Contextual tab is a unique ribbon concept that defines the tab's visibility based on a specific context. The contextual tab is useful to hide application commands that are irrelevant unless certain context is available. For example, you can design the ribbon to show the search related commands when the search textbox is focused, such as shown in the illustration below.

To use contextual tab in UXRibbonBar, you need to configure several things as follows:

• Define a UXRibbonContextualTabGroup with a unique name and some other attributes such as Content for the display text, Background and IndicatorBackground for the visual brushes.
• Specify which tab belongs to which contextual group. You set the ContextualTabGroupName property to the unique name of UXRibbonContextualTabGroup you defined earlier.
• Set the ActiveContextualTabs property of UXRibbonBar to determine the active contextual tab groups. To activate multiple contextual tab groups, set the property with each tab group name separated by comma character.

The following code shows how to configure the contextual tabs and set the active contextual tab initially.

<Intersoft:UXRibbonBar RibbonTitle="Documentation" ActiveContextualTabs="TableContextualTabGroup">
        ...
    <Intersoft:UXRibbonBar.ContextualTabGroups>
        <Intersoft:UXRibbonContextualTabGroup x:Name="TableContextualTabGroup" Content="Table" 
                        IndicatorBackground="#FF5BA4F2" Background="#FF0759A5" AutoSelectMode="Always" />
    </Intersoft:UXRibbonBar.ContextualTabGroups>
    <Intersoft:UXRibbonTab Header="Home" />
    <Intersoft:UXRibbonTab Header="Table" ContextualTabGroupName="TableContextualTabGroup" />                
</Intersoft:UXRibbonBar>
        

The result looks like the following figure.

When the contextual tab group is activated, you can customize the AutoSelectMode behavior to further enhance the user experience.

• Always

  When the contextual tab group is active, the first tab in the collection will be selected by default.

• Disabled

  Automatic tab selection is disabled.

• LastSelection

  When the contextual tab group is active, the previously selected tab will be reselected by default.

To learn more about UXRibbonContextualTabGroup, see Working with Contextual Tab.

System.Object
   System.Windows.DependencyObject
      System.Windows.UIElement
         System.Windows.FrameworkElement
            System.Windows.Controls.Control
               System.Windows.Controls.ContentControl
                  Intersoft.Client.Framework.ISContentControl
                     Intersoft.Client.UI.Aqua.UXRibbon.UXRibbonContextualTabGroup

Target Platforms: Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

Reference

UXRibbonContextualTabGroup Members
Intersoft.Client.UI.Aqua.UXRibbon Namespace