Tabless Tabcontrol or Something Similar

[weirddemon]

In the WPF app I'm making at the moment, I need a method that will allow me to click a button and a different "page" in the middle of the window is changed based on button click.

So, if button 1 is clicked, page 1 is shown and so forth. In WinForms, I'd just make a tabless tabcontrol like so:

Public Class TabLessTabControl
    Inherits TabControl
    Protected Overrides Sub WndProc(ByRef m As Message)
        'Hide tabs by trapping the TCM_ADJUSTRECT message
        If m.Msg = &H1328 Then
            m.Result = CType(1, IntPtr)
        Else
            MyBase.WndProc(m)
        End If
    End Sub
End Class

But, that doesn't work in WPF. Does anyone have any ideas on how to duplicate this in WPF or if there's a better method?

[NickThissen]

Don't think winforms, ever again. WPF is completely different, and whereas in winforms you often need to resort to intercepting messages to change fundamental control behavior and look, that is completely gone in WPF. In WPF controls are built up using control templates, containing an entire tree of visual elements. For example, a single TextBox might consist of a couple of Borders, containing a ScrollViewer, containing a text element, .. etc. If there is no simple way to achieve what you want (eg, via properties, and there usually aren't many properties to change the looks of controls) then you can always replace the entire visual tree by your own control template. The behavior of the control is kept intact but you can choose what elements are used to depict which part of the control.

I'm telling you this because I'm not sure what the easiest way to do this would be in WPF, but you always have the option of completely restyling the TabControl by supplying your own template, and simply leaving out the tab headers.

For a simpler method, I am assuming the TabControl has an ItemsContainerStyle property. This would be the style for its items (eg: the tab pages). Each visual element in WPF also has a Style that defines what values certain properties have, and can even change these values when certain trigger conditions are met (eg: the mouse is hovering over the element, it's selected, etc).

You might be able to do something as simple as this (completely untested): just give the items a Style that collapses the tab page. I am guessing this would only collapse the headers, but I'm not sure. Give it a try.

<TabControl>
    <TabControl.ItemsContainerStyle>
        <Style TargetType="{x:Type TabItem}">
            <Setter Property="Visibility" Value="Collapsed"/>
        </Style>
    </TabControl.ItemContainerStyle>
</TabControl>