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SftTabs/OCX 6.5 - New Features

SftTabs/OCX 6.5 is fully upward compatible to version 6.0 and older versions.

The following major enhancements have been made available with SftTabs/OCX 6.5 (some minor additional enhancements are not listed here):

Click here to review the online documentation for all product enhancements, with links to the topics describing each new property, method and event in detail.

  • New SftTabsTabs.Alignment property defines the alignment of all tabs within the control and is used to control the alignment of entire tab rows within the tab control.
  • New SftTabsTabs.LayoutMode property to define the layout mode of all tabs within the control. This is used to control how tabs are distributed among tab rows. For resizable tab controls, the "AutoFlow" mode is particularly useful, as it dynamically adds/removes tab rows as needed.
  • New SftTabsTabs.MinRows, SftTabsTabs.MaxRows properties define the minimum and maximum number of rows to allow while recalculating the tab layout, when the LayoutMode property is set to 2-AutoFlow.
  • The tab styles (see Style property) styleSftTabsButtonsTop (66) through styleSftTabsButtonsDualLeftRightV (74) now allow the use of tab page colors (SftTabsTab.ClientAreaColor) even when Windows themes are used. This allows the use of themed buttons as tabs, with application-defined colors for the client area of tab pages.
  • The tab styles (see Style property) styleSftTabsButtonsTop (66) through styleSftTabsButtonsDualLeftRightV (74) now allow the background to show through in between the tab buttons when UseExactRegion and Windows themes are used.
  • New SftTabsTabs.Highlighted property used to determine the currently highlighted tab (due to flyby highlighting).
  • New SftTabsTabs.ClippedText property to indicate whether any of the tab labels has text that doesn't fit within the available space.
  • New SftTabsTabs.DroppedText property used to determine whether the tab labels have been dropped because tab text doesn't fit within the available space.
  • New SftTabsScrolling.ScrollDropped property used to determine whether the scroll buttons have been temporarily dropped because they are not necessary (scrolling is not possible).
  • New SftTabsTab.CloseButton property offering a tab close button for each tab.
  • A second tab image has been added with the new SftTabsTab.Image2, SftTabsTab.Image2Active, SftTabsTab.Image2Disabled, SftTabsTab.Image2Hot and SftTabsTab.Image2GapPix properties. The second tab image is always displayed to the right (bottom) of the tab label.
  • Additional values for the TabClicked event's TabArea argument describing which portion of a tab was clicked.
  • New LayoutChanged event notifying an application that the tab layout has changed.
  • Miscellaneous property page enhancements.

The following major enhancements have been made available with SftTabs/OCX 6.0 (some minor additional enhancements are not listed here):

  • 9 new tab styles
  • Support for new image formats, such as PNG, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, Exif, EMF+, EMF (GDI+ images) with full support for alpha-blended (translucent and semi-transparent) images.
  • Support for new image types, such as check boxes, radio buttons, color samples, image lists, GDI+ images (SftPictureObject).
  • New GDIPlusSupport property, LoadGDIPlusImage, LoadGDIPlusImageFromResource and DeleteGDIPlusImage methods supporting GDI+ images.
  • Support for GDI+ images (GDIPlusSupport, LoadGDIPlusImage, LoadGDIPlusImageFromResource, DeleteGDIPlusImage).
  • New Image, ImageDisabled, ImageHot properties defining images for the tab.
  • New TabClicked event, used to handle clicking on text or image portions of a tab.
  • The height/width of a tab row can now be specified using the ForcedSize (ForcedSizePix) property, allowing tab rows to be visually aligned with other items on forms or dialogs.
  • Tab switching can now also take place when the mouse button is released, instead of when it is pressed (SwitchOnRelease property).
  • New Next, Previous method to make the next/previous tab the active tab.
  • Multiple lines of text for the Tab.Text and Tab.ToolTip properties can now be defined at design-time, not just at run-time.
  • Various corrections to help file syntax.
  • Enhanced property pages.