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delphidelphi-7

How to dock opened windows in Delphi 7 IDE?


How to dock opened windows in Delphi 7 IDE? The IDE opens with the top toolbar only and the rest of the screen showing the app behind the IDE. I have two monitors and the windows can float on top of any other window and if I have two instances open, I don't know what window belongs to what instance and it's annoying. I would like all the windows to be contained inside the IDE and be docked like Visual Studio does. I read about pressing ctrl-key while dragging. I don't see any difference, with or without checking the "Auto drag docking" setting. Either it doesn't work or I don't know how to use the feature.

Sometimes when I maximize a window, instead of maximizing inside the IDE, it maximizes on the whole screen.


Solution

  • You can't. The docked form designer wasn't introduced in Delphi until D2005 (and when it was, people complained about losing the floating designer from earlier versions, so they added it back in as an optional configuration).

    In D7 and earlier, the main window for the IDE consisted of what is basically the menu and toolbar, along with the embedded component palette. The Object Inspector and Form Designer were entirely separate windows, as were most of the other available windows at the time.

    In order to get the Visual Studio-style appearance and docking window support, you'll need to upgrade to at least D2005.