Introducing the IDEA editor - IntelliJ IDEA in Action - page 34

gives you more control over your screen real estate, but at the cost of covering up
parts of the interface with secondary windows.
Undocked mode isn't really a named mode; rather, it's the state of the window
when you have both docked mode and floating mode turned off. Like docked
mode, undocked mode features tool windows as part of the main window space,
and they extend and retract from the tool window bars. Undocked tool windows
don't alter the other windows in the IDE , however. Instead of pushing the other
windows over, resizing them to make room, undocked windows overlay the
remainder of the IDE , covering what's underneath.
In addition to these options, IDEA uses pinning mode to define the behavior of
the window when focus is shifted away. If a window is pinned, it remains when
focus is diverted elsewhere; if it isn't pinned, it disappears or retracts as soon as
focus leaves. This lets you, for example, keep the Project window docked, pinned,
and permanently visible while working in the editor, and yet have the Search
Results window pop up separately and disappear as soon as you select a result
from its list. When pinning mode is enabled, a pushpin icon appears. When the
pin appears horizontal, pinning mode is disabled, and the window will disappear
when you focus on another window. Alternatively, you can right-click the tool win-
dow bar icon or title bar of any active tool window to enable auto hide and other
window modes. Pinning mode is applicable to both docked and floating modes,
but not to undocked mode.

Accessing tool windows
The button's name and icon identify the tool window; for tool windows with
shortcut keys, the number identifies their key mnemonic, as listed in table 2.2.
Left-click the icon, select the window from the Window menu, or press Alt and
the tool window's number to access the tool window. When open, a tool window's
button is highlighted, alerting you that it's open even if it's obscured by other
windows. Some windows reveal themselves automatically in order to alert you to
new content. For example, when you're building an application, a message win-
dow—usually hidden from view—pops to life when a compilation error occurs.
To hide an active window, click its icon in the tool window bar or press its
shortcut. Alternatively, you can click the minimize window icon in its title bar or
use the Window | Hide Active Window command ( Shift+Escape ).

You can hide all the visible tool windows at once by pressing
Ctrl+Shift+F12 or selecting the Window | Hide All Tool Windows
command from the main menu.

TIP