Docking/MDI vNext - Limiting Floating Window Size

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, October 1, 2015 at 4:21pm

PostBannerWPFControlsDevNotes

As mentioned in this previous post, we've been looking for ideas to further improve our WPF Docking/MDI product, which already is the market leader for docking tool window and MDI functionality.  We've committed to working on a complete internal restructuring of the product that we will call Docking/MDI vNext.  We're doing our best to keep the same general API surface, while providing even more advanced features in every area of the product.  We've collected suggestions from our customers over the past several years and are working to meet them as best we can with Docking/MDI vNext.

In today's post, we'll show a new feature coming in Docking/MDI vNext that lets you limit floating window sizes.

Feature Description

Let's first have a look at a typical docking window layout here, where we have several tabbed documents that take up much of the screen real estate.

DockingFloatingWindow1

What happens when you drag to float a document, or float it via its context menu, is that you normally get a floating window of the same size.  You can see this in the next screenshot, where much of the entire dock site is now covered by the floating window.

DockingFloatingWindow2

While apps like Visual Studio do this, we've added the ability for you to limit how large you want the floating window to be.  In this last screenshot, we've handled a new dock site event that lets us customize the floating window size before it's displayed.  We've limited its size to a maximum of 600x300 and the result is this appearance when the document is floated:

DockingFloatingWindow3

We personally like this feature because the document is still a decent size but doesn't obscure everything behind it.

Summary

The feature described above is completely optional.  By default, everything will work as in the second screenshot when you float a large document.  But by handling the new event and applying some size-limiting logic in it, you can easily get results like in the last screenshot.

Docking/MDI vNext is currently near the end of its code development stages.  Please contact us via email if you are an existing customer and would like to sign up as a beta tester for vNext.  If you have any other suggestions for improving Docking/MDI, now is the time to get them in.  We'll post more updates on our vNext improvements soon.

In the meantime, please download our current Docking/MDI control product and give it a spin.

TaskDownload TaskLiveDemo TaskBuyNow

Tags: wpf, docking

Actipro's WPF Controls

Over 100 UI controls for building beautiful Windows Presentation Foundation desktop apps.

Learn More

Over 100 UI controls for building beautiful Windows Presentation Foundation desktop apps.

Includes editors, docking windows, MDI, property grids, charts, tree controls, ribbons, gauges, themes, and much more.

Learn More Download Free Trial

Add Comment

Please log in to a validated account to post comments.