TabControl region

The TabControlRegion is a standard switching elements region that implements the adapter pattern in order to allow the user to add as content every XAML content.

The XAML TabControl element expects its children to be TabItem this is, from the user perspective, very uncomfortable.

It is much easier to deal with a standard DependencyObject and expect to be able to add that object as a TabItem. The TabControlRegion allows us to achieve that.

Allowing us to add a DependencyObject, such as a UserControl, as the content of a TabControlRegion solves only one the issues we have when using a TabControl. A TabControl is what we call a headered element meaning that each TabItem is composed by 2 different pieces: the TabItem content and the TabItem header. The DependencyObject we can add as content will be used as the TabItem content, in order to define the TabItem header we can use the RegionHeaderedElement.Header attached property, whose content will be used by the TabControlRegion as the TabItem header, such as in the following sample:

<UserControl x:Class="SampleView"
             xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
             xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
             xmlns:rg="http://schemas.topics.it/wpf/radical/windows/presentation/regions"
             rg:RegionHeaderedElement.Header="This will be used as header">
</UserControl>

The header is not constrained to be a string but can be any valid XAML content.