Skip Navigation LinksActipro Software / Products / .NET Controls / WPF / Ribbon / Contextual Tab Groups

Feature Tour:

Contextual Tab Groups

The controls used most often in an application are always available on the Ribbon. However sometimes a specific object is selected in the document (such as a picture, table, or chart) that requires additional controls for proper interaction with the object. This is where contextual tabs come in since they contain the controls that relate to the selected object.

Contextual tabs are the same as normal tabs except that they are contained by a ContextualTabGroup and are only displayed when the parent ContextualTabGroup is active.

Contextual tab groups displayed for a selection in the document; note how green is used to distinguish the selected contextual tab

The contextual tab group draws a label over the tabs to indicate what they relate to. For instance if a table is selected in the document, the label Table Tools is displayed.

Each contextual tab group also should have a distinct background color. Actipro Ribbon includes numerous built-in colors for use with contextual tab groups, however you can specify your own as well. The colors apply to not only the contextual tab group label and tab, but also to the background of the tab's content.

Since contextual tabs are typically more important to the end user while they are displayed (because they relate to the current context in the document), the tabs themselves scale down after the "normal" tabs do, thus keeping them more visible longer when the ribbon's width decreases.