How can I simulate a tab control?

Question

I want to have buttons that kind of act like tabs - they switch between "pages" of the application. How can I achieve this effect? I'm thinking that I could just put the controls in some kind of container and toggle the visible attribute, but is that plausible?

I am using WinForms.

The reason I don't want to use a tab control is because some of the panels already have tab controls in them..I don't want to create a nested tab hell. I just want some kind of spiffy button based navigation.

Answer 1

You could "attach" button functionality to Panels, then use the panels as the "tabs". You could even create a UserControl that inherently ties them together.

However, a TabControl (for Winforms) already exists that does this. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.tabcontrol.aspx

If you're looking for something for ASP.Net 2.0 and above, you could try the following: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/custom-controls/TabControl.aspx

Answer 2

I think the best option is to use this WinForms TabStrip control -- a subclass of ToolStrip where the buttons are drawn as tabs, and you simply treat them as such programmatically by switching which panel is shown in your container as tabs are selected.