Can DockableFrames not be always on top?

[Christopher Moran]

Hi. I've just started using dockable frames, and is there a way to mark frames as _not_ being always on top when they are dragged out of the main window? If not, would this be a desirable feature?

Cheers,

Christopher Moran

[JIDE Support]

By default, floating dockable frames are put into a JDialog. That's why it's always on top. However if you run it with system property -Ddocking.floatingContainerType=frame, it will use JFrame as floating container. If so, the floating windows will not always on top. When it is hidden behind the main window, you can use the task bar to access it. We just introduced this feature in 1.8.5 release. Try it and let me know if this is what you want.

Thanks,

[Christopher Moran]

Hi there. Thanks for the feedback; it works a treat.

On the whole I am quite impressed with the JIDE docking framework, and we will be using it in our product. There are still some usability problems with it though, which I thought I would pass on:

> There is no outline drawn when dockable frames are dragged (you can configure the outline mode, as mentioned in the documentation, but yeah, you get an annoying flicker). It is especially disconcerting when dragging floating panels outside the main window.

> When the floating panels are frames (using the -D flag mentioned above), the panels are not iconified when the main window is iconified.

> It would be nice to have a docked panel retain its size when it made a floating panel.

Cheers,

Christopher Moran

[JIDE Support]

> There is no outline drawn when dockable frames are dragged (you can configure the outline mode, as mentioned in the documentation, but yeah, you get an annoying flicker). It is especially disconcerting when dragging floating panels outside the main window.

The only way to get a real transparent window in Swing is to use JNI. As JIDE is pure Swing, we tried to avoid using JNI. Saying that, we are indeed working a new solution to address this issue from another standpoint although I don't have ETC for it.

> When the floating panels are frames (using the -D flag mentioned above), the panels are not iconified when the main window is iconified.

In fact, this is requested by a user because they don't want floating windows to be iconified when main frame is iconified. Otherwise, they can use -D with window or dialog as floating container.

> It would be nice to have a docked panel retain its size when it made a floating panel.

It should retain as far as I know. It will use its previous size when it was floating.

Thanks,