C# WinForms TabStrip control: no accelerator

Question

I am using a tab strip control on a WinForms form. I make use of keyboard accelerators as much as possible. When I set the Text property of a TabPage to e.g. &Documents, the text on the tab is literally &Documents instead of the letter D being underlined.

The help about TabStrip and TabPage doesn't cover this topic. The property ShowKeyboardCues is read-only. Google is helpless.

Can anyone give me a hint how to show accelerators?

Answer 1

How can I set up keyboard shortcuts for a Windows Forms TabControl? gives tips on setting up keyboard shortcuts for it.. In terms of showing an accelerator though, you'll have to draw them yourself

Set the tabControl's DrawMode to OwnerDrawFixed then do some code to draw the tabs, for example (I had to try hard to make it this ugly)

    private void tabControl1_DrawItem(object sender, DrawItemEventArgs e)
    {
        //Change appearance of tabcontrol
        Brush backBrush = Brushes.Red;
        Brush foreBrush = Brushes.Blue;
        e.Graphics.FillRectangle(backBrush, e.Bounds);

        Rectangle r = e.Bounds;
        r = new Rectangle(r.X, r.Y + 3, r.Width, r.Height - 3);
        e.Graphics.DrawString("my label", e.Font, foreBrush, r);
        var sz = e.Graphics.MeasureString("my ", e.Font);
        e.Graphics.DrawString("_", Font, foreBrush, r.X + sz.Width - 2, r.Y + 2);
    }

Joking aside, setting up some ugly colors does help you see where the bounds of the drawing area are etc. I'm sure you'll tart it up..