[](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/releases/latest)
### Perspectives for fast switching of the complete main window layout
A perspective defines the set and layout of dock windows in the main
window. You can save the current layout of the dockmanager into a named
perspective to make your own custom perspective. Later you can simply
select a perspective from the perspective list to quickly switch the complete
main window layout.
### Opaque and non-opaque splitter resizing
The advanced docking system uses standard QSplitters as resize separators and thus supports opaque and non-opaque resizing functionality of QSplitter. In some rare cases, for very complex widgets or on slow machines resizing via separator on the fly may cause flicking and glaring of rendered content inside a widget. The global dock manager flag `OpaqueSplitterResize` configures the resizing behaviour of the splitters. If this flag is set, then widgets are resized dynamically (opaquely) while interactively moving the splitters.
If this flag is cleared, the widget resizing is deferred until the mouse button is released - this is some kind of lazy resizing separator.
By default, opaque undocking is active. That means, as soon as you drag a dock widget or a dock area with a number of dock widgets it will be undocked and moved into a floating widget and then the floating widget will be dragged around. That means undocking will take place immediately. You can compare this with opaque splitter resizing. If the flag `OpaqueUndocking` is cleared, then non-opaque undocking is active. In this mode, undocking is more like a standard drag and drop operation. That means, the dragged dock widget or dock area is not undocked immediately. Instead, a drag preview widget is created and dragged around to indicate the future position of the dock widget or dock area. The actual dock operation is only executed when the mouse button is released. That makes it possible, to cancel an active drag operation with the escape key.
The drag preview widget can be configured by a number of global dock manager flags:
-`DragPreviewIsDynamic`: if this flag is enabled, the preview will be adjusted dynamically to the drop area
-`DragPreviewShowsContentPixmap`: the created drag preview window shows a static copy of the content of the dock widget / dock are that is dragged
-`DragPreviewHasWindowFrame`: this flag configures if the drag preview is frameless like a QRubberBand or looks like a real window
The best way to test non-opaque undocking is to set the standard flags: `CDockManager::setConfigFlags(CDockManager::DefaultNonOpaqueConfig)`.
### Tab-menu for easy handling of many tabbed dock widgets
Tabs are a good way to quickly switch between dockwidgets in a dockarea. However, if the number of dockwidgets in a dockarea is too large, this may affect the usability of the tab bar. To keep track in this situation, you can use the tab menu. The menu allows you to quickly select the dockwidget you want to activate from a drop down menu.
### Many different ways to detach dock widgets
You can detach dock widgets and also dock areas in the following ways:
- by dragging the dock widget tab or the dock area title bar
- by double clicking the tab or title bar
- by using the detach menu entry from the tab and title bar drop down menu
### Supports deletion of dynamically created dock widgets
Normally clicking the close button of a dock widget will just hide the widget and the user can show it again using the toggleView() action of the dock widget. This is meant for user interfaces with a static amount of widgets. But the advanced docking system also supports dynamic dock widgets that will get deleted on close. If you set the dock widget flag `DockWidgetDeleteOnClose` for a certain dock widget, then it will be deleted as soon as you close this dock widget. This enables the implementation of user interfaces with dynamically created editors, like in word processing applications or source code development tools.
### Auto-Hide Functionality
The 4.0 release of ADS added the new **Auto-Hide** feature. Thanks to the
[initial contribution](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/pull/452) by [Ahmad Syarifuddin](https://github.com/SyarifFakhri) it was
possible to close this long standing [feature request](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/issues/147). The "Auto Hide" feature
allows to display more information using less screen space by hiding or showing
windows pinned to one of the four dock container borders.
The Advanced Docking
System supports "Auto-Hide" functionality for **all** dock containers - that means,
for the main window and for each floating widget. Here is short list of all
auto hide features:
- supported for the main window and all floating dock containers
- supports showing and hiding via mouse click or mouse hover
- respects opaque / non opaque splitter resizing flag
- context menu for pinning a dock widget or a complete dock area to a certain border
- configuration option to configure if the pin button should pin the current
dock widget tab or a complete dock area
- click the pin button holding the Ctrl key to pin a complete dock area
- fully CSS styleable
- backward compatible state file format - is is possible to load older dock manager
state files without auto hide support and older versions can load the new state
files with Auto-Hide state information
More about the auto hide configuration options in the [online documentation...](doc/user-guide.md#auto-hide-configuration-flags)
## Python Bindings
Thanks to the contribution of several users, the Advanced Docking System comes
with a complete Python integration. Python bindings are available for **PyQt5** and
**PySide6**.
### PySide6
A PySide6 ADS package is available via PyPi and can be installed on Windows,
macOS, and Linux with:
```bash
pip install PySide6-QtAds
```
Sample code is available [here](https://github.com/mborgerson/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/tree/pyside6/examples). To run the samples, you'll also need to install latest qtpy
from source (pip install https://github.com/spyder-ide/qtpy/archive/refs/heads/master.zip).
The PySide6 bindings were contributed by:
- [mborgerson](https://github.com/mborgerson)
For more information about the PySide6 bindings read [this](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/issues/298) issue.
### PyQt5
A package is available via [conda-forge](https://github.com/conda-forge/pyqtads-feedstock).
The python integration has been contributed to this project by the following people:
- [n-elie](https://github.com/n-elie)
- [Hugo Slepicka](https://github.com/hhslepicka)
- [K Lauer](https://github.com/klauer)
A Python integration is also available via PyPi. You can install the
[PyQtAds](https://pypi.org/project/PyQtAds/) package via pip. This feature has been
contributed to this project by:
- [Mira Weller](https://github.com/luelista)
## Tested Compatible Environments
### Supported Qt Versions
The library supports **Qt5** and **Qt6**.
### Windows
Windows 10 [](https://ci.appveyor.com/project/githubuser0xFFFF/qt-advanced-docking-system/branch/master)
The library was developed on and for Windows. It is used in a commercial Windows application and is therefore constantly tested.
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a Linux operating system. Linux is a heterogeneous environment with a variety of different distributions. So it is not possible to support "Linux" like this is possible for Windows. It is only possible to support and test a small subset of Linux distributions. The library can be compiled for and has been developed and tested with the following Linux distributions:
- **Kubuntu 18.04 and 19.10**
- **Ubuntu 18.04, 19.10 and 20.04**
There are some requirements for the Linux distribution that have to be met:
- an X server that supports ARGB visuals and a compositing window manager. This is required to display the translucent dock overlays ([https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qwidget.html#creating-translucent-windows](https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qwidget.html#creating-translucent-windows)). If your Linux distribution does not support this, or if you disable this feature, you will very likely see issue [#95](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/issues/95).
- Wayland is not properly supported by Qt yet. If you use Wayland, then you should set the session type to x11: `XDG_SESSION_TYPE=x11 ./AdvancedDockingSystemDemo`. You will find more details about this in issue [#288](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/issues/288).
Screenshot Kubuntu:
Screenshot Ubuntu:
## Build
The Linux build requires private header files. Make sure that they are installed:
```bash
sudo apt install qtbase5-private-dev
```
Open the `ads.pro` file with QtCreator and start the build, that's it.
You can run the demo project and test it yourself.
## Getting started / Example
The following example shows the minimum code required to use the advanced Qt docking system.
*MainWindow.h*
```cpp
#include <QMainWindow>
#include "DockManager.h"
namespace Ui {
class MainWindow;
}
class MainWindow : public QMainWindow
{
Q_OBJECT
public:
explicit MainWindow(QWidget *parent = 0);
~MainWindow();
private:
Ui::MainWindow *ui;
// The main container for docking
ads::CDockManager* m_DockManager;
};
```
*MainWindow.cpp*
```cpp
#include "MainWindow.h"
#include "ui_MainWindow.h"
#include <QLabel>
MainWindow::MainWindow(QWidget *parent) :
QMainWindow(parent),
ui(new Ui::MainWindow)
{
ui->setupUi(this);
// Create the dock manager after the ui is setup. Because the
// parent parameter is a QMainWindow the dock manager registers
// itself as the central widget as such the ui must be set up first.
m_DockManager = new ads::CDockManager(this);
// Create example content label - this can be any application specific
// widget
QLabel* l = new QLabel();
l->setWordWrap(true);
l->setAlignment(Qt::AlignTop | Qt::AlignLeft);
l->setText("Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. ");
// Create a dock widget with the title Label 1 and set the created label
// as the dock widget content
ads::CDockWidget* DockWidget = new ads::CDockWidget("Label 1");
DockWidget->setWidget(l);
// Add the toggleViewAction of the dock widget to the menu to give
// the user the possibility to show the dock widget if it has been closed
Taken from the [Qt Blog](https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-design-studio-1.5-beta-released):
> The most obvious change in [Qt Design Studio 1.5](https://www.qt.io/blog/qt-design-studio-1.5-beta-released) is the integration of dock widgets using the Qt Advanced Docking System. This allows the user to fully customize the workspace and also to undock any view into its own top level window. This especially improves the usability when using multiple screens.
The CETONI Elements software from [CETONI](https://www.cetoni.com) is a comprehensive,
plugin-based and modular laboratory automation software for controlling CETONI devices using a joint graphical user interface. The software features a powerful script system to automate processes. The software uses the advanced docking system to give the user the freedom to arrange all the views and windows that are provided by the various plugins.
D-Tect X is a X-ray inspection software for industrial radiography. It is a state-of-the-art 64-bit application which supports GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) acceleration and takes full advantage of computers with multiple CPU cores. A large set of tools assist the user in image analysis and evaluation. Thanks to the Qt Advanced Docking System the flexible and intuitive user interface can be completely customized to each user’s preference.
Protocol Reverse Engineering Workbench is a software to support researchers in reverse engineering protocols and documenting the results. It supports various sources to import protocol traffic from, helps the discovery process by displaying different views and heuristic-based highlighting on data, and aids in documenting and sharing findings.
PRE Workbench is a Python software and uses the ADS PyQt integration.
If this Qt Advanced Docking System does not fit to your needs you may consider some of the alternative docking system solutions for Qt.
### KDDockWidgets
This is an advanced docking framework for Qt from [KDAB](https://www.kdab.com/). The interesting thing is, that they separated GUI code from logic, so they can easily provide a QtQuick backend in the future.
- [Blog post about KDDockWidgets](https://www.kdab.com/kddockwidgets/)
**License:** dual-licensed, available under both commercial and GPL license.
### QtitanDocking
This is a commercial component from [Developer Machines](https://www.devmachines.com/) for Qt Framework that allows to create a Microsoft like dockable user interface. They also offer a lot of other interesting and useful components for Qt. The library is available
DockingPanes is a library for Qt Widgets that implements docking windows that have the look and feel of Visual Studio. It provides a simple API which allows an application to make use of docking windows with a few calls.
