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I would like to make Drag and Dock work as well in my applications as it does in the Delphi IDE (i.e. being able to drag around the Object Inspector / Structure View and Dock them at suitable sites). I've had pretty good success with docking forms into a PageControl, but was wondering if anyone knows how to get it to work with the the little close buttons and pins and so on.

I'd also be interested to know what components the Delphi IDE uses to achieve this.

The reason for my question is I want to make much more advanced videos on how to do this, the two that I have done previously are here and here.

Warren P
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Alister
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    possible duplicate of [How to make dockable forms like in IDE?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1274968/how-to-make-dockable-forms-like-in-ide) – Ken White Feb 16 '12 at 22:34
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    Alister's question is clear and understable, but the duplicate link posted by Ken is asking a bunch of unrelated tiny trivia questions. It seems to be asking some nuanced tiny detail, unlike its subject. I think this question is much better written. If this one gets closed I'll be editing the original as it's full of noise. – Warren P Feb 16 '12 at 22:41
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    @WarrenP: Not to mention the superior answers that this question has! ;) – Andreas Rejbrand Feb 16 '12 at 22:43
  • Well the answers are great on the linked duplicate, just not the question itself. – Warren P Feb 16 '12 at 22:43
  • I surprised I didn't find the duplicate (well, I guess technically its the original), well spotted Ken. – Alister Feb 16 '12 at 22:52
  • @WarrenP, that was my point in showing the duplicate. The answers to that one work for this one also, and a duplicate is a duplicate. :) Alister, thanks. :) – Ken White Feb 16 '12 at 22:58
  • Totally agree Ken. If this should be closed, then the original question could easily be edited and fixed, and I'm not fussed either way. – Warren P Feb 16 '12 at 23:00
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    see this article http://edn.embarcadero.com/article/33446 – Vibeeshan Mahadeva Feb 17 '12 at 03:02
  • The download link in the article above doesn't work, but if you search on CodeCentral you can find it. I've linked the download in my answer. – Warren P Feb 17 '12 at 14:16
  • I've edited the title and reorganized the question at the linked question pointed to by Ken. – Warren P Feb 18 '12 at 00:06

1 Answers1

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You can use JVCL JvDocking components to drag and dock, in almost any version of Delphi. It's free and open source. The style with pins and close buttons is available using a docking style called the VID (visual interdev) style, that comes with JvDocking.

enter image description here

There are already a bunch of commercial alternatives also, and there is some support built into Delphi, which I find insufficient for my needs. While the Delphi IDE has its own internal docking library, tab support is very limited, slow, and in my subjective opinion, broken.

However, even on ancient delphi versions, Delphi 7 and up, JvDocking, provides all the functionality that the VCL's docking provides, plus more, so there's no problem ignoring the built in VCL functionality, which is to docking as TStringGrid is to real Grids.

Steps with JvDocking:

  1. Drop dock server and dock style object on main (host form) and connect them.
  2. Drop dock client component on the client (form to be docked) and connect it to the dockstyle.
  3. Configure properties of dock server.
  4. Run app. Have it create a form. Now drag the client form to an area that is made dockable by the dock server. Watch it dock nicely.

For docking in code demos see the JvDocking demos in the JVCL Examples folder.

Update

Or you can use what is built into the Delphi VCL since XE and XE2. XE and XE2 include a docking demo project named dockex.dpr.

On Win7/Vista the demo is located at:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\RAD Studio\9.0\Samples\Delphi\VCL\Docking

Look here for the demo on Win XP:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\RAD Studio\9.0\Samples\Delphi\VCL\Docking

You should also check out the documentation for TDockTabSet in the VCL, and the EDN article linked in the comments, which has source code you can download here. In my humble opinion, the Jedi JvDocking stuff is more professional and slick than the Docking Demo that ships with Delphi, but the built in stuff has the advantage of working without installing anything additional. I just tried the DockTabSet demo and the built in docking demos, and they are slow, and the painting is ugly and flickers. JvDocking looks professional. It's your call.

Warren P
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  • Nice answer, but doesn't `TDockTabSet` provide the tabbed docking and "grabber bar" now? (Actually, I think it provides all that you mention as "missing", or am *I* missing something? (Pun intended )). – Ken White Feb 16 '12 at 23:34
  • I have tried TDockTabSet and the built in VCL dockex demo, and my frank opinion is that they're glitchy, ugly and that they need a lot of work before I would put them in my own apps. Also, I can't seem to get them to do an actual "Tabset" docking. The demos claim to show that but don't. I can get two floating windows to dock to a floating tabset, but I can't get tabs like they do with tabset docks in the IDE. – Warren P Feb 17 '12 at 14:23