Multiple Content in Single Form

[scholar]

Hi Friends,

I am trying to make an application which will have a configuration form.That form would be having next and previous buttons. Clicking on next button should display different content on the same form.
Please suggest different ways to accomplish it.

[kvprajapati]

Use Tab Control.

[scholar]

Thanks for reply but wen we use tab control we have to click on tab buttons to switch to different content but what i need is that when we click the next button then the different content should appear just as in case of installation of an application using Windows Installer

[kvprajapati]

Wizard!!!

[scholar]

clarify

[Ramy Mahrous]

In your case I mainly use panels each of which holds some controls.
Next and Previous buttons, Hide\Show Panels with some simple logic increment\decrement Panel index.

[sknake]

I use a custom tab control and hide the tab headers during run time that way you can easily click on the tabs during design time to change the control layout:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace DataExplorer
{
  public class TabControlEx : TabControl
  {
    /// <summary>
    /// Gets or sets a value indicating whether the tab headers should be drawn
    /// </summary>
    [
    Description("Gets or sets a value indicating whether the tab headers should be drawn"),
    DefaultValue(true)
    ]
    public bool ShowTabHeaders { get; set; }

    public TabControlEx()
      : base()
    {
    }

    protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
    {
      // Hide tabs by trapping the TCM_ADJUSTRECT message
      if (!ShowTabHeaders && m.Msg == 0x1328 && !DesignMode) 
        m.Result = (IntPtr)1;
      else
        base.WndProc(ref m);
    }
  }
}

Drop a normal tab control on to a form then open up the form's design file and locate these two lines:

this.tabControl1 = new <ProjectName>.TabControl();
//further down you will find this:
private TabControl tabControl1;

Change them to:

this.tabControl1 = new <ProjectName>.TabControlEx();
private TabControlEx tabControl1;

Switch back to your designer and select the tab control and change the "ShowTabHeaders" value to false.