CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wpftabcontrolkeydown
Joe White
Joe White

Reputation: 97708

Making a WPF TabControl ignore Ctrl+Tab

I'm writing an app that uses the "tabbed browsing" metaphor, with a TabControl the full size of the window, and other stuff inside the tabs. Sometimes those tabs will themselves contain other TabControls.

(Tabs inside tabs can be confusing, so I'll re-style the inner TabControl so it doesn't look like a TabControl. I'll probably style it to use ToggleButtons at the top instead of tabs.)

I want this UI to behave like you would expect the tabbed-browsing metaphor to work: Ctrl+Tab should always switch tabs on the outer TabControl (the one that looks like a TabControl), even if keyboard focus is inside the inner TabControl (which doesn't look like a TabControl, and therefore shouldn't be expected to respond to Ctrl+Tab). But, of course, the inner TabControl gets the key event first and handles it itself.

What's the best way to keep the inner TabControl from responding to the Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab key events, so those events can bubble up to the outer TabControl?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2881

Answers (3)

jan
jan

Reputation: 1601

As an alternative to creating a Custom Control as suggested here, you could create an "Attached behaviour" to encapsulate this:

namespace WpfApplication1
{
  using System.Windows;
  using System.Windows.Input;

  public static class IgnoreCtrlTabBehaviour
  {
    //Setter for use in XAML: this "enables" this behaviour
    public static void SetEnabled(DependencyObject depObj, bool value)
    {
      depObj.SetValue(EnabledProperty, value);
    }

    public static readonly DependencyProperty EnabledProperty =
        DependencyProperty.RegisterAttached("Enabled", typeof(bool), 
        typeof(IgnoreCtrlTabBehaviour), 
        new FrameworkPropertyMetadata(false, OnEnabledSet));

    static void OnEnabledSet(DependencyObject depObj, DependencyPropertyChangedEventArgs args)
    {
      var uiElement = depObj as UIElement;
      uiElement.PreviewKeyDown += 
        (object _, System.Windows.Input.KeyEventArgs e) => 
        {
          if (e.Key == Key.Tab && 
              (Keyboard.Modifiers & ModifierKeys.Control) == ModifierKeys.Control)
          {
            e.Handled = true;
          }
        };
      }
    }
  }

Use in XAML like this:

<Window x:Class="WpfApplication1.MainWindow"
    ...
    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WpfApplication1"

...
<TabControl local:IgnoreCtrlTabBehaviour.Enabled="True">
  <TabItem Header="tab1">
...

Upvotes: 1

AndrewS
AndrewS

Reputation: 3500

You can handle the PreviewKeyDown event on your inner TabControl and set e.Handled = true to prevent it from handling key events. You can then find the parent TabControl (perhaps recursively through ((TabControl)sender).Parent ) and change its SelectedIndex programmatically.

Wrapping that up in a custom control would keep it reasonably clean.

Upvotes: 1

Daniel Pratt
Daniel Pratt

Reputation: 12077

The WPF TabControl appears to manage the keyboard navigation feature via the OnKeyDown method. I would suggest creating a custom control that inherits from the TabControl, and override the OnKeyDown method.

Upvotes: 3

Related Questions