Change default tool window behaviour in IntelliJ IDEA 2016

Question

Every time I open a new project in IntelliJ IDEA, the first time I open a particular tool window, for example 'Maven Projects', it appears in 'pinned' mode and remains visible until either I close it, or I go to the view settings for the window (the little cog) and deselect "Pinned Mode". I don't want any of my tool windows to be pinned so this gets a little annoying.

Do you know of a way to change the default behaviour of new project / tool windows?

Answer 1

As far as IJ 2016.2 I don't know about a dedicated setting for this. However I used an approach which allows you to define a default layout for all projects. Although the window-pinning works, which is what this question is about, some may not be persisted, such as Group Modules setting in the maven tool-window.

Nonetheless, to configure the pinning, you need to do 2 simple things, which you can also see in the GIF below:

1) Manually go and unpin all desired windows

2) Open the Windows menu and select Store current layout as default

PS If you'll be using tool-windows that you've never opened before, or install new plugins which add their own tool-windows, just follow these steps again.