Move focus to the next tab item on pressing tab key

Question

I have a TabControl in my form which contains 5 tabs. I want the focus to goes to the next tab, when I press TAB key. I have set the TabIndex property of each TabPage control. But it doesn't work.

I also tried this code for the RichTextBox I have in my TabPages .

private void rchFisrtTab_KeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Tab)
    {
       tabText.SelectedTab = tbpSecondTab;
       rchSecondTab.Focus();
       rchSecondTab.Select();
    }
}

But it doesn't get triggered at all! So I'm wondering how can I make it work.

Thank you.

Answer 1

You need to intercept the TAB key by subclassing the TabControl and overriding one of the ProcessXXX methods, eg

class FormTab2 : Form {

    public FormTab2() {
        TabControl tc = new TC2 { Dock = DockStyle.Fill };
        TabPage p1 = new TabPage() { Text = "Tab1" };
        TabPage p2 = new TabPage() { Text = "Tab2" };
        p1.Controls.Add(new Button { Text = "Button1" });
        p2.Controls.Add(new Button { Text = "Button2" });
        tc.TabPages.Add(p1);
        tc.TabPages.Add(p2);
        Controls.Add(tc);
    }

    public class TC2 : TabControl {

        protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData) {
            if (keyData == Keys.Tab && this.Focused) {
                int x = (SelectedIndex + 1) % TabPages.Count;
                SelectedTab = TabPages[x];
                //this.Focus();
                return true;
            }
            return base.ProcessCmdKey(ref msg, keyData);
        }
    }
}