Windows Forms FAQ resources

26. Windows Forms TabControl

26.6 How do I use code to insert or delete tabpages in a TabControl?

To delete a tabpage, you use the tabControl1.Controls.Remove method. To add a new page as the last tab, use the tabControl1.Controls.Add method. Here is some sample code.

//remove the selected tab

tabControl1.Controls.Remove(tabControl1.SelectedTab);

//add a new tabpage as the last tab

tabControl1.Controls.Add(new TabPage("new Page"));

There does not appear to be support in the framework for inserting a tab at a particular position. A work around might be to save the current tabpage controls, clear the Controls collection, and then add the saved controls back to the Controls collection inserting a new tab. Here is some code that does this.

private void InsertTab(int tabNumber, ref TabControl tabControl)

{

int limit = tabControl.Controls.Count;

if(tabNumber < 0 || tabNumber > limit)

{

tabControl.Controls.Add(new TabPage("new Page"));

return;

}

int target = tabControl.SelectedIndex;

//save the exisiting pages & clear the controls

Control [] c = new Control[limit];

tabControl.Controls.CopyTo(c, 0);

tabControl.Controls.Clear();

//add the earlier pages

for (int i = 0; i < target; ++i)

tabControl.Controls.Add(c[i]);

//insert the page

tabControl.Controls.Add(new TabPage("new Page"));

//add the later pages

for (int i = target; i < limit; ++i)

tabControl.Controls.Add(c[i]);

//select the new page

tabControl.SelectedIndex = target;

}