Page Control and Tab Control

• Mar 21, 2023
• 3 minutes to read

The DevExpress ASP.NET Page Control and Tab Control allow you to build tabbed interfaces within your web sites. You can either use the ASPxTabControl component to display only tabs or use the ASPxPageControl to associate specific page content with each tab. Both controls have been built to generate minimal HTML code, work on the client-side without hassles, be fast and fully support AJAX for on-demand page loading via callbacks.

The ASPxTabControl and ASPxPageControl components offers you a myriad of options for appearance customization. You can control the look and feel of tabs using multiple mechanisms - from applying a theme to the entire control, to customization of individual tabs via our API, using CSS or via the use of templates. Beyond appearance options, you have an extremely flexible means to control end-user interaction. Numerous server-side settings, client-side API and events allow you to take full control over how your tab control responds to user actions. You have complete control over what user action activates a tab, and whether there should be a postback, callback or client processing. Note that the most frequently used scenarios are already built-in - you just need to toggle a property.

This topic lists the features that are unique to the ASPxTabControl and ASPxPageControl.

Run Demo: Page Control

View Example: Page Control for ASP.NET Web Forms - How to create a wizard interface

Control Features

• Templates can be specified for tabs in both active and inactive states, and for each tab individually.
• You can change the appearance of each element in each state either directly via properties or by assigning a CSS class.
• Several themes are available, so you can apply an attractive design to your tabs with just a couple of mouse clicks.
• A tab control supports two ways to activate a tab - by clicking it or by hovering over it with the mouse pointer.

AJAX Support

You can enable AJAX support by setting the EnableCallbacks property to true. In this instance, ASPxPageControl initially loads only the active page’s content onto the client. When end-users activate other pages, their content is loaded via callbacks. Once a page’s content has been loaded, end-users can switch to this page on the client-side without callbacks or postbacks. You can try this functionality on the home page of this site.

Client-Side Features

• Client-side events allow you to perform custom actions when an end-user clicks on a tab, and immediately after the corresponding page has been loaded. If you use AJAX functionality, you will need these events to indicate that a callback is in progress.
• You can use client-side API to activate tabs, obtain tab information and specify HTML content for pages in ASPxPageControl.

Tab Features

• A convenient tab collection design-time editor is available.
• Customizable tab spacing.
• Tab position and alignment can be changed to display tabs at any edge and corner of a page control.
• Custom images can be displayed within tabs.
• You can specify tooltips for tabs.