70-526 MCTS

• Bottom - The tabs are located across the bottom of the control.
• Left - The tabs are located along the left edge of the control.
• Right - The tabs are located along the right edge of the control.
• Top - The tabs are located across the top of the control.

• FillToRight - The width of each tab is sized so that each row of tabs fills the entire width of the container control. This is only applicable to tab controls with more than one row.
• Fixed - All tabs in a control are the same width.
• Normal - The width of each tab is sized to accommodate what is displayed on the tab, and the size of tabs in a row are not adjusted to fill the entire width of the container control.

Useful methods

Adding and Deleting Tabs

Tabs can be added or deleted by selecting the TabControl and clicking on the Smart Tag icon . This causes a small menu to appear, simply click on either of the menu options accordingly.

Editing the TabPages Collection

The TabPages collection can be edited using the TabPage Collection Editor.

This editor gives access to the properties of the individual TabPage objects.

Adding a TabPage manually

The following code sample shows very simply how to add a TabControl with two TabPage objects.

private void AddTabControl()
{
  TabControl tabControl1 = new TabControl();
  TabPage tabPageUser = new TabPage("User Details");
  TabPage tabPageAccount = new TabPage("Account Details");

  tabControl1.TabPages.Add(tabPageUser);
  tabControl1.TabPages.Add(tabPageAccount);

  tabControl1.Location = new Point(20, 20);

  this.Controls.Add(tabControl1);
}

Disabling Tab Pages

A TabPage does not have an Enabled property that does anything meaningful. Therefore in order to disable a TabPage, the SelectedIndexChanged event must be handled. The easiest option for handling his event is to assign the SelectedTab property of the TabControl to another TabPage.

private void tabControl1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  if( tabControl1.SelectedTab == tabPage2 )
    tabControl1.SelectedTab = tabPage1;
}

Hiding Tab Pages

A TabPage does not have a Visible property that does anything meaningful. Therefore in order to hide/show a TabPage, the TabPage must be removed:

tabControl2.TabPages.Remove(tabPage4);

or added accordingly:

tabControl2.TabPages.Add(tabPage4);

Render Right-Aligned or Left-Aligned Tabs horizontally

When you set the Alignment property to either Left or Right, the tabs appear vertically. By drawing the tabs yourself, you can have horizontal text tabs. To achieve this follow these simple steps.

1. Set the following properties of the TabControl:

   Property	Value
   Alignment	Right
   SizeMode	Fixed
   DrawMode	OwnerDrawFixed

2. Set the ItemSize.Width property to 25 and the ItemSize.Height property to 100. Your TabControl should now look something like this.
   

3. Add an event handler for the DrawItem event and add the following code.

   private void tabControl1_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
   {
     Graphics g = e.Graphics;
     Brush _TextBrush;
   
     // Get the item from the collection.
     TabPage _TabPage = tabControl1.TabPages[e.Index];
   
     // Get the real bounds for the tab rectangle.
     Rectangle _TabBounds = tabControl1.GetTabRect(e.Index);
   
     if(e.State == DrawItemState.Selected)
     {
       // Draw a different background color, and don't paint a focus rectangle.
       _TextBrush = new SolidBrush(Color.Red);
       g.FillRectangle(Brushes.Gray, e.Bounds);
     }
     else
     {
       _TextBrush = new System.Drawing.SolidBrush(e.ForeColor);
       e.DrawBackground();
     }
   
     // Use our own font. Because we CAN.
     Font _TabFont = new Font("Arial", 10, FontStyle.Bold, GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
   
     // Draw string. Center the text.
     StringFormat _StringFlags = new StringFormat();
     _StringFlags.Alignment = StringAlignment.Center;
     _StringFlags.LineAlignment = StringAlignment.Center;
     g.DrawString(_TabPage.Text, _TabFont, _TextBrush, 
                  _TabBounds, new StringFormat(_StringFlags));
   }

When the form runs, horizontal text is in the tabs.