How to draw a TabControl's tab exactly the same way winforms does?

Question

Hi,

My form contains a tab control and I want to be able to adjust the colors and the font color of the tabs. This must depend on certain conditions. As a first step, I want to make with owner draw tabs exactly the same as if Drawmode = normal is set. I can't find anywhere how to do this. As soon as you get started with Drawmode = OwnerdrawFixed, the tabs get ugly.

This I have found so far:

TabControlCharts.DrawItem += new DrawItemEventHandler(tabControl1_DrawItem_1);

    private void tabControl1_DrawItem_1(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
    {
        var tabControl = sender as TabControl;
        var tabPage = tabControl.TabPages[e.Index];

        var format = new StringFormat
        {
            FormatFlags = StringFormatFlags.NoWrap,
            Trimming = StringTrimming.None
        };

        // DrawString
        //using (var brush = new SolidBrush(Color.Black))
        //    e.Graphics.DrawString(tabPage.Text, e.Font, brush, tabControl.GetTabRect(e.Index), format);

        // DrawText
        var flags = TextFormatFlags.HorizontalCenter | TextFormatFlags.VerticalCenter | TextFormatFlags.SingleLine;
        TextRenderer.DrawText(e.Graphics, tabPage.Text, e.Font, e.Bounds, Color.Black, flags); 
    }

Unfortunately, the result does not resemble Drawmode = OwnerdrawFixed.

Greetings

Answer 1

TabControl in winform provides few modifiable items, and as you can see, modifying the text color in this way does not look pretty.

A possible alternative is to create a UserControl (WPF) and place a TabControl control, customizing its properties will be much more flexible.

<UserControl x:Class="WindowsFormsApp1.MyTabControl"  
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"  
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"  
             xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"   
             xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"   
             xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WindowsFormsApp1"  
             mc:Ignorable="d"   
             d:DesignHeight="100" d:DesignWidth="200">  
    <UserControl.Resources>  
        <Style x:Key="TabItemText" TargetType="{x:Type TextBlock}">  
            <Style.Triggers>  
                <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding IsSelected, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=TabItem}}" Value="True">  
                    <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="Black"/>  
                </DataTrigger>  
                <DataTrigger Binding="{Binding IsSelected, RelativeSource={RelativeSource AncestorType=TabItem}}" Value="False">  
                    <Setter Property="Foreground" Value="LightBlue"/>  
                </DataTrigger>  
            </Style.Triggers>  
        </Style>  
    </UserControl.Resources>  
    <Grid>  
        <TabControl x:Name="tabControl" Background="LightBlue" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="100" Margin="2,3,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="200">  
            <TabItem  Background="LightBlue" >  
                <TabItem.Header>  
                    <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">  
                        <TextBlock Text="Text" Margin="0,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Center" Foreground="Red" />  
                    </StackPanel>  
                </TabItem.Header>  
            </TabItem>  
            <TabItem  Background="LightBlue" >  
                <TabItem.Header>  
                    <StackPanel Orientation="Vertical">  
                        <TextBlock Text="Text" Margin="0,0,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Center" Foreground="Blue" />  
                    </StackPanel>  
                </TabItem.Header>  
            </TabItem>  
        </TabControl>  
  
    </Grid>  
</UserControl>  

Build the project, and then it will appear in the ToolBox.

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