Lazarus is basically a Delphi 2 clone. Delphi ditched the multiple floating windows design starting in version 3 and every subsequent version has been the more traditional "MDI" design similar to Visual Studio. I really like that Lazarus kept the floating window design because it's nice to be able to see your desktop, the wallpaper is more pleasant than whatever solid color background is on the MDI client, and you can access tools and things by just clicking through to your desktop icons. Lazarus is like the best version of Delphi frozen in time.

The floating windows were still very much present in Delphi 7, my preferred arrangement [0]. D7 was the last "good" version before the .NET era. Actually I remember the buzz around Lazarus and Free Pascal really growing when the .NET versions of Delphi came out. So I think its fair to say Lazarus took plenty of influence from versions later than D2.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/gHQR6aH.png

oh dang I used D7 for years and didn't know you could configure it into this mode. I would've preferred it at the time.

I'd say clearly Lazarus is tracking the best of Delphi, not just version 2 from 1995.

It's been years since I worked in Delphi regularly, but I still have it installed and have been looking around in it this evening for the first time in a long while. Right now I can't find the option to change from this to a single-window mode, but I'm not sure there is one.

I think the trick is to just not run it maximized, then undock the various parts from the main editor window. Then once you have things resized and placed where you want, you save it as a Desktop layout. I don't know how far back that feature goes.

I would have to reinstall it from scratch somewhere to see how it looks by default. I really want to do this and dare say I even intend to! I may even have D5 and D3 somewhere in a box too, but now I'm approaching self-promise overload!!

Here it is maximized and docked. Is that something like what you remember?

http://i.imgur.com/aeTYPjb.png

it's a real blur but I do recall doing the unmaximize and undock stuff to get things looking just right. I distinctly recall no longer being able to do that in some version.. I thought it was 5 but you've proven me wrong. maybe D2005?

I'm pretty sure that was the default mode, I never knew you could not have windowed mode.

Agreed, it seems that the odd-numbered Delphi versions were the best.... 3, 5, 7. 7 was my main environment for years.

Those are the versions I had. It seemed to parallel the odd numbered Windows versions too, or at least that every other version was decent.

Ah, but you only see the desktop if you have no windows other than Delphi. The moment you do, those windows start getting in the way and distracting with their content.

This isn't true, Delphi 4 definitely had the multiple windows setup

But you could disable it. The multi-window thing was something Delphi lifted directly from Visual Basic, and even VB dropped it (well, more like it got swallowed by VB.NET and Visual Studio.)

With monitors getting bigger we can abandon the multi window way and embrace something better, but surely not MDI which to me is even worse. Tiling is the answer: a giant single window containing the entire application, and a layout definition stating what section appears where and at what size (read: area percentage). Options to maximize the active area can be implemented, but the goal should be freeing the user from being forced to find and move windows from below other windows or partially gone out of the screen.

I think Visual Studio has the right idea with being primarily MDI but then all of the various windows can detach and float to other screens and wherever. I think if Windows would just render your desktop background on the MDI background instead of a solid color that would be a nice system setting.

I think maybe Delphi 5 was the first version where it stopped even being an option. I remember 3 was MDI and I'm surprised I never bothered looking for the option to switch it back.

I do have two monitors and understand multi-window mode has it's uses, but for any person who used to [name standard IDE] it's frustrating first impression. It's basically gives false sense of complexity to the tech that actually easy to use.