I've always liked having multiple windows open at once, or the ability to view and edit different files without having to switch windows or workspaces. This preference was amplified to a need once I started reading the OpenSolaris code. I've been using jEdit for years now, mainly because it allows you to split as many screens as you want, but also because of the various plugins you can find for it. It's also a good excuse to keep my Java from getting too rusted, tho you only need it if you're looking at the source. Here's a snapshot of my usual coding environment:
Hopefully I didn't shrink the image too much, but you should be able to see the tabbed editor and a big drop down box at the top to switch between projects. Both the tabbed view and the project features are plugins. I used to resize the window across a dual head setup when I had two monitors, having 10+ simultaneous views of different files speeds things up very nicely. Another cool feature is that you can have N views of the same file.
I also tend to have several Firefox instances open, and used to resize these to fit in one workspace. But yesterday I ran into the Split Browser add-on. It's been around for a while, so no big news here. It certainly can be improved, but it's been saving me lots of time lately. Check it out.
Let me know if you know of a good editor/browser/.. with split view-like features. Always interested in it.
