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Contents

EZ-Tab Description

Overview

Components and Installation

How to use EZ-Tab

Properties, Events and Methods

EZ-Tab Properties

EZ-Tab Events and Methods


Overview

With Winword 6.0, Microsoft has introduced a new standard for the Windows user interface, the so called tabbed dialogs. This technique allows to present complicated dialogs to the user without adding a great number of controls to one window or splitting the dialog into many subdialogs. With the EZ-Tab tabular container control, the Visual Basic developer is able to implement tabbed dialogs without any additonal coding or subcontrols.

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EZ-Tab Implementation


EZ-Tab Implementation

EZ-Tab was designed with the objective, that the developer does not have to learn any new technique to set-up a tabbed dialog. Here are some of the EZ-Tab highlights:

•	The EZ-Tab control is used like the standard Visual Basic Frame control.

•	All sibling EZ-Tab controls have the same position and size automatically.

•	The 'tab-area' is also active in design mode, i.e. the developer can switch between the different panes by double clicking with the right mouse button.

•	The first EZ-Tab instance is initially set-up with the BackColor property of it's parent control. The second and further instances automatically take the color and font properties from their ancestors. Also the 'tab-area' is automatically placed in a reasonable position.

•	EZ-Tab has an Auto 3-D facility, i.e depending on the BackColor property, the control is painted plain or with a 3-D appearance.

•	EZ-Tab has built-in focus tracking, i.e when a container is shown for the first time, focus is moved to the first control on that container. Any further activation of this pane restores the focus to the control that had the focus the last time.

•	EZ-Tab supports the standard Caption and Enabled properties. This includes the ability to use mnemonic access keys.


Components and Installation

The following sections describe the different components of the EZ-Tab package and how to install it on your computer.

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Contents of the distribution disk

Installation


Contents of the distribution disk

The EZ-Tab distribution disk contains the following files (demo versions may contain fewer or additional components, look for a READ.ME file with explanations). For electronically distributed versions, the EZ-Tab components may be compressed into a single file:

Filename	Description
EZTAB.VBX	Development version of the control.
EZTABR.VBX	Runtime version of the control. If you want to distribute an application, that uses the EZ-Tab control, rename this file to EZTAB.VBX and add it to your distribution disks.
EZTAB.HLP	On-line help for EZ-Tab.
PROJECT1.MAK	Sample project file.
FORM1.FRM	Sample form file.
LICENSE.WRI	License agreement in Windows Write format.
You are not allowed to distribute the development version of the control. Distribution of  the runtime version is free of charge.


Installation

If the installation is not accomplished by an installation program, simply copy the files from the distribution disk to a separate directory on your hard disk. The custom control file EZTAB.VBX should also be copied to your Windows system directory to allow access for compiled programs.


How to use EZ-Tab

EZ-Tab is used like any other Visual Basic custom control. For a quick start open a new project and follow these instructions:

•	Use the Add File Command from the File menu to include the control library EZTAB.VBX into your project.

•	You can now draw the first EZ-Tab container on a form. You will notice that the control initially has the BackColor property of the form. Depending on the control's background color, the EZ-Tab border is displayed plain or in 3-D. So if you want a 3-D appearance of the tabbed dialog, set the BackColor property (of the form and of the EZ-Tab control) e.g. to &H8000000F (light gray).

•	The easiest technique to add other EZ-Tab instances to the form is to simply double click on the toolbox icon. All subsequent containers take the size and position of the existing controls. Resizing one control automatically adjusts it's siblings.

•	Now you can draw the child controls of the different containers in the same way as you do for a Frame control. A right mouse button double click can be used to switch between the panes in design mode.

That's all to implement tabbed dialogs! If you look at the demo application, you will see that the only code there is to demonstrate some of the EZ-Tab capabilities and not to further support the dialog behaviour. You might want to add in the Form_Load event a call to the ZOrder method of the control that you want to be on top initially.

You should not draw a new EZ-Tab instance within an existing one as long as you do not want to display sort of a 'hierarchical tabbed dialog'.


EZ-Tab Properties

EZ-Tab supports the same properties as the Visual Basic Frame control. The only specialty is that all siblings controls automatically have the same size and position. There are only few additional properties.

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EZ-Tab non-standard properties


EZ-Tab non-standard properties

Here is a list of EZ-Tab's non standard properties:

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(About)

TabLeft, TabWidth


(About)

Displays a dialog box with copyright and version information.


TabLeft, TabWidth

These properties determine the position and width of the 'tab-area'. The height is automatically adjusted to the font size.


EZ-Tab Events and Methods

EZ-Tab supports the same events as the Visual Basic Frame control. You should notice that the Click and DblClick events are only fired, if the mouse button is pressed within the 'control-area'. This is the combination of the control's 'tab-area and 'pane'. Though EZ-Tab controls appear to be non-rectangular, the 'out-of-bounds' area is part of the control. Therefore the other mouse events are also fired, if  the mouse is over this region. You can even draw a child window in the out-of-bounds area (but you certainly won't like to do so).

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EZ-Tab non-standard events

EZ-Tab methods


EZ-Tab non-standard events

There are only two non-standard events for EZ-Tab, Activate and Deactivate. These events are fired, when a control is brought to the top or put into the background respectively.


EZ-Tab methods

There are no non-standard methods for the EZ-Tab control.