You ask if there is a better way... In my experience if you find yourself subclassing a UI element in WPF there ususally is.
You can get away from embedding business logic (the choice of which data to display in the grid), by databinding your entire tab control to a view model.
To demonstrate - here is a very simple example. This is my XAML for the window hosting the tab control:
<Window x:Class="WpfApplication1.MainWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
<Grid>
<TabControl ItemsSource="{Binding Tabs}" SelectedItem="{Binding SelectedTab}">
<TabControl.ItemContainerStyle>
<Style TargetType="TabItem">
<Setter Property="Header" Value="{Binding TabName}"></Setter>
</Style>
</TabControl.ItemContainerStyle>
<TabControl.ContentTemplate>
<DataTemplate>
<Grid>
<DataGrid ItemsSource="{Binding TabData}"></DataGrid>
</Grid>
</DataTemplate>
</TabControl.ContentTemplate>
</TabControl>
</Grid>
</Window>
The data context of my window is a TabsViewModel
(I am using the NotificationObject
that can be found in the PRISM NuGet Package):
public class TabsViewModel: NotificationObject
{
public TabsViewModel()
{
Tabs = new[]
{
new TabViewModel("TAB1", "Data 1 Tab 1", "Data 2 Tab1"),
new TabViewModel("TAB2", "Data 1 Tab 2", "Data 2 Tab2"),
};
}
private TabViewModel _selectedTab;
public TabViewModel SelectedTab
{
get { return _selectedTab; }
set
{
if (Equals(value, _selectedTab)) return;
_selectedTab = value;
RaisePropertyChanged(() => SelectedTab);
}
}
public IEnumerable<TabViewModel> Tabs { get; set; }
}
public class TabViewModel
{
public TabViewModel(string tabName, params string[] data)
{
TabName = tabName;
TabData = data.Select(d => new RowData(){Property1 = d}).ToArray();
}
public string TabName { get; set; }
public RowData[] TabData { get; set; }
}
public class RowData
{
public string Property1 { get; set; }
}
This is obviously an over simplified case, but it means that if there is any business logic about precisely what data to show in each tab, this can reside in one of the view models, as opposed to the code behind. This gives you all the 'separation of concerns' benefits that MVVM is designed to encourage...