Playing around with QMainWindow's nested within each other as dock widgets. The main app window has a couple dock widgets added to each of the 4 dock locations around the central widget. These dock widgets are QMainWindows. When enabled, each dock widget will have its own dock widgets populated that can do their own private docking within that c…

docking_dockables.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

"""
Playing around with QMainWindow's nested within each other 
as dock widgets.
"""

from random import randint

try:
    from PySide import QtCore, QtGui
except ImportError:
    from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui 

# Set to False - Standard docking of widgets around the main content area
# Set to True - Sub MainWindows each with their own private docking 
DO_SUB_DOCK_CREATION = False


_DOCK_OPTS = QtGui.QMainWindow.AnimatedDocks
_DOCK_OPTS |= QtGui.QMainWindow.AllowNestedDocks
_DOCK_OPTS |= QtGui.QMainWindow.AllowTabbedDocks

_DOCK_COUNT = 0
_DOCK_POSITIONS = (
    QtCore.Qt.LeftDockWidgetArea,
    QtCore.Qt.TopDockWidgetArea,
    QtCore.Qt.RightDockWidgetArea,
    QtCore.Qt.BottomDockWidgetArea
)

def main():
    mainWindow = QtGui.QMainWindow()
    mainWindow.resize(1024,768)
    mainWindow.setDockOptions(_DOCK_OPTS)

    widget = QtGui.QLabel("MAIN APP CONTENT AREA")
    widget.setMinimumSize(300,200)
    widget.setFrameStyle(widget.Box)
    mainWindow.setCentralWidget(widget)

    addDocks(mainWindow, "Main Dock")

    mainWindow.show()
    mainWindow.raise_()

    return mainWindow


def addDocks(window, name, subDocks=True):
    global _DOCK_COUNT

    for pos in _DOCK_POSITIONS:

        for _ in xrange(2):
            _DOCK_COUNT += 1

            sub = QtGui.QMainWindow()
            sub.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.Widget)
            sub.setDockOptions(_DOCK_OPTS)

            color = tuple(randint(20, 230) for _ in xrange(3))

            label = QtGui.QLabel("%s %d content area" % (name, _DOCK_COUNT), sub)
            label.setMinimumHeight(25)
            label.setStyleSheet("background-color: rgb(%d, %d, %d)" % color)
            sub.setCentralWidget(label)

            dock = QtGui.QDockWidget("%s %d title bar" % (name, _DOCK_COUNT))
            dock.setWidget(sub)

            if DO_SUB_DOCK_CREATION and subDocks:
                addDocks(sub, "Sub Dock", subDocks=False)

            window.addDockWidget(pos, dock)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = QtGui.QApplication([])
    mainWindow = main()
    app.exec_()

Cool!!!!!! This is exactly what I want, thanks.