Forms

PDMS allows the user to choose where to put a form by using the mouse to drag it to a new position. The following options are available:

• Floating on its own, in which case it can be resized to any size.

• Attached to any side of the main application window.

• Attached to any side of another form that is already docked.

• Attached in the same place as another docked form; tabs are used to switch between the forms.

• AutoHide support, to maintain an uncluttered screen.

To undock a form (that means, floating), select the title bar and drag it to a new position within the application window.

To dock a form that is floating, or to re-locate a docked form to another side of the application window, select and drag the title bar of the form. As the form is dragged the Docking Tool will be displayed:

The Docking Tool indicates the positions where the form can be docked. While still holding down the left mouse button, as the mouse pointer is moved over one of the allowable positions, a translucent coloured rectangle is drawn to show the eventual position of the form when the mouse button is released.

When moving the mouse pointer over a window that is already docked, the same Docking Tool is displayed to allow docking on any side of that window:

If the mouse button is released while the mouse pointer is over the central part of the Docking Tool, the form will be attached to the first one, with the same size and position. Each form that is attached in this way will have a tab located at the bottom of the combined form, to allow switching between the forms.

The figure below shows the Design Explorer from being docked in this way to the My Data form:

When docking is complete, the display will be as shown below:

The tabbed form can be positioned and docked as for a normal (untabbed) form.

An AutoHide function is available for docked forms (including tabbed forms as described above). To save space on the screen, a docked form can be unpinned (hidden) by clicking the AutoHide icon on the title bar. The form is replaced by a tab, as shown below:

When the tab is clicked the form is displayed again.