TabControl in VS2005 looks really ugly. Any non 3rd party solutions?

[Gregory Gadow]

The TabControl that shipped with .NET 2.0 is seems to be buggier than
dog droppings in high summer. Among several complaints, the tabs
themselves look horrifically ugly when their pages have the focus, at
least when run on Windows XP.

I need to create a form with several tabbed pages and would really like
something that at least looks likes the older TabControl (I have a
project written in 1.0, and the tabs look great.) Is there any way to
change the tab appearance without using a 3rd party control and without
having to do a bunch of custom redesign of the standard control?

 

[Rob R. Ainscough]

I believe there is a style option with the tab control -- unless you really
have to use a 3rd party control, I'd avoid it if possible -- they're just as
buggy -- "managed" apps will make your life easier.

I don't recall if that control is part of the "Use WindowsXP style" controls
or not (assembly setting)

Rob

 

[Gregory Gadow]

I believe there is a style option with the tab control -- unless you really
have to use a 3rd party control, I'd avoid it if possible -- they're just as
buggy -- "managed" apps will make your life easier.

I don't recall if that control is part of the "Use WindowsXP style" controls
or not (assembly setting)

There is no style option with the tab control, at least not that I can find.

The problem goes away when "Use WindowsXP style" is unchecked; the tabs still
look ugly in design mode but are drawn like the classical control when the app
is run, so apparently the problem is with the way XP draws the buttons, not the
..NET framework. The worst part is when the tabs are not at the top of the tab
control; XP still insists on drawing the selected tab white with an orange bar
and rounded corners at the top and no border along the bottom. It really, really
looks bad.

Looks like, yet again, I will have to effectively throw away something I bought
from Microsoft and pay even more money to get something that actually *works*.