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Currently, when a form is opened, the form window and editor overlap, which requires the user to tweak it - there is no chance that the default layout will suit any user. By opening the form window attached to the top, on most displays (from 1024x768 up) this would be a useful layout which the user would not have to tweak.
Ian, you mean to attach formdesigner to the top of desktop (similary as the outputwindow is attached to the bottom)? I think in this situation there will be not much space for editor. It is right that designer and editor are overlaped, but they have purposely different sizes to be able switching between them (specially in MDI mode where is not possible to switch through the taskbar). There is one problem with default focus on editor -> it should be on designer (when user opens the form) -> you can see #16273
Issue 16273 has been fixed (this means that form editor window is always opened on top, so it is better accessible after openenig, especially on MDI). Isn't this the same problem what you mean by this issue? I don't see overlapping windows to be a big problem. You can easily switch between them, and there's no extra need to see the form and the code at once (like it was important e.g. for the Object Browser). I'm afraid there is also not enough space on screen to place form window and editor window vertically - they both would suffer by this. It is still possible to arrange the windows according to personal preferences, but I don't think this layout is suitable as default. Any comments?
The mentioned issue #16273 was fixed, so I hope it solves problems that led to reporting this issue. If no other comments, I'm closing this as WONTFIX. ::: wontfix
Resolved for 3.3.x or earlier, no new info since then -> closing.