Did you know? #37 - Additional Windows

If you open DMXControl 3 for the first time, you will see the standard window layout, as you know DMXControl 3 from many pictures and also from our tutorial videos.

But this does not mean that you cannot adapt DMXControl 3 to your own needs. One core element of the surface of DMXControl 3 is the flexible window management. You can arrange the window modules individually to your needs. If you need a small Stage View and a big Softdesk for it: no problem. If you need to display some scene lists and the Softdesk but the Stage View not at all: also no problem.

To do this, simply grab the title bar of a window module with the mouse (hold down the left mouse button) and move it. Now on the one hand a preview of the dragged window module is displayed and on the other hand a docking cross appears at a possible target position. With the help of this docking cross you can now dock the dragged window module at a place in the surface according to your own wishes. To do this, hover over one of the buttons of the docking cross with the mouse still pressed. The preview of the window module will then be updated accordingly. If you now release the left mouse button, the window module will be docked.

But the docking in DMXControl 3 can do even more, because now comes the exciting part in multi-monitor operation: It is also possible to undock window modules completely and move them into a separate window. This window can then be dragged to a second screen. With this feature, you can, for example, place a softdesk on the second screen in order to keep an overview of e.g. the Stage View on the main monitor. Docking even works within this separate window. Thus, it is not necessary to create several separate windows for each window module. You can simply drag and dock additional window modules into a created window.

But with the standard settings of DMXControl 3 a small problem can appear (whose explanation was also the basic intention of this news): A so undocked window cannot be maximized or minimized. The window has only the button to close it in the window title bar (see lower picture on the left). The buttons known from other programs or from the main window of DMXControl 3 to minimize and maximize are missing. However, DMXControl 3 would not be DMXControl 3, if there would not be a setting for this . For this simply go into the settings of DMXControl 3 and open the GUI area. In these settings the mentioned option is directly at the first place with the designation "Show Taskbar Icon for Floating Windows".

By default, this option is set to "No". Setting this to "Yes" has two effects. On the one hand, as the text of the option describes, a separate entry is now displayed in the Windows taskbar for each window. On the other hand, this also has the effect that an undocked window now gets the buttons for minimizing and maximizing (see upper picture on the right). So you can now easily maximize corresponding windows to the full screen size. With the F12 key even the main window of DMXControl 3 can be enlarged a little bit more. With this you can hide the upper window bar and thus really use the whole screen area for DMXControl 3.

Your DMXControl-Team