Permanently keep split editor

I have one of problems that you like to have:  my employer recently upgraded me to a widescreen monitor.  Now I prefer to have two editor windows open in IDEA to take advantage of all that horizontal room.  The problem is that when you close all of the files in a tab group, the editor goes away and the other editor takes up all of the space (until I manually split the screen again).  I'd like for IDEA to keep my splits, even if no file is open in one of them (see, for example, the way JEdit behaves).  Is there a setting for this or do I need to wait until it gets implemented in some future release?

Thanks,
Ray