Sometimes we forget some of the basics. Had a customer ask if you can maximize the code editor Window in RAD Studio and edit two files side-by-side. I’d heard someone talk about this a while ago, but I couldn’t remember the details.
There is an option in Tools / Options / Editor Options / Display that allows a code window to Zoom to full screen.
Then right click in the code window you want full screen, bringing up the View Menu, and choose New Window
With Windows 7 or Windows 8, just drag this new code window to the left or right edge of the screen and it automatically gets tiled nicely.
12 replies on “Maximized Side-by-Side Code Editing”
Does Delphi XE* support multiple desktops with the Visual Designer in one window and the code in another? I’m still in XE2 and I don’t believe it’s supported.
Not directly, but if you open the same project in two instances you can. Although then you need to save and reload changes when you move between files.
That would certainly be true with the Embedded Designer, but what about the Floating Designer?
Delphi supported the floating designer not so long ago. It has been suppressed since FireMonkey is here. Embarcadero said it FireMonkey form designer doesn’t work floating so they just suppressed it.This really a pity. Working with a floating designer is really a must, specially if you have dual screen. I hope floating designer will come again soon (XE6)? By the way, there is a registry key to turn it on. I always do it when programming VCL. Unfortunately this corrupt TFrame size.
I needed edit one file in two windows so I wrote Dual File View – http://runbits.com/dual-fileview.aspx for my use.
Removing the floating designer to be able to have the form on one monitor and code on another is the worst step backwards in developer productivity. Thankfully, with VCL projects, you can still hack the registry to enable, then disable when going to FM projects.
The IDE team really needs to bring this back and either enable/disable on the fly when opening a VCL or FM project or enable floating designers with FM projects.
For those who say “well Visual Studio” doesn’t let you… Ok. Then I may as well dump Delphi and go Oxygene or C#, because Visual Studio isn’t necessarily the best IDE either.
@Radek Delphi IDE had almost always be able to display many (not only two) code editor windows showing the same file. This feature has been removed along with floating form designer. You can still open two editor windows, but each with a different file.
press the windows button (between the ctrl and alt) and the right arrow to fit to right, same thing with the left arrow.
Unfortunatelly the layout constantely breaks switching between debug and design layout.
It is definitely a retrograde step to remove the ability to have multiple windows open into the same file. (I found this thread while searching for a solution to that.) Now I have to use a second programming editor to do what the Delphi IDE used to do perfectly well in the past. Obviously, any serious application designer needs the ability to float design windows across one or more monitors. All advanced design applications (Photoshop etc.) lets you move the toolboxes around to suit what you are doing.
Thankfully Embarcadero has done a lot of good work with Delphi since they took it on, so I am optimistic that the shortcomings will eventually be rectified. Is there a formal case opened with them in their bug/feature tracking system?
Hi Jim, no related to your post, can you tell me which software are you using to crop the images?
I use an older version of Snagit which includes some great features for cropping images like that.