Coloring TabControl.

AlexBB

As far as I can see TabControl object has no properties of either Back or ForeColor. Is it possible to assign these properties to this object

Another question:

TabPage object does have both properties but when you assign a color to it it does not cover the whole TabPage: the tab itself remains gray. Is it possible to give it colors

Many thanks.

nahguam

TabControl inherits from Control so the properties BackColor and ForeColor *are* present. They have just been hidden from the VS designer. If you manually assign them (don't believe what intellisense tells you! :) ) It will compile.

Unfortunately, modifying them seems to have no effect on the painting of the control. I'm not sure how you can overcome this problem directly.

I would design my own UserControl to mimic the TabControl that you *can* choose the colours for.

AlexBB

nahguam wrote:

TabControl inherits from Control so the properties BackColor and ForeColor *are* present. They have just been hidden from the VS designer. If you manually assign them (don't believe what intellisense tells you! :) ) It will compile. Unfortunately, modifying them seems to have no effect on the painting of the control. I'm not sure how you can overcome this problem directly. I would design my own UserControl to mimic the TabControl that you *can* choose the colours for.

Thank you very much. I am wondering if you've done it yourselves, though, I just did after I read your post and this is what happened: it did compile all right but when I looked back at the code in the constructor the statement tabControl1.BackColor = was gone. Alas.

A catch22.

nahguam

Yes, I have tried it and it did compile and the statement remained.
Compiling should not actually modify anything you've written. It may throw a wobbly but not modify.

AlexBB

nahguam wrote:

Yes, I have tried it and it did compile and the statement remained. Compiling should not actually modify anything you've written. It may throw a wobbly but not modify.

Trying to find a straw to catch up and hang on:

MSDN says that Control Class does not have BackColor property. It is not mentioned at all, however the TabControl Class does, it is overridden, but it "has no meaning" in TabControl. Sounds funny. Why did they even menton it at all.

Building a CustomUserControl might be a tall order for me since I've never done it before. I looked at the class description. They give a simplistic example of putting together a few texboxes and labels. I do not know how I can take it from there.

Thanks.

nahguam

Control does have a BackColor property:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control_members.aspx

TabControl technically does but it's description is "Overridden. This member is not meaningful for this control." So they've hidden it from the VS designer, since you can't completely remove an inherited property:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.tabcontrol_members.aspx

Designing your own UserControl can be quite daunting if you've not done it before. I would structure it like the TabControl. I would create the main MyTabControl and create a MyTabPageControl. Using Generics you could add this to the MyTabControl class and reveal it as a property. Then you could work with it in exactly the same way you work with TabPages:

using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Collections.Generic;

public class MyTabControl : UserControl
{
private List<MyTabPageControl> myTabPages;
public List<MyTabPageControl> MyTabPages
{
get { return myTabPages; }
set { myTabPages = value; }
}
}

The hard part would be positioning the tabs. Having said all that I don't think the benefit of being able to change the tab color outweighs the work involved...

Mick Doherty

With a fair amount of effort it is possible to get the TabControl to do exactly what you want.

You will find some basic tips on my TabControl Tips page:
http://www.dotnetrix.co.uk/tabcontrols.html

You will also find TabControlEx (an extended TabControl) in my Controls section which will allow you to change the colors via a simple property change:
http://www.dotnetrix.co.uk/controls.html

edit: Fixed the first link.

AlexBB

nahguam wrote:

Control does have a BackColor property: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.control_members.aspx Having said all that I don't think the benefit of being able to change the tab color outweighs the work involved...

That's what I am too afraid is the case as well.

I greatly appreciate your comments. I will look into the details tomorrow and make a decision if it is worth the labor.

Thanks.

AlexBB

Mick Doherty wrote:

With a fair amount of effort it is possible to get the TabControl to do exactly what you want. You will find some basic tips on my TabControl Tips page: http://www.dotnetrix.co.uk/tabcontrols You will also find TabControlEx (an extended TabControl) in my Controls section which will allow you to change the colors via a simple property change: http://www.dotnetrix.co.uk/controls.html

Thank you Mick. The first link is unreachable for me (error 404). I will take a look at the second link tomorrow.

AlexBB

Mick Doherty wrote:

With a fair amount of effort it is possible to get the TabControl to do exactly what you want. You will find some basic tips on my TabControl Tips page: http://www.dotnetrix.co.uk/tabcontrols.html You will also find TabControlEx (an extended TabControl) in my Controls section which will allow you to change the colors via a simple property change: http://www.dotnetrix.co.uk/controls.html edit: Fixed the first link.

Mick, thank you very much. It is GREAT! Just a very useful set of controls. Absolutely fantastic!

When I posted the question a few days ago about the coloring I thought to myself: it is a long shot but parhaps   You never know.

 

AlexBB

AlexBB wrote:

Mick Doherty wrote: edit: Fixed the first link.

Mick, thank you again. I want to add one more challenge for you. This is the problem I've encountered and haven't been able to solve so far cleanly. It works only partially for me, although I haven't given it a lot of attention yet.

I generate TabPages at runtime and frequently have to reduce their number. I want to completely destroy the object, not to hide it. It works. This is not a problem, however:

When the first row of tabs is filled, the app begins to fill the second row. By doing so it has to decrement the height of the existing pages in order to fit them in TabControl and the form itself. It screws my graphics positioned on the additional pages I've created. I neatly soved the problem by using sizeChanged event for TabPage but so far it worked only in one direction when the number of pages gets large enough for the app to form two rows. When I decrease the number to drop from two to one row I end up with form and TabControl retaining the enlarged heights.

So, if this is an interesting problem for you, would you give it a thought

Mick Doherty

AlexBB wrote: Mick, thank you again. I want to add one more challenge for you. This is the problem I've encountered and haven't been able to solve so far cleanly. It works only partially for me, although I haven't given it a lot of attention yet. I generate TabPages at runtime and frequently have to reduce their number. I want to completely destroy the object, not to hide it. It works. This is not a problem, however: When the first row of tabs is filled, the app begins to fill the second row. By doing so it has to decrement the height of the existing pages in order to fit them in TabControl and the form itself. It screws my graphics positioned on the additional pages I've created. I neatly soved the problem by using sizeChanged event for TabPage but so far it worked only in one direction when the number of pages gets large enough for the app to form two rows. When I decrease the number to drop from two to one row I end up with form and TabControl retaining the enlarged heights. So, if this is an interesting problem for you, would you give it a thought

The TabControls DisplayRectangle is the Area in which the TabPage is Docked, so it changes as Rows are added/removed.

Presumably you have access to the method which Adds/Removes the Tabpages. In this method you could simply check the height of the TabControls DisplayRectangle and if it does not equal the Desired TabPage Height then adjust Form/TabControl height to compensate.

AlexBB

Mick Doherty wrote:

AlexBB wrote: The TabControls DisplayRectangle is the Area in which the TabPage is Docked, so it changes as Rows are added/removed. Presumably you have access to the method which Adds/Removes the Tabpages. In this method you could simply check the height of the TabControls DisplayRectangle and if it does not equal the Desired TabPage Height then adjust Form/TabControl height to compensate.

I do not use DisplayRectangle. I use the .Size objects instead. I will think of it. Perhaps it will offer an advantage. The method that adds and removes pages helps little with it. I rely on the .SizeChanged (for the first page only since the first 5 pages are permament and cannot be destroyed--I designed them this way). On the way forward when the pages are added and when threashold is reached (12 pages in my case) this event fires. To adjust the size of (1) the form and (2) TabControl I have resorted to creating an object that keeps sizes of both at loading time. This object is static and therefore accessible to the Click event for the button that destroys the TabPage (a button per each TabPage). Then I have to keep statically the number of pages when the rows were doubled (12 in my case) and perhaps trippled (in the future). I have to set the SizeChanged event to null temporarily when I resize the form and TabControl down and the whole thing is clumsy and messy. As I said everything works with the exception of leaving me with a larger form height after the reduction. If I add another page just after I reduced the number of pages from 13 to 12 making the number 13 again my form will keep getting taller. I thought you may see a more elegant solution. I will look into DisplayRectangle object though.

Thanks.

nobugz

Check this thread.

Mick Doherty

I just created a small Test App to recreate your scenario and didn't see any problems.

I defined a variable to store the desired TabPage Height and set it in the Constructor after InitializeComponent().

I added a tabPage_SizeChanged eventhandler to all tabpages (if tabPage1 is not selected it will not fire the SizeChanged event until it is).

I checked and modified the height of the Form and TabControl when the tabPage_SizeChanged() event occurred.

Here's the C# code I used in the SizeChanged method:

private void tabPage_SizeChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
  TabPage tabPage = (TabPage)sender;
  if (tabPage.Height != this.desiredTabPageHeight)
  {
    this.Height += (this.desiredTabPageHeight - tabPage.Height);
    this.tabControl1.Height += (this.desiredTabPageHeight - tabPage.Height);
  }
}

... of course, it is possible to have no tabpage selected (SelectedIndex = -1) and then this method would fail as the tabPage_SizeChanged event would never occur, but that is only likely to happen if you code it to do so.