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| <title>Maximizing and minimizing</title> |
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| <h1>Maximizing and minimizing elements of the Eclipse presentation</h1> |
| |
| <p> |
| The eclipse presentation provides a rich environment consisting of (in its basic form) an |
| <i>Editor Area</i> (containing one or more stacks showing the open editors) surrounded by |
| one or more <i>View Stacks</i> (each containing one or more views).These various parts compete |
| for valuable screen real-estate and correctly managing the amount of screen given to each |
| can greatly enhance your productivity within the IDE. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| The two most common mechanisms for managing this issue are 'minimize' (i.e. make me use as |
| little space as possible) and 'maximize' (i.e. give me as much space as you can). The eclipse |
| presentation provides a variety of ways to access these operations:</p> |
| <ol> |
| <li>Using the minimize and maximize buttons provided on a stack's border</li> |
| <li>Double-clicking on a stack</li> |
| <li>Using 'Ctrl + M': this is a key binding for a command that will toggle the currently active |
| part between its 'maximized' and its 'restored' (i.e. normal) states.</li> |
| </ol> |
| |
| <P CLASS="Para"> |
| <img src="../images/minmaxOptions.png" alt="Access to the minimize and maximize operations" border="0" > |
| </P> |
| |
| <h4>Maximize:</h4> |
| <p> |
| It is desirable at times to focus your attention on one particular part to the exclusion of |
| the others. The most popular candidate for this is, of course, maximizing the editor area in |
| order to make as much of the display available for editing as possible (but there are workflows |
| where it would make sense to focus on a view as well). |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| As of 3.3 the default presentation implements the maximize behavior by minimizing all stacks |
| <i>except</i> the one being maximized. This allows the maximized stack to completely occupy |
| the main presentation while still allowing access any open views in your perspective by using |
| the icons in their <i>Trim Stack</i> (the area around the edges of the window is called the 'trim'). |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| Also in 3.3 the behavior for managing the editor maximization has been changed to operate on |
| the complete Editor Area (rather than simply maximizing the particular Editor Stack as is the |
| case in the 3.0 and 2.1 presentations). This allows for 'compare' workflows which require the |
| ability to see both files in a split editor area at the same time. |
| </p> |
| |
| <h4>Minimize:</h4> |
| <p> |
| Another way to optimize the use of the screen area is to directly minimize stacks that are of no current |
| interest. As of 3.3 the default presentation minimizing a stack will cause it to be moved into |
| the trim area at the edges of the workbench window, creating a <i>Trim Stack</i>. View Stacks |
| get minimized into a trim representation that contains the icons for each view in the stack. |
| </p> |
| |
| <P CLASS="Para"> |
| <img src="../images/TrimStack.png" alt="Trim representation of a View Stack" border="0" > |
| </P> |
| <p> |
| The minimize behavior for the Editor Area is somewhat different; minimizing the Editor Area |
| results in a trim stack containing only a placeholder icon representing the entire editor area |
| rather than icons for each open editor (since in most cases all the icons would be the same, making |
| them essentially useless). |
| </p> |
| <P CLASS="Para"> |
| <img src="../images/EATrim.png" alt="Trim representation of the Editor Area" border="0" > |
| </P> |
| <p> |
| If your particular workflow is such that you need to have more than one element (i.e. having the |
| Editor Area <i>and</i> a View Stack in the presentation at the same time) |
| you can still gain additional screen space by minimizing the stacks that aren't of current interest. |
| This will remove them from the main presentation and place them on the outer edge of the workbench |
| window as <i>Trim Stacks</i>, |
| allowing more space for the remaining stacks in the presentation. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| <b>Note:</b> There are two ways to end up with a stack in the trim:</p> |
| <ul> |
| <li>Directly minimizing the stack</li> |
| <li>As the result of another stack being maximized</li> |
| </ul> |
| |
| <p> |
| Depending on how the Trim Stack was created its behavior is different; when un-maximizing only those |
| trim stacks that were created during the initial maximize will be restored to the main presentation |
| while stacks that were independently minimized stay that way. |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| <b><i>Tip:</i></b> This difference is important in that it allows you fine grained control over the presentation. While |
| using maximize is a one-click operation it's an 'all or nothing' paradigm (i.e. no other stack is allowed |
| to share the presentation with a maximized stack). While adequate for most tasks you may find yourself wanting to |
| have the presentation show more than one stack. In these scenarios don't maximize; minimize all the other stacks <i>except</i> |
| the ones you want in the presentation. Once you have it set up you can still subsequently maximize the editor area but |
| the un-maximize will only restore the particular stack(s) that were sharing the presentation, not the ones you've |
| explicitly minimized. |
| </p> |
| <h4>Normal Presentation</h4> |
| <P CLASS="Para"> |
| <img src="../images/EANormal.png" alt="Normal Presentation" border="0" > |
| </p> |
| |
| <h4>Editor Area Maximized</h4> |
| <P CLASS="Para"> |
| <img src="../images/EAMaxed.png" alt="Editor Area Maximized" border="0" > |
| </p> |
| <p> |
| <img border="0" src="../images/ngrelt.png" alt="Related tasks" ><br> |
| <a href="qs-39.htm">Rearranging views and editors</a><br> |
| <a href="qs-39d.htm">Rearranging view</a><br> |
| <a href="qs-39e.htm">Tiling editors</a><br> |
| <a href="qs-39f.htm">Rearranging tabbed views</a><br> |
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