I seem to be constantly battling the window layout with kstars/ekos/fits/etc. For example:

• Clicking on the kstars main window and the Ekos window disappears
• INDI control panel is always drawn over kstars
• FITS previewer is always drawn over kstars, but can alternate focus over the INDI control panel

I haven't looked at the code yet, but it would be really convenient if we could dock/tab these windows to create a control panel with a predictable layout. Is anyone else dealing with this? Have I missed some window layout technique?

My approach is to use workspaces available in all modern linux distributions (both gnome and kde). I start Kstars on workspace #1, next I start ekos and indi control panel, next I move ekos to workspace #2 and indi control panel to workspace #3. Fits preview windows sticks to the workspace ekos is sitting in, which is just perfect. Anytime I need a skymap, ekos or indi control panel I use workspace selector located on my taskbar or ctrl+arrow keys.
This gives me not only feeling of all windows are ordered but also quick and easy access to each of them. And still I have one workspace left for a web browser with indi forum or a terminal window I trully recommend it.
Nevertheless I fully agree that there is some space left for improving window focus handling in Kstars, Ekos and Indi control panel.

I will add a couple of buttons to Ekos to show/hide both INDI & FITS Viewer windows. Notwithstanding that, if you're using KDE (and you should), then it comes with very powerful windowing capabilities. You can shade a window like Ekos/INDI/FITS and then unshade it when you want it, so it doesn't take too much monitor real state.

Here is video HOWTO

You can also customize _every_ single window. Set size/opacity/location...etc, and those settings get saved so everything you start KStars and open a FITS Viewer window, it know how to apply settings to this particular window...etc.