IntelliJ IDEA secondary windows lack a menu. How can i enable it?

Question

I'm a frontend developer and I have a multi-monitor setup. I have HTML code on one monitor and CSS code on another monitor.

To achieve that, I drag a tab out of IntelliJ IDEA window, so that the tab opens in a separate window.

My problem is that the secondary window lacks a menu:

Menu access hot keys (e.g. Alt+V) won't work. I can't make use of the main window's menu either because when I click it, the focus switches to the active tab of the main window.

How do I access the menu when I'm working in IDEA's secondary window?

Answer 1

This feature is currently not available in IntelliJ IDEA.

The alternatives I could think of to do what you want:

1. Consider raising a feature request on http://youtrack.jetbrains.com/

2. Do you think it's possible that you might not miss the menu on the detached tab if instead of accessing functionality through the menu, you did the same through keyboard shortcuts?
   
   Personally, being a keyboard junkie, I have not felt the lack of a menu on the detached tab. Even though Eclipse allows you to create a new window for the same workspace, I had some issues with it ( for eg: if you set a breakpoint in a file in Window 1, and started a debug session from Window 2, then the file would be re-opened in Window 2 when the breakpoint is hit) and feel that the Intellij IDEA implementation works better.

3. (Warning! The most Hacky suggestion) Assuming you are using Windows, there are a number of ways in which you could extend the single IntelliJ window across the two monitors and then instead of detaching a tab, you could do a 'Split Vertically' in that single window. With the slider between the tabs positioned just right, it will seem you have two windows opened with each of them having a menu.
   
   To extend a window across two monitors see : How can you maximize a window on to dual monitors in Windows 7 or use one of the multi-monitor tools listed here or here ( I vaguely recall that it was the latter 'zbar' that I used to extend a window during my eclipse days).
   
   Believe it or not, I have done this with Eclipse when I was sick of guessing where the file-with-the-breakpoint would open up :)