I've been looking at the docking feature(s) of Lazarus, and would like to know more about the current implementation. Where should I look for?

One of the most important question is about the general overview of the docking concept, from the technical point of view. I assume that there must exist one application-wide manager (singleton?), that manages all the related windows?

Does there exist another docking manager, apart from anchor docking? With sample code?

IMO anchor docking is a nice idea, but not very useful in practice. What will happen to such a (spiral...) layout, when the container form is resized? Not to mention other possible and existing problems...

The implementation (in Lazarus 0.26) seems to be very fragile. Even if I could run the sample project, I failed to make work even an clone of that project, not to mention a different project. Strange exceptions all over, when I only try to install an docking manager as done in the sample or described in the according docs :-(
Any chance that the trunk contains a more stable implementation?

What I want to achieve and contribute:

- Docking by drag&drop, at least for Windows and Linux. A proof of concept in the first place, I've been warned ;-)

- Old fashion (orthogonal/notebook) docking - if not yet implemented?

- Multiple editor windows and related explorers. This was my first idea, that lead me straight to the docking problems.

Which Lazarus revision (trunk/tag) should I use for my first steps? I also think that I must create my own (local) repository, so that I can share my modifications across various platforms (VM's). Any better idea?

DoDi

Hans-Peter Diettrich wrote

I've been looking at the docking feature(s) of Lazarus, and would like to know more about the current implementation. Where should I look for?

At the ldocktree.pas unit and ofcource controls.pp.

Yes, TLazDockTree.

With sample code?

Use any delphi example.

IMO anchor docking is a nice idea, but not very useful in practice. What will happen to such a (spiral...) layout, when the container form is resized? Not to mention other possible and existing problems...

We have plans to use it in the IDE mostly.

What I want to achieve and contribute: - Docking by drag&drop, at least for Windows and Linux. A proof of concept in the first place, I've been warned ;-)

You can start with simple docking. You need to add ldocktree.pas into any of your uses sections to change DockManager class from dummy to working. Then create a delphi like example and start to play with it.

Most of things will work on windows. Drag/Dock will not work on linux because we cannot know when user start drag a window. Window title is owned by a window manager and gtk/qt does not report us about this event. Thus the first thing to implement is a special dock header which will be used on systems which cannot report us about titlebar drag.

Nobody looked at docking on OSX.

- Old fashion (orthogonal/notebook) docking - if not yet implemented?

Implemented but it was so long ago when I checked it.

- Multiple editor windows and related explorers. This was my first idea, that lead me straight to the docking problems.

This can be done when all docking will 100% work on simple applications. And Mattias had an idea to use anchor docking.

You can even try how it works in IDE. Open your
lazarus\ide\include\ide.inc file and add there:
{$define EnableIDEDocking}

Then recompile your IDE.

Which Lazarus revision (trunk/tag) should I use for my first steps? I also think that I must create my own (local) repository, so that I can share my modifications across various platforms (VM's). Any better idea?

Always use svn version if you want to send us patches. Get it here: http://svn.freepascal.org/svn/lazarus/trunk

Best regards,
Paul Ishenin.