Edit

Using Tab Controls

  • Article

This topic contains two examples that use tab controls. The first example demonstrates how to use a tab control to switch between multiple pages of text in an application's main window. The second example demonstrates how to use a tab control to switch between multiple pages of controls in a dialog box.

In this section

Topic Description
How to Create a Tab Control in the Main Window
 The example in this section demonstrates how to create a tab control and display it in the client area of the application's main window. The application displays a third window (a static control) in the display area of the tab control. The parent window positions and sizes the tab control and static control when it processes the WM_SIZE message.
There are seven tabs in this example, one for each day of the week. When the user selects a tab, the application displays the name of the corresponding day in the static control.
How to Create a Tabbed Dialog Box
 The example in this section demonstrates how to create a dialog box that uses tabs to provide multiple pages of controls. The main dialog box is a modal dialog box. Each page of controls is defined by a dialog box template that has the WS_CHILD style. When a tab is selected, a modeless dialog box is created for the incoming page and the dialog box for the outgoing page is destroyed.
Note: In many cases, you can implement multiple-page dialog boxes more easily by using property sheets. For more information about property sheets, see About Property Sheets.
The template for the main dialog box simply defines two button controls. When processing the WM_INITDIALOG message, the dialog box procedure creates a tab control and loads the dialog box template resources for each of the child dialog boxes.