Dockable Views and Editors

All the Oxygen XML Editor views available in the Editor Perspective, XSLT Debugger Perspective, and XQuery Debugger Perspective are dockable.

You can drag any view to any margin of another view or editor inside the Oxygen XML Editor window. Once you create a layout that suites your needs, you are able to save it from Window > Export Layout.... Oxygen XML Editor creates a layout file containing the preferences of the saved layout. To load a layout, go to Window > Load Layout. To reset it, select Window > Reset Layout.

Note: The Load Layout menu lets you select between the default layout, a predefined layout, or a custom layout. The changes you make using the Load Layout menu are also reflected in the Application Layout preferences page.

The changes you make to any layout are preserved between working sessions. Also, changing to a different layout and returning to the previous one does not alter the changes you made to the first layout. The predefined layout files are saved in the preferences directory of Oxygen XML Editor.

To gain more editing space in the Oxygen XML Editor window, click Toggle auto-hide in any view. This button sets the view in the auto-hide state, making it visible only as a vertical tab, at the margins of the Oxygen XML Editor window. To display a view in the auto-hide state, hover its side-tab with your cursor, or click it to keep the view visible until you click elsewhere. A view can also be set to a floating state, making it independent from the rest of the Oxygen XML Editor window.

You can drag the editors and arrange them in any order you like, both horizontally and vertically.

The next figure presents two editors arranged as horizontal tiles. To arrange them vertically, drag one of them on top of the other. In the example below, the personal.xml file was dragged over the personal-schema.xml file. When doing this, a dark grey rectangle marks the rearranged layout.

Figure: Drag and Drop Editors

You can also tile or stack all open editors, both in the Editor Perspective or in the Database Perspective, using the following actions from the Editor toolbar or Window menu:

Tile Editors Horizontally: Splits the editing area into horizontal tiles, one for each open file.
Tile Editors Vertically: Splits the editing area into vertical tiles, one for each open file.
Stack Editors: The reverse of the Tile Editors Horizontally/Vertically actions. Stacks all open editors.

Note: When tiled, you can still drag and drop the editors, but note that they are docked in the same way as a window/view (instead of just tabs). You are actually rearranging the editor windows, so drag the editor tab and drop it to one of the sides of an editor (left/right/top/bottom). While dragging, you will see the grey dark rectangle aligned to one of the sides of the editor, or around the entire editor window. If you drop it to one of the sides it will dock to that side of the editor. If you drop it when the rectangle is around the entire window of the editor it will get stacked on top of that editor. You can also grab one of the stacked editors and tile it to one of the sides.

To scroll through the tiled editors in the same time, enable the Synchronous scrolling action.

You can divide the editing area vertically and horizontally using the following actions available in the Editor toolbar and Window menu:

Split horizontally
Split vertically
Unsplit

To maximize or restore the editors, go to Window > Maximize/Restore Editor Area.

When the opened documents titles do not fit in the tab strip, the scroll wheel can be used to scroll the editor title tabs to the left or right the same way the two arrows on the right are acting. The following shortcuts can be used to switch between edited files: Ctrl F6 (Command F6 on OS X) and Ctrl Shift F6 (Command Shift F6 on OS X). These shortcuts display a small popup window that cycles through all opened files.

The default layout of any of the Editor Perspectives, XSLT Debugger Perspective and XQuery Debugger Perspective can be restored at any time with the Reset Layout action found in the Window menu.

Any Oxygen XML Editor view or toolbar can be opened at any time from the Window > Show View and Window > Show Toolbar menus. The current (focused) dockable view is made invisible (switched to hidden state) using the Ctrl Shift F4 (Command Shift F4 on OS X) shortcut. The users who prefer to use the keyboard instead of the mouse may find this shortcut to be a faster way of closing a view than clicking the Close button from the title bar of the view. The complementary action (opening a view with a shortcut) requires setting a custom shortcut for each view in the Menu Shortcut Keys preferences.

To watch our video demonstration about dockable and floating views and editors in Oxygen XML Editor, go to http://oxygenxml.com/demo/Dockable_Views.html.