Eclipse Cookbook

10.1. Creating SWT Tab Folders

Problem

Space is at a premium in your application, and you want to divide your widgets into a set of pages.

Solution

Try a tab folder widget, which enables you to stack pages of widgets. Create a new TabFolder object, add TabItem objects to it, and use the TabItem objects as widget containers.

Discussion

Tab folders are not difficult to create and stack with widgets. Just create an object of the TabFolder class, as in the TabApp example in the code for the book. Here’s a selection of the most popular TabFolder methods:

void addSelectionListener(SelectionListener listener)

Adds the listener to the collection of listeners who will be notified when the tab folder’s selection changes

TabItem getItem(int index)

Returns the item at the given zero-relative index in the tab folder

int getItemCount( )

Returns the number of items in the tab folder

TabItem[] getItems( )

Returns an array of TabItem objects that are the items in the tab folder

void setSelection(int index)

Selects the item at the given zero-relative index in the tab folder

Here’s how the TabApp application creates a tab folder:

final TabFolder tabFolder = new TabFolder(shell, SWT.BORDER);
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After creating a tab folder, add as many TabItem objects as you need to create the pages in the tab folder. Here’s a selection of the most useful TabItem methods:

TabFolder getParent( )

Returns the tab item’s parent, which must be a TabFolder object

void setControl(Control control)

Sets the control that is used ...