A docking layout is similar to an Eclipse "Perspective" in that it describes a set of dockable windows that are visible to the user at any given time, hiding the rest.

Various jEdit and plugin windows can be docked into the View for convenience. Dockable windows have a popup button in their top-left corner. Clicking this button displays a menu with commands for docking the window in one of four sides of the View.

On each side of the TextArea where there are docked windows, a strip of buttons is shown. There is a button for activating each docked window, as well as a close box and a popup menu button, which when clicked shows a menu for moving or undocking the currently selected window. The popup menu also contains a command for opening a new floating instance of the current window.

The commands in the View>Docking menu move keyboard focus between docking areas.

After you have customized the layout of your dockables and wish to save it for export/import, use the actions View - Docking - Save/Load Docking Layout.

It is possible to configure a Dockable layout for just one or a handful of edit modes. This makes it possible to save or load your dockable layout with the same keyboard shortcut (or automatically) based on the edit mode of your current buffer.

It is also possible to save/load a layout for a particular edit mode. The loading and saving can be done automatically, as configured in the global options docking pane when the mode of the buffer changes, or manually in response to invoking View - Docking - Save/Load Docking Layout for current mode.

Dockable windows can be further configured in the Docking pane of the Utilities>Global Options dialog box. See the section called “The Docking Pane” for details.