[Qt-creator] Why QtC does not use QDockWidget for most tool-panel

[Murphy, Sean]

> 
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2016 at 8:00 PM, René J. V. <rjvbertin at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Either way, there is 1 kind of widget that I'd like to see as a dockable: the
> > one that now is a simple drop-down list containing the open files. I'd love to
> > be able to turn that into something that could take the form of a side-panel
> > showing a permanent view of the files open in the associated window - a
> view
> > that's show in addition to the project view (or whatever else that widget
> > shows). Let the entries show the file's full path, possibly with the project
> > they belong to when the mouse hovers over them, and you have what I'd
> think
> > would be a very useful, space-efficient (more so than tabs) and economical
> tool
> > to navigate quickly between files. Esp. if you can rearrange file order too.
> 
> hmm... This quite exactly describes the Open Documents pane.
> 
> Click the Split button in the left pane and choose Open Documents.
> 
> It's not dockable, and not reorderable, but apart from that it meets
> your requirements.

I'd argue that the combination of the Projects pane, the Open Documents pane, and
whatever the correct term is for the open documents pull-down menu above the coding
pane is a redundant use of screen real estate that could be better utilized if the functionality
of the Projects and Open Documents panes were rolled into one pane. What I have in 
mind is something like:
 - get rid of Open Documents pane, merging its functionality into Projects pane
 - change Projects pane to single left click opens document, I don't know why we need to 
    double click to open a file in a project we consider to be "open"
 - use some sort of visual indicator to show that a file is open, either bold the file name, 
    highlight background, etc. Alternatively, one could argue there's really no need to indicate 
    a file is open but unmodified.
 - keep the asterisk at the end to indicate that the file has been modified but not saved

At least in my normal use-case, I have the side panel split vertically about 2/3 for the Projects
pane and 1/3 for the Open Documents pane. As I work for a while, and get more open documents
I find that I end up having to scroll frequently in both panes to get to continue working, and with 
enough open files, it starts to become the same list, twice.

Sean