[](https://github.com/githubuser0xFFFF/Qt-Advanced-Docking-System/releases/latest)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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:
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:
- 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:
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.
