Where can I find a nice .NET Tab Control for free?

Question

I'm doing this application in C# using the free Krypton Toolkit but the Krypton Navigator is a paid product which is rather expensive for me and this application is being developed on my free time and it will be available to the public for free.

So, I'm looking for a free control to integrate better into my Krypton application because the default one doesn't quite fit and it will be different depending on the OS version...

Any suggestions?

P.S: I know I could owner-draw it but I'm trying not to have that kind of work... I prefer something already done if it exists for free.

EDIT: I just found exactly what I wanted:
http://www.angelonline.net/CodeSamples/Lib_3.5.0.zip

Answer 1

If you need an updated lib with Office 2010 Palettes: http://www.angelonline.net/CodeSamples/Lib_4.2.0.zip

Answer 2

If anyone is looking for the latest version of the AC.ExtendedRenderer.ToolKit which is mentioned in other posts, then the following links point to the central source of them. However the website is dead....even WaybackMachine can't help us get to the DLLs :(!

• http://web.archive.org/web/20130725145918/http://www.advancedcomputing.ch/Downloads/tabid/62/Default.aspx

The latest I have been able to find is 4.1.6b here:

• http://web.ticino.com/angelo/CodeSamples/Lib_4.1.6b.zip

If anyone knows where the later versions can be downloaded, please let us know.

EDIT: The Component Factory Krypton components were migrated to https://github.com/ComponentFactory/Krypton

Answer 3

I don't know of any open source or free tab controls, but I wonder why you don't just use the framework's tab control. Is there something you are trying to do that the Forms.TabControl doesn't do?

Answer 4

My first suggestion would be to talk to Phil at ComponentFactory. I find him to be a very reasonable fellow. Maybe he can give you a special deal or make a design suggestion on how to customize the existing tab control.

But your's is more of a design/subjective question that, I think, would benefit from a screenshot to better communicate the design challenge you need to "integrate better". Saying "the default one doesn't quite fit" is pretty vague.

After that, people will have a better starting point for making suggestions. In the mean time, I would look at the WindowsClient.NET control gallery.

Answer 5

You could look at the Magic TabControl project over at CodeProject.

Answer 6

1. Download the Flat Tab Control (.NET) from Code Project. Takes about 30 seconds to get this working, and it gets you away from the default Windows tab control look and feel. But it's not Kryptonized.
2. See this post on a slick custom Kryptonized Tab Control based on the Flat Tab control you built in Step 1. You can download the control assembly on this downloads page (it's a little hard to find). So far as I know, the source code isn't available, however, Reflector can be of use here if you're curious as to how the Krypton-theming was done.
3. Replace the Flat Tab display logic (Paint, etc.) with Krypton-aware display logic. This is straightforward, because there's not a lot of code to the Flat Tab control.