WPF TabPanel without the Tabs?

Question

Ok I admit, what I need is not a tabpanel, (or is it?). But what I effectively want is a panel with a number of children I can select one of which to be visible at any given time.

Basically I have a couple views and based on the state of the app, the current view needs to change.

This is essentially like Regions from Composite Application Layer, but not plugin-based.

I've tried

1. Making one visible and another not based on some value
2. DataTriggers

Have had poor luck getting reliable results from either, and they are hardly discoverable.

Anyone know a good way of approaching this?

Answer 1

Off the cuff, one approach would be to:

1. Place each "view" in a named container such as a grid. Set their initial state to "Collapsed"
2. Maintain an array of all the named containers.
3. When switching views, set each container's visible state to "Collapsed" (be sure not to use "Hidden"). And then set the visible state to "Visible" of the container you want to be visible.

Answer 2

You could use a ContentPresenter to represent a view and then bind its content to your selected view property.

Admittedly its not a panel, but if used something like a listbox as your collection of views, and then exposed its selected item through a binding. You could use that for the content presenters content.

Answer 3

What about using a Screen Conductor?

Read more about the screen conductor here!