[2005] Custom TabControl

[mpdeglau]

I am trying to draw a custom tab control. What I need is to be able to create different sizes for the tabs. I can do it easily if I want them the same size.

I've tried changing the ItemSize of the tabcontrol in the DrawItem event, but that made the control very unhappy. I also looked at the events of the tab page and I didn't see anything there that would do it.

Any help would be great. Thanks.

Edit:
I know that setting the sizemode to Normal will make it the size of the text. But what I want to do is if the text is larger than a certain amount it will only show part of it, unless it is selected, then it will show the entire text.

[kleinma]

you could just change the text when the tabs are changed..

for example.. lets say you set each tabs TAG property, to the same as its text property.. (if you already use TAG for something else, you could just keep the data in a local array instead) then you add some code like this

'NUMBER OF CHARACTERS TO SHOW IN UNSELECTED TABS (PLUS ...)
    Private Const MAX_TAB_CHARS As Integer = 12
 
    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        TruncateTabs()
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub TabControl1_SelectedIndexChanged(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles TabControl1.SelectedIndexChanged
        TruncateTabs()
    End Sub
 
    Private Sub TruncateTabs()
        'SHORTEN TABS THAT ARE LONGER THAN THE MAX_TAB_CHARS SETTING
        For Each TP As TabPage In TabControl1.TabPages
            If Not TP Is TabControl1.SelectedTab Then
                If TP.Tag.ToString.Length > MAX_TAB_CHARS Then
                    TP.Text = TP.Tag.ToString.Substring(0, MAX_TAB_CHARS) & "..."
                End If
            Else
                TabControl1.SelectedTab.Text = TabControl1.SelectedTab.Tag.ToString
            End If
        Next
    End Sub

so that when the user clicks on the tab, the full text is shown, but all the others are truncated to whatever length you want.

[mpdeglau]

This works....But it doesn't do, exactly what I'm trying to do. I don't think I was very clear in my first post (Monday morning after a weekend of 100 plus degree temperature with no AC will do that to you).

Lets say I have 6 tabs. The text on each one of different length. The tab control has a width of 320. What I want to do is when a page is selected, the full text shows. The rest of the tab pages get truncated to fill the remaining space.

So if the selected tab is 100 pixels wide, then the other 5 will be 64 pixels wide.