How to programmatically select a TabItem in WPF TabControl

Question

I would like to know how to select a specific TabItem in a WPF TabControl.

I tried these bellow but nothing work!

MyTabControl.SelectedIndex = x

MyTabControl.SelectedItem = MyTabItem

MyTabControl.SelectedValue = MyTabItem

MyTabItem.IsSelected = True

Answer 1

As @Chris says, any of the first three things should work and as @Phyxx says, it doesn't always really work. The problem is some subtle thing about the order of property changes. To work around it you need to let the WPF invoke your tab-selection code in its own time:

Dispatcher.BeginInvoke((Action)(() => MyTabControl.SelectedIndex = x));

This does just what Phyxx' timer does, but in a slightly less extreme way.

Answer 2

All your examples except the third one are correct and will work. The problem must be at another location. Maybe you reset the item after setting or your code never is called?

Valid

MyTabControl.SelectedIndex = x   
MyTabControl.SelectedItem = MyTabItem    
MyTabItem.IsSelected = True 

Invalid

MyTabControl.SelectedValue = MyTabItem 

Answer 3

Loop through the TabItems and for the tab to be selected, set

tabItem.IsSelected = true

If there are any other place due to binding changing you will see problem. Otherwise, the above code should work.

Answer 4

One thing which hasn't been mentioned above:

The main reason something like this won't work is that the tab items do not have the "Name" property set. Each tab item of the tab control which you want to navigate to programmatically must have its name property set for any of the above code to work.

<tabItem Name="tab1"></tabItem>

Answer 5

I have implemented a small MVVM bindings based solution for selecting tab panels pragmatically.

1. define a property in your view model - Selected int type

2. bind the property in your view

   <TabControl
       x:Name="TabsCandidate" 
       VerticalAlignment="Stretch" 
       TabStripPlacement="Top"
       SelectedIndex="{Binding Selected}"
   

3. private int _selected;

   public int Selected
   {
       get { return _selected; }
       set
       {
           _selected = value;
           OnPropertyChanged("Selected");
       }
   }
   

4. Set the value to Select property, simply the binding will activate the tab panel.

   if you want to navigate from tab panel inside parent tab panels, this solution will simply works, All you need to do is, access the data context of your control and set it

   // set the property value of the view model which points the index of the tab controller.
   ((CandidateViewModel)((System.Windows.FrameworkElement)candidateTab.Content).DataContext).Selected = CandidateLogTabIndex;
   

Answer 6

I tried all the methods that should have worked, but like you nothing actually changed the selected tab. In the end I got it to work by putting the tab selection code in a DispatcherTimer tick.

       DispatcherTimer switchTabTimer = new DispatcherTimer();
       switchTabTimer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0);
       switchTabTimer.Tick += (object timerSender, EventArgs timerE) =>
       {
           myTabControl.SelectedIndex = 0;
           switchTabTimer.Stop();
       };
       switchTabTimer.Start(); 

Answer 7

Try to set the MyTabControl.SelectedIndex = x in the event handler of DataContextChanged or Loaded of your UI. Hope this will work.

Answer 8

if you don't know the index of the tab (hint its not TabIndex) use:

    private async Task ChangeTabTo(TabItem wantedTab) {
        int index = 0;
        for (var i = 0; i < TabControl.Items.Count; i++) {
            var tab = TabControl.Items[i];
            var t = tab as TabItem;
            if (t == null) continue;
            if (t == wantedTab) {
                index = i;
                break;
            }
        }

        await Dispatcher.BeginInvoke((Action)(() => TabControl.SelectedIndex = index));
    }

or modify it to search by name if you don't want to keep a reference to the tab

Answer 9

I'm throwing my 2 cents on the topic, since it might help someone out. I'm using WPF with Prims framework.

I was unable to select a tab by binding to SelectedItem or SelectedIndex - it didn't work. I was also unable to set TabItem.Name value from within TabControl.ItemTemplate or TabControl.ContentTemplate.

Instead I implemented event-based solution:

1. Add Name value for my TabControl.
2. Create an event - in Prism that means define a class that derives from PubSubEvent<T> (T is the type of parameter - in my case that was the ViewModel object bound to the TabItem>.
3. Publish that event whenever I want to a tab to be selected.
4. Subscribe to the event within my View.cs class and set the TabControl.SelectedItem programmatically using FindName.