It is not necessary to close a toolpane before an action takes effect; it can be left open and available while you continue to work.

To open a specific toolpane, you select the command or toolbar icon for that task. You can open a toolpane from the Library or any document editor.

By default, toolpanes open in a docked, vertical or horizontal toolpane on the right side or bottom of the work area depending on the document editor/library that is active. The name of the toolpane appears in the toolpane's title bar. You can open a single toolpane or multiple toolpanes at the same time and resize and position them. The Developer remembers the arrangement and size of your toolpanes.

Note: The toolpane does not split when you enable a split layout. The information in the toolpane refers to the selection in the active layout.

By default, the appropriate toolpane appears based on the document editor or the Library that is active. For example, when you open the library or any document editor other than the Topic Editor, no toolpanes appear. However, when you open the Topic Editor, the Frame Properties toolpane appears on the right side of the screen and the Frame Structure and Sound toolpanes appear at the bottom of the screen. When you open another document editor, these toolpanes are removed from the screen. However, you can display any toolpane in any document editor or the Library by selecting the toolpane on the Toolpane menu. If you explicitly choose to display a toolpane in the Library or document editor, it will appear in any document editor that you open. For example, if you open the Properties toolpane in the Library or Outline Editor, it will appear in the Topic Editor (as a tab at the bottom of the default Topic Editor toolpanes).

Some toolpanes are designed to function with specific document editors. For example, the Frame Properties, Frame Link and Frame Structure toolpanes are designed to function in Topic Editor only. If you decide to display one of these toolpanes in a document editor other than the Topic Editor, it will not function and it appears blank or disabled.

You can restore all toolpane displays back to the installation defaults using the Restore Default Layout command on the View menu.

To open and close a toolpane:

1. To open a toolpane, on the View menu, point to Panes, and then choose the toolpane that you want to display.
    
2. To close a toolpane, click in the top right corner of the toolpane or deselect the corresponding menu command or toolbar icon.