SWT: A Developer's Notebook

Adding Widgets to the Tabs

The final step in creating a tabbed folder interface is to add controls to the tab pages.

How do I do that?

Use setControl( ) to add a control to a tab page:

ti1.setControl(new GroupExample(tf, SWT.SHADOW_ETCHED_IN, "Option Group"));

Each TabItem page can be assigned only one control. This means that you almost certainly will create a Composite for each page, add widgets to that Composite to achieve the desired user interface, and then add the Composite to the page.

Tip

You should note that when you call setControl( ) to add a control to the page, the parent that is passed to the method as the first parameter is not the TabItem upon which the control is being placed, but rather the TabFolder within which the page resides. This is because TabItem does not inherit from Composite, and can’t be used as a container for other widgets. The controls that are placed on TabItem actually reside on the TabFolder and are merely being made visible or not visible as the user navigates the pages.