What’s New in AutomatedDocking Library 1.5

Version 1.5 introduces the support of the auto-hiding feature. Using it you can make your applications look like Visual Studio .NET IDE, even more than it was before!

Borland Delphi 2005 for Win32 (VCL) and Borland C++Builder 6 are supported now.

The caption menu includes new buttons: AutoHide, Undo Auto-Hide, Menu.

Three new standard actions have been added: idactAutoHide, idactUndoAutoHide and idactMenu.

The behavior of floating panels has been changed. Now when the FloatingFormOnTop property of the docking manager is False, the floating panels do not go behind the application's main form.

When storing the docking layout to a file or the Registry, the docking manager can now save the name of the active docking control as well (the TaqDockingStoreOptions type includes a new value - dsoActiveDockingControl.

The procedure that exchanges tabbed pages within inside containers has been improved.

The TaqDockingManager class:

• AutoHideEnabled - Enables or disables the auto-hiding mode.
• AutoHideCaptions - Specifies the drawing settings for the captions of the auto-hidden panels.
• AutoHideContainers - Specifies what container types support the auto-hiding mode.
• AutoHideStartAction - Specifies which user action (a click or a mouse movement) makes a hidden panel visible.
• AutoHideTabs - Controls the auto-hiding of panels docked as tabbed pages.
• AutoHideSpeed and AutoShowSpeed - Specify the speed of auto-hiding and auto-showing.
• AutoHideInterval - Specifies the time interval that passes after the user commanded a hidden panel to pop up and before the panel is shown.

The AutoHideButtons property of TaqCustomDockingManager has been renamed to ShowDisabledButtons.

The TaqCustomDockingControl class:

• AutoHide - Hides or shows a panel with the auto-hiding feature.
• AutoHideOrientation - Specifies the side of the docking control to which the caption of the hidden panel will be attached.
• PerformAutoHide - Hides a panel with the auto-hiding feature.
• RevertAutoHide - Shows a hidden panel.
• OnAutoHideChanging - This event occurs when a panel is about to be hidden or shown.
• OnAutoHideChanged - This event occurs after a panel was hidden or shown.

The TaqDockingSite class includes a new AllowAutoHide property that lets you specify to which sides of the docking site the captions of hidden panels can attach.

A new TaqHideZoneOrientation type has been added. It is used by methods and properties related to auto-hiding.

The docking style classes contain new methods and properties used to draw docking controls: ActiveHiddenTabColor, ActiveHiddenTabFont, HiddenTabColor, HiddenTabFont, HideZoneColor, DrawHideZone, etc.

The TaqDockButtonKind enumeration has been extended with three new members: dbkAutoHide, dbkUndoAutoHide and dbkMenu. They correspond to new caption buttons.

The TaqCaptionType enumeration type (used by the ShowImages property) has been extended with the ctHiddenTab value. It specifies whether the caption of auto-hidden panels holds images.

The TaqCaptionButtonImages class includes new properties that let you specify images for new buttons of the caption menu: AutoHideButton, UndoAutoHideButton and MenuButton.

A new style class, TaqOfficeXPUIStyle, is now available. It gives panels the Microsoft Office XP visual style.

The docking site has two new events - OnDock and OnUndock - that let you perform specific actions upon docking panels to and undocking them from the site.

The TaqCustomDockingManager class contains two new methods: SaveToXML and LoadFromXML. They let you save docking settings to and load them from XML files much easier.

The TaqDockButtonItem enumeration type has new members: dbiAutoHide and dbiMenu. The dbiDefault constant has been extended with two new values: dbiAutoHide and dbiMenu.

The type of the TaqCustomDockAction.OnExecute event has been changed. This lets you change the default operations of actions in a handy manner.

A new CaptionDblClickAction property of the TaqCustomDockingControl class lets you specify the action that will be performed upon double-clicking the caption of a docking control.

A new OnUpdateContainer event of the docking manager lets you perform specific actions when docking controls are docked to or undocked from containers.

The TaqCustomDockingControl.CanShowCaption method has been made virtual and now it can be overridden by descendant classes.

Two new values, cntInsideTop and cnInsideBottom, have been added to the TaqContainerTypes enumeration. So, the methods and properties that deal with containers now "can" distinguish subtypes of the containers of the inside type: inside containers with tab page captions at the top of the container and inside containers with tab page captions at the bottom of the container..

The SplitterHCursor and c properties of the TaqDockingManager class have been moved to TaqCustomDockingManager.

The second parameter of the TaqCustomDockingControl.MakeFloating method, ClientCoords, has been removed.

The parameter sets of the TaqDockingUIStyle.DoDrawTabItemContent and TaqDockingUIStyle.DoDrawTabItem methods and of the TaqDockingUIStyle.OnDrawTabItem event have been changed.

A number of bugs have been fixed.