from IRC]

I prefer it separate because I have small monitor.

[Handoko]

I have solid reasons why non-docked mode is the best, for me.

Sitting for hours just for coding is boring. I usually do some other tasks at once. My computer isn't very high-end but it has 32 GB of RAM, which makes it very suitable for multitasking. Also my monitor is 27", which can display 1920 x 1080 pixels.

As usual, now my Firefox is running at background playing some YouTube music vidoes. My Pale Moon is for doing research, currently it is displaying a forum post about an OpenGL topic (I marked red in the screenshot below). There has some code I want to integrated in to my source code (marked green in the screenshot below). Only novice programmers do copy/pasting code, not me. I am typing it manually into my source code.

Just for you information, I use 3 browsers, 4 graphics applications, 2 virtualization software, and frequently running 2 instances of Lazarus IDE at the same time. I know I am weird.

I really did install Anchor Docking in the past. Not impressed. I couldn't peek into the things behind as I did in the screenshot below. I couldn't arrange the forms layout easily. I have a big screen, I need to drag the forms frequently easily to where I want. I couldn't make a certain form Always-on-Top (Linux's feature, Windows doesn't have it).

I can understand many users especially beginners do not like the non-docking mode of Lazarus IDE. It can be messy, but if you know how to use Lazarus Desktop feature, problem solved. You can have several Desktops, for different tasks. You can switch between the layouts easily. And for Linux users, you have Always-on-Top feature, very useful.

If anyone does coding like how I do, using a big screen, hate copy/pasting code, understand how to use Lazarus Desktop feature, frequently use Always-on-Top and like multitasking, I believe s/he prefers non-docked IDE.

~ Forgot to mention: ~
If you want to use non-docked mode, you better enable:
Lazarus main menu > Tools > Options > Environment > Window > Show single button in TaskBar

[Curt Carpenter]

I'm a creature of long old habit, so stick with Anchordocking 1.0 and Anchordockingdesign 1.0 -- probably a holdover of sorts from the old TP character IDE.

I'd like to ask a question a little off topic.  I recently installed Lazarus 3.2.2 and the anchordocking packages above.  When I chose form rather than code view, the form replaces the code view on my screen.  What do I have to do so I can go back to being able to view both my form and my code at the same time, with the form "undocked" from the rest of the IDE?

[Martin_fr]

I'm a creature of long old habit, so stick with Anchordocking 1.0 and Anchordockingdesign 1.0 -- probably a holdover of sorts from the old TP character IDE.

I'd like to ask a question a little off topic.  I recently installed Lazarus 3.2.2 and the anchordocking packages above.  When I chose form rather than code view, the form replaces the code view on my screen.  What do I have to do so I can go back to being able to view both my form and my code at the same time, with the form "undocked" from the rest of the IDE?

Either:

1) Uninstall package "DockedFormEditor"

2) In the "SourceEdit-Tab" context menu chose "clone to other window". That gives you are 2nd SourceEditor, that you can dock into your docked IDE. You then have 2 source editors next to each other. They can show different units, or the same unit twice. Or they can show the unit source and form.

[Curt Carpenter]

Either:

1) Uninstall package "DockedFormEditor"

2) In the "SourceEdit-Tab" context menu chose "clone to other window". That gives you are 2nd SourceEditor, that you can dock into your docked IDE. You then have 2 source editors next to each other. They can show different units, or the same unit twice. Or they can show the unit source and form.

Thank you ever so much.  Option one did the trick and I'm back to my familiar habitat.

[Mario]

Well, I tried undocked and yeah, it's fine. That's what I am using now. "Always on top" for the toolbar/menu window as suggested by Handoko did really good and also making sure there is only one button for the whole IDE in the task bar.

[Rave]

It's what I'm used to (my first Delphi was Delphi 7 Personal which also use this style), moreover in non-docked it's easier to set up forms that you want to be at the specific point of the screen, always, using Position: poDesigned in the form's properties. Actually I didn't know you can even make Lazarus run in docked mode.