To be clear .. there are many many use cases of a close button on a tab page.  Every major language has this - Just not PB

And no, the new 2022 R2 features for MDI frames as TABS does not solve the issue. (One cannot have an MDI in a dialog box) and a major reengining is required to make use of the new MDI stuff.

Also you cannot close a dynamically opened category tab in the BibbonBar as there is no way to place a close button on the tab (yes you can code a BAD UI button somewhere else - but that is just ugly and BAD UI - so there is room for improvement.

Steen -

Would you be willing to elaborate on the use-case need for this requested enhancement. I've worked on many apps over the years, some using LOTS of tab controls, even some "nested" tab controls (a tab control on a tab page of a "parent" tab control)... and like Chris, I've never encountered a situation where it made sense for a user to be able to close a tab page. I'd really like to understand the situation(s) you are needing to address. Of course, I don't want you to disclose any proprietary information. However, if you can spare a couple of minutes to help educate me (and others), I'd really appreciate it!

Best regards, John

I'm disappointed and confused by the statement that Appeon states they will not be enhancing the Tab control/tab pages to provide an optional "X" (close) button on the tabs for a tab control placed in a window. At the Elevate keynote, when Chris was demonstrating the tabbed MDI "sheet" window planned for 2022 R2, I asked in the accompanying chat if window Tab controls were also going to be enhanced to provide the "X" on the tabs, and I think Armeen's response was that yes, they were (please correct me, Armeen, if I'm mistaken). So, when PB 2022 R2 adds this functionality, a user will be able to close a tabbed window by clicking on the "X", but not on a tab displayed in a Tab control contained within the window? Yeah, our users are going to be so understanding when they see that (not!)

As I understand it (and by golly, I could be wrong), the PB Tab control is essentially the Tab control provided by Microsoft in its Windows Common Controls. Since the Tab control in Common Controls does not support the "X" (close tab) feature, or tab colors, or any number of other modern UI improvements, then neither does PB. Unfortunately, Microsoft updates their common controls very infrequently, choosing instead to make the Windows O/S look more and more like the Apple O/S (who asked for that, by the way?), so we are pretty much stuck with the limited look, feel, and functionality that Microsoft gives us with the antiquated Common Controls.

However, I have found several articles on the web describing how features/capabilities of common controls can be enhanced via subclassing, which can be done in C++ (but not in PB/PowerScript). I even found a post that shows how to subclass the Tab control and Tab Page to implement the "X" (close tab) that Steen and others are needing. Since PB is written in C++, I'm at a loss as to understand why Appeon cannot or will not do this. I also wonder if subclassing the various common controls could provide an improved user experience in PB without requiring us to use themes.

I'm setting this to "resolved" as Appeon have indicated that there will not be a close button on the TabPage.

//Steen

Hi Steen,

maybe you could take a look at PBToolbox (https://pbtoolbox.home.blog/)

Don't know the pricing but still worth to ask ...

Best regards,

Philippe.

Hi there .. including Appeon :-)

Any news on this really annoying thing ?

(PB2022 is GREAT but this tiny little thing keeps hitting us. Our users are asking all the time for it and cannot understand why we cannot do it..)

Thanks Steen

I continue to be blown away by the solutions that Roland comes up with... Nicely done, Roland! As soon as I saw it, I immediately had to dig into his code to learn how it was done, and of course, I learned a lot in the process. The PB Community benefits greatly from your numerous contributions, Roland. Thank you!

My geeky side wanted to see what it would take to extend Roland's proof-of-concept with some additional capabilities:

• Support alternate tab position settings in addition to TabsOnTop.
• Support multi-line tabs.
• Support tabs that utilize perpendicular text.
• Automatically disable the Tax X "button" when only one tab remains and enable it when more than one tab exists.
• Tweak the user interface to integrate better when the tab page navigation (left/right) control appears.
• Add a tooltip for the Tab X "button".
• Ensures proper operation in 64-bit.

This took several evenings of experimentation. I've attached below an "enhanced" version of the original sample app & objects that accomplishes all of the above. Here are a couple of screen shots:

I had to reduce the size of the "X" slightly in order to make it fit.

For some time now, PB has provided tooltip support in DataWindows. However, I needed a tooltip that worked with a static text control. I started with a version of a non-visual tooltip object created by Aart Onkenhout (Thank you, Aart!) around 2005 and updated his code to use Unicode Windows API calls instead of ANSI as it was originally coded many years ago, and also got it to work in 64-bit.

The command buttons you see make it easy to "load up" the tab control with additional tab pages for testing and also manage the tooltip functionality.

Enjoy!

My 2cts here is that - once we get tabbed windows - the best thing to do, is get away completely from tab controls. They behave funny, have bugs and just try doing a setredraw(false) of a tab and see how that doesn't do anything to controls inside of it.

Of course that's going to be a lot of refactoring, but it might be worth it.

regards,

MiguelL

The attached picture and PB 2019 app has an X button that is located in the upper right corner of the tab control.

When you move the mouse over it, the background color changes. Click it to delete the current tab. When the tab control resizes with the window, the X button automatically stays in the correct position.

I used the SetParent Windows API function to make the parent of the X button (really a statictext object) be the tab control. That makes the upper left corner of the tab control the 0,0 position.

It isn't possible to add a control to the tab buttons themselves. You could use tab pictures but you couldn't determine if the clicked event was due to the picture being clicked.

I know you're frustrated, Steen.

Are you willing to consider an alternative UI that provides identical functionality?

As a quick test, I added the same, small Static Text control to each of three tab pages as shown below:

It's a red uppercase T in 12 point Webdings2, in case anyone is interested in those details.

In the clicked event of each of these, I called a window function:

// Ask the window to close the parent tab page of this static text control.
of_CloseTab(Parent)

Here's the window's of_CloseTab object function:

Integer li_index, li_num_tabpages
UserObject luo_tabpage

// A valid reference to the tab page user object to be closed is required.
If Not IsValid(auo_tabpage) Then Return -1

li_num_tabpages = UpperBound(tab_1.Control)

// We cannot (should not) close the tab if it is the only one.
If li_num_tabpages < 2 Then
   MessageBox("Close Tab Request","Unable to close this tab, as it is the only one.",Exclamation!,OK!)
   Return -1
End If

// Find the requested tab page in the tab control's Control array.
For li_index = 1 To li_num_tabpages
   // Cast tab page reference to a user object.
   luo_tabpage = tab_1.Control[li_index]
   
   If luo_tabpage <> auo_tabpage Then Continue
   
   // Found the requested tab page. Close it.
   tab_1.CloseTab(luo_tabpage)
   
   // Did we just close the last tab page?
   li_num_tabpages = UpperBound(tab_1.Control)
   If li_index <= li_num_tabpages Then
      // No - Select the tab page that was after the one that was closed.
      tab_1.SelectTab(li_index)
   Else
      // Yes - Select the tab page that preceded the one that was closed.
      tab_1.SelectTab(li_num_tabpages)
   End If
   
   // Success.
   Return 1
Next

// No action taken.
Return 0

Of course, you can make this much more rugged/sophisticated, check for unsaved data, etc., but here I just wanted to make the close tab functionality work... and it does. Click on the red "X", and...

If you have an ancestor tab page user object, it would be easier to implement (not that what I've done is difficult).

I think it's pretty obvious you're not going to be able to do what you're wanting in the exact manner you've expressed, so it may be time to move on and come up with a reasonable alternative. Maybe not what I've proposed, but something that does what you need it to do.

Best regards, John

Hi Steen,

I have some thoughts on how you might be able to accomplish this in the interim but have a few questions first:

How many tabs are you likely to have opened by the user? Is it unlimited?
Are there pictures currently on the tabs?
Are you okay with having the tabs being fixed width?
Are you okay with NOT having RaggedRight, Perpendicular text or Multiline (may be able to work around Multiline)?
Are you okay with the text of the tabs being right justified?

This may go nowhere if any of the above constraints are deal breakers for you. If not, while the look and feel may not be exactly what you want it may be sufficient/ acceptable given how much you seem to need this at the moment and until Appeon makes this functionality available.

Regards,

Mark

Brad Wery has implemented that. It's available in Ultimate Suite for PB. Of course it's not free...

The above screenshot is from NotepadPB.

A modern tab control was available in Advanced Gui. But it is missing the close button as you want it.

By the way, Roland Smith and Brad Wery did contributed to advanced gui sample. The close tab is implemented only as a "global" close button on the right...

Andreas.

.. So there is no solution to get a modern tab control i guess. 

Something like the attached.

Hi Steven;

   The way I did this back in the PB 3.0-4.0 days in the early days of my framework was to write my own Visual User Object as a Tab Control / Tab Page combination where I could control the GUI 100% (including the X button on the TP).

  Your right.. this feature has been requested since way back in the PowerSoft days.

Regards ... Chris

Hi Steen, It is on our roadmap to add a tabbed document interface in the revisions of PB 2022, but for now you would need to do a workaround.