CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#.netwinforms
Rajeev Ranjan Lal
Rajeev Ranjan Lal

Reputation: 651

Is there a way to color tabs of a tabpage in winforms?

I am struggling to find a way to color the tab headers of a tabpage in WinForms. There are solutions to color the current indexed tab using the OnDrawItem event, but is it possible to color all the tabs with different colors to make them more intuitive for users for certain behavior?

Thanks in advance.

Upvotes: 35

Views: 77940

Answers (4)

Erik
Erik

Reputation: 26

there is another way of doing this: create a new class that overrides the windows tab page and then base your tab on that class instead of the windows tab, for instance:

    private void InitializeComponent()
    {
        tbPage1 = new BaseTab();
        tbPage1.Name = "tbPage1";

then the basetab class looks something like this.

public class BaseTab : TabPage
{
    protected override void OnPaintBackground(PaintEventArgs e) {
        base.OnPaintBackground(e);

        switch (this.Name) {
            case "tbPage1":
                using (LinearGradientBrush brush = new LinearGradientBrush(this.ClientRectangle, Color.Red, Color.Orange, 60F)) {
                    e.Graphics.FillRectangle(brush, this.ClientRectangle);
                }
                break;
        }
    }
}

Upvotes: 0

g t
g t

Reputation: 7463

An improved version of Ash's answer:

private void tabControl_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
{
    TabPage page = tabControl.TabPages[e.Index];
    e.Graphics.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(page.BackColor), e.Bounds);

    Rectangle paddedBounds = e.Bounds;
    int yOffset = (e.State == DrawItemState.Selected) ? -2 : 1;
    paddedBounds.Offset(1, yOffset);
    TextRenderer.DrawText(e.Graphics, page.Text, e.Font, paddedBounds, page.ForeColor);
}

This code uses the TextRenderer class to draw its text (as .NET does), fixes problems with font clipping/wrapping by not negatively inflating the bounds, and takes tab selection into account.

Thanks to Ash for the original code.

Upvotes: 62

Ash
Ash

Reputation: 62096

Yes, there is no need for any win32 code. You just need to set the tab controls DrawMode property to 'OwnerDrawFixed' and then handle the tab control's DrawItem event.

The following code shows how:

private void tabControl1_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
{
    // This event is called once for each tab button in your tab control

    // First paint the background with a color based on the current tab

   // e.Index is the index of the tab in the TabPages collection.
    switch (e.Index )
    {
        case 0:
            e.Graphics.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(Color.Red), e.Bounds);
            break;
        case 1:
            e.Graphics.FillRectangle(new SolidBrush(Color.Blue), e.Bounds);
            break;
        default:
            break;
    }

    // Then draw the current tab button text 
    Rectangle paddedBounds=e.Bounds;
    paddedBounds.Inflate(-2,-2);  
    e.Graphics.DrawString(tabControl1.TabPages[e.Index].Text, this.Font, SystemBrushes.HighlightText, paddedBounds);

}

Setting the DrawMode to 'OwnerDrawnFixed' means each tab button has to be the same size (ie Fixed).

However if you want to change the size of all tab buttons, you can set the tab control's SizeMode property to 'Fixed' and then change the ItemSize property.

Upvotes: 40

Marc Gravell
Marc Gravell

Reputation: 1062530

Using the current tab control, if it is possible you'd need to hook a lot of win-32 events (there may be a pre-wrapped implementation out there). Another alternative would be a 3rd-party tabbed control replacement; I'm sure plenty of vendors will sell you one.

IMO, you might find it less pain to look at WPF; it is a big change, but has more control over things like this. You can host WPF inside winforms if needed (if you can't justify a full make-over, which is a pretty common reality).

Upvotes: 2

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