Files get opened in wrong editing area

Question

my Eclipse Juno SR1 somehow got screwed up. It seems I have a new area, and if I interpret it correctly, it is called the "Shared Area" (only from a tooltip). I cannot get rid of it by conventional means (i.E. closing/hiding). All files I open now are opened in this shared area, not in the area my files were opened before. The area is distinct from the normal editing area in that it will not go to the same place (top right, under the menus).

The area has only maximize and minimize buttons. Maximizing it will maximize it over everything, this would be expected. Minimizing it actually hides it, but opening an existing file will bring it back as kind of a popup over the eclipse file list.

I do not seem to find how I activated this feature, and I cannot seem to find any activation instructions in the Eclipse help (the help looking for "shared" and "area" separately doesn't really help anyway).

I just want this feature/window/perspective to go away and let me open files like I used to. Any tips?

Edit: Maybe this area is not called "Shared area", this could be wrong. If not, it doesn't seem to have any name. It just forces all editors opening new files to open in it, and not in the area that they usually open in. The way I determined it was called "Shared area" is by minimizing it, then opening a file. It opens as kind of a popup (described above), and there's a menu bar attached with 2 icons, "Restore" and "Shared area", which is pre-selected.

This is the are "docked" to the right:

This is the area docked below:

The area is not dockable in the way that it docks to certain areas of Eclipse, but stretches (when dragged) over the whole Eclipse Window and even outside of it.

Answer 1

You should reset the perspective Window -> Reset Perspective...

Answer 2

The shared area is the default location to open files. The files remain open in the shared area across different perspectives such as Java and Debug so that you can switch between them while working on the same files. You'd generally drag a file outside the shared area to work on it without it appearing in other perspectives.

It's hard to position the shard area view by dragging it, but you can drag the surrounding views in place around it to get it where you want.