IDM PowerTips

Drag-N-Drop Split Pane Editing… Vertical/Horizontal Split Window

The horizontal/vertical split feature may not sound like one of the “must have” feature, but when you need a quick and easy way to edit your files side-by-side you certainly can’t live without it. This is a convenient feature when you’re manually comparing files, when you want to copy/paste between multiple files, or when you simply want to divide up your edit space.

Note: In order to use the vertical/horizontal split window, you need to make the tabs “Undockable”. You can change this configuration setting in Advanced : Configuration : Application Layout : File Tabs : Operation by unchecking the “Dockable” tabs option.

Vertical Split

Splitting the window vertically is as easy as a drag and drop. To split the window vertically, simply click on an open file tab, and drag it into the editor. As you drag the tab down toward the editor, you should see the cursor change to include a “page” on the mouse arrow.

When you release the mouse, you’ll see the window has been split vertically.

As you might expect, you can resize the edit area for both “panes” by dragging the middle divider bar.

If splitting the edit pane once isn’t enough, simply repeat the process and split it again – giving you 3 edit panes!

To restore the edit space to the original (single) pane, simply drag the file tab back to the 1st edit pane.

Horizontal Split

To split the window horizontally, you follow the same process (drag the open file tab into the editor. However, in order to split the window horizontally, you must drag the file tab down to the bottom of the editor and touch the horizontal scroll bar.

When the mouse is positioned on the horizontal scroll bar, you will see a faint rectangle drawn around the editor.

The window will split horizontally when you release the mouse.