WPF: TabControl and dynamic TabItems

Question

I am trying to create a GUI for my current project using WPF in C#. I would like to have tabs (dynamically created at runtime) and each tab should open a table with the same column headers but different contents.

I know I could realize tabs and tables like this:

<Grid>
    <TabControl  x:Name="tabControl"  TabStripPlacement="Left">
        <TabItem Header="Example 1" x:Name="tabItem" >
            <DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding TagCollection.Tags}" AutoGenerateColumns="False">
                <DataGrid.Columns>
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Tag" Binding="{Binding Tag}" />
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Description" Binding="{Binding Description}" />
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Value" Binding="{Binding Value}" />                                              
                </DataGrid.Columns>
            </DataGrid>
        </TabItem>
        <TabItem Header="Example 2" x:Name="tabItem1" >
            <DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding TagCollection.Tags}" AutoGenerateColumns="False">
                <DataGrid.Columns>
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Tag" Binding="{Binding Tag}" />
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Description" Binding="{Binding Description}" />
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Value" Binding="{Binding Value}" />
                </DataGrid.Columns>
            </DataGrid>
        </TabItem>

    </TabControl>

</Grid>

How can I produce a view like that with code behind? I am not used to Bindings and such things yet, so perhaps someone could show me a short example?

Thanks KatZe

Answer 1

I have create a sample project DynamicTabs. Some sample context in constructor:

var tabs = new ObservableCollection<MyTab>();
int tabsCount = 5;
for (var i = 1; i <= tabsCount; i++)
{
    var tab = new MyTab() {Header = "Tab " + i};
    tab.Data.Add(new MyTabData() {Column1 = "col1" + i, Column2 = "col2" + i, Column3 = "col3" + i});
    tabs.Add(tab);
}
DataContext = tabs;

Classes for sample context:

public class MyTab
{
    public string Header { get; set; }

    public ObservableCollection<MyTabData> Data { get; } = new ObservableCollection<MyTabData>();
}

public class MyTabData
{
    public string Column1 { get; set; }
    public string Column2 { get; set; }
    public string Column3 { get; set; }
}

And XAML:

<Window x:Class="DynamicTabs.MainWindow"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    xmlns:local="clr-namespace:DynamicTabs"
    mc:Ignorable="d"
    Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
<TabControl ItemsSource="{Binding}">
    <TabControl.ItemTemplate>
        <DataTemplate DataType="local:MyTab">
            <TextBlock Text="{Binding Header}"/>
        </DataTemplate>
    </TabControl.ItemTemplate>
    <TabControl.ContentTemplate>
        <DataTemplate DataType="local:MyTab">
            <DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding Data}">
                <DataGrid.Columns>
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Column 1" Binding="{Binding Column1}" />
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Column 2" Binding="{Binding Column2}" />
                    <DataGridTextColumn Header="Column 3" Binding="{Binding Column3}" />
                </DataGrid.Columns>
            </DataGrid>
        </DataTemplate>
    </TabControl.ContentTemplate>
</TabControl>

ItemTemplate is for Header part of TabPage and ContentTemplate for Content of each TabPage.