C# Tab switching in TabControl

Question

Iam facing such problem, which I find hard to overcome. In WinForms I got a TabControl with n TabPages. I want to extend the Ctrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab switching. so I wrote some code which works fine as long as the focus is on TabControl or on the Form. When application focus is INSIDE of TabPage (for example on a button which is placed inside of TabPage), while pressing Ctrl+Tab, my code is ignored and TabControl skips to TabPage on his own (avoiding my code).

Anyone idea ?

Answer 1

You need to derive from TabControl and override ProcessCmdKey, virtual method in order to override the Ctrl-Tab behavior.

Example:

public class ExtendedTabControl: TabControl
{
    protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData)
    {
        if (keyData == (Keys.Control | Keys.Tab))
        {
            // Write custom logic here
            return true;
        }
        if (keyData == (Keys.Control | Keys.Shift | Keys.Tab))
        {
            // Write custom logic here, for backward switching
            return true;
        }
        return base.ProcessCmdKey(ref msg, keyData);
    }
}