In the most basic sense, what is a Tab Control?
I am looking into creating one from scratch (I have many good reasons for this and simply extending existing ones won't make me feel better). But I am not sure how they are made.
Is a Tab Control just a bunch of Panels, inside a main Panel? Here's a picture of what I mean...
At it's core, TabControl is a very simple control. Nothing but a row of rectangles with text on them. It is Winforms that adds the TabPage class, a scrollable container control that adds the ability to hide controls. Derived from the Panel class.
It bulks up with features that you can arbitrarily drop. Like rendering in a way that's compatible with the active visual styles theme that the user selected. And dealing with an app that asks for more tabs than can fit in a row. And implementing both keyboard and mouse navigation. And implementing transparency so the parent window content is visible behind the tabs.
It is so simple that the need to implement your own is rare :)
Related
I have a config dialog that configures two different aspects of my application. As the two set of configurations are very similar, I decided to just use one set of controls for both. However, I like the aesthetics of TabControl (I tried RadioButton, but it makes the users feel like they are making a choice between the two aspects, rather than choosing to configure one). Can I make a "pseudo" TabControl that have the same content on both pages, i.e. one that works just like a RadioButton?
I also tried to hide the TabPages by resizing the TabControl, but it feels difficult to get the layout right (finding where the TabPage would be).
I want to do this correctly instead of a hack, so help is appreciated
I am starting a very basic project, using a DevExpress NavBar control in a WinForms project, in C#. Easy enough.
NavBar is in the left part of a splitter, and I want the right part of the splitter to change based on what item you have clicked on in the nav bar. You know, one second its a grid, then next it's a calendar.
I could screw around with hiding and showing windows, but I know that's not right.
Just using a tabbed control seems real close, except I don't need the tabs, the nav bar is where the user picks what he wants to see.
So would I use panels in some way? Some type of modified tab control? Do i just pile on top of one another my various pages of controls for each nav option? So many pieces, doesn't seem to be any clear documentation on how to accomplish this very simple problem... after an hour of digging, thought I would ask.
Thanks.
So would I use panels in some way? Some type of modified tab control?
You can use tab control in other way. Just hide the XtraTabControl headers via the XtraTabControl.ShowTabHeaders option.
You can create a user control for each view that a NavBar button would invoke. When the user clicks the button you dynamically generate that view and add to the right part of the splitter. What ever user control was there before you dispose of.
This will keep your app very light when executing and make it composable.
I'm making a custom GUI for my application. Basically my application has multiple 'tabs'. Each tab has a panel control binded to it, to display tabs contents. Whenever any of the tabs are clicked, appropriate panel control becomes visible (that displays contents) and the rest of the panels become invisible.
The problem is that when I design them in Visual Studio, it's hard to work, ether panels are stacked up on each other or I put them in different coordinates, and when panel becomes active, it's location is updated.
Is there I way I could design all the panels, like on separate 'form' or something like the same way I have separate classes? if that makes sense. Thanks!
EDIT:
I can't use the standard tab control, because my application has custom GUI, all buttons and everything is designed in image processing app. Tab control doesn't allow me to use my own graphics.
I'm going to take a look at UserControl, thanks everybody!
You can create each tab content in a separate UserControl. Use that each UserControl as the only content on each tab.
You should be able to design each "panel" as a separate UserControl.
Your main Form can just be composed from those UserControls, instead of having the entire UI built into one class.
First I would suggest you stick with the standard .NET controls in most cases. Particularly in this case the standard TabControl seems to be a good fit.
That said, you can place all the panels on the form in their final location (being sure not to place a panel within the other panel). You can then use the drop down in the Properties dialog to select the Panel you wish to work with. Next go to the Format menu and choose Order->Bring to Front. This will bring the wanted panel to the front so you may use the designer on it. You can then continue to hide or show the appropriate panels at runtime.
I have design winform with various controls on it like textbox/ComboBox and Panels on some days ago but now if I am trying to run the forms the forms is visible but the controls which are designed on it is not visible. I don’t know what is the reason or some mistake made by me in past with it. But the reality is that I am unable to retrieve the controls on the forms.
Form11.cs (code design ) file is available as well as form11Designer.cs file is also there in well coded format.
Don’t know where is the mistake and how to retrieve all the controls which I have designed on it?
Have a look at this post: Winforms usercontrol phenomenon : suddenly all items are away!
In the Visual Studio form designer, open the "Properties" view. At the top of it, there will be a drop-down list box of all the controls on the form. You should be able to find and select your control from that box. When a control is selected from that list box, it is also 'selected' in the form designer itself, so should get the selection rectangle around it. Your control might just be hiding behind another control...
I decided to change a utility I'm working on to use a tabpage. When I tried to drag various controls from the form to a tab page on top of the form, it made copies of the control, giving it a different name. It's easy enough to just remake the form on top of the tab or just edit the source code in the designer to have everything be added to the tab instead (and this is what I did, which worked), but it seems like there would probably be a better way to do this via the gui.
The correct tool for this is the Document Outline (CTRL+W, U). Simply drag your set of controls in the outline so that they are under the tab page. Voila.
The document outline dramatically simplifies these types of operations, especially when you are dealing with complex layouts.
Have you tried cut and paste. That usually works for me.
Your control key is stuck. Do not press control key when dragging controls.
I drag controls from form control to tab page controls all the time no problem. Answer #1 is totally correct.
You can use the Document Outline window and move the controls to the tab page one by one by dragging tree nodes.
The hardest problem is retaining control locations on the tab page.