Queston for any experienced control progger

It looks like I am going to have to write my own tab control, because we can't find features on currently existing tab controls on the market to meet our needs.

I need to be able to control borders (etched, flat, 3D, etc) around the entire tab area, colors (selected tab, unselected tabs, background color behind the actual tab strip, and color of the tab area), and include a toolbar inside each tabs area. The best example I have found that meets this requirement are the tabs in Test Director (I have attached links to screen shots).

I have two questions:

1) Does anyone know of a tab control that meets these requirements

and more importantly . . .

2) Where is a good place to start (books, web sites, source code, other references) to begin to code such a project

Thanks.

FLL


Screen shot 1 - tab look:
http://www.hisoftware.com/MercuryInteractive/tdsc5.htm

Screen shot 2 - toolbar on tab:
http://www.hisoftware.com/MercuryInt...tdscviewer.htm

If it helps any, you can put a toolbar control in a picturebox, and then have that picturebox show when the user clicks a particular tab. This may increase your chances of finding an appropriate tab control, or at least make things a little easier when you start making one.

While that option would serve some of the functionality of the control, the requirements (which I won't list here b/c they are long) ask for a control that is lightweight (probably not using picture boxes or the existing SStab control) and allow for a choice in tab display (rounded edges, box edges, etc). This looks like it will require a third party control. I have not been able to find one, which means I will be creating the control from the ground up. If no one knows of a third party control that meets these requirements, I'd appreciate some direction on where to start on this one.

Thanks

FLL

The windows class anme for the tab common control is "SysTabControl32" which you need to pass as the szClass parameter to the CreateWindowEx API call to create a new TAB window.

The tab control has the following sytle modifiers:-

VB Code:

Public Enum TabControlStyleFlags
     TCS_SCROLLOPPOSITE      = &H0001   
     TCS_BOTTOM              = &H0002
     TCS_RIGHT               = &H0002
     TCS_MULTISELECT         = &H0004  
     TCS_FLATBUTTONS         = &H0008
     TCS_FORCEICONLEFT       = &H0010
     TCS_FORCELABELLEFT      = &H0020
     TCS_HOTTRACK            = &H0040
     TCS_VERTICAL            = &H0080
     TCS_TABS                = &H0000
     TCS_BUTTONS             = &H0100
     TCS_SINGLELINE          = &H0
     TCS_MULTILINE           = &H0200
     TCS_RIGHTJUSTIFY        = &H0000
     TCS_FIXEDWIDTH          = &H0400
     TCS_RAGGEDRIGHT         = &H0800
     TCS_FOCUSONBUTTONDOWN   = &H1000
     TCS_OWNERDRAWFIXED      = &H2000
     TCS_TOOLTIPS            = &H4000
     TCS_FOCUSNEVER          = &H8000
End Enum

If you can't get the style you want from these then you need to specify TCS_OWNERDRAWFIXED and subclass the window that is created. Then when you get the message WM_DRAWITEM you need to draw the tab as you would like it.

Hope this helps,
Duncan