Dynamically Creating a TabControl using Prism Region in WPF: A Step-by-Step Guide

In this post, we'll demonstrate how to use Prism Regions to create a dynamic TabControl in WPF, where each tab is loaded with a separate view.

Step 1: Create a new Prism WPF project

To get started, create a new Prism WPF project using the Prism Template Pack.
Open Visual Studio and select "Create a new project". 
In the "New Project" dialog, select "Prism WPF App" under the "Prism" category.

Step 2: Add a TabControl to your main view

In the main view of your application, add a TabControl to the XAML markup. Set its ItemsSource property to a collection of objects that represent each tab item. In this example, we'll use an ObservableCollection<TabItem> property defined in the view model.

<TabControl ItemsSource="{Binding TabItems}">
  <TabControl.ItemTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
      <TextBlock Text="{Binding Header}" />
    </DataTemplate>
  </TabControl.ItemTemplate>
  <TabControl.ContentTemplate>
    <DataTemplate>
      <ContentControl prism:RegionManager.RegionName="{Binding RegionName}" />
    </DataTemplate>
  </TabControl.ContentTemplate>
</TabControl>


Notice that we're using a ContentControl to load the content of each tab. This is because we want to use Prism Regions to dynamically load and unload views in each tab.

We're also using a DataTemplate for the tab headers, which binds to the Header property of the TabItem object.



Step 3: Define the TabItem objects in your view model

In your view model, define a collection of TabItem objects that correspond to each tab. Each TabItem should have a unique RegionName property that corresponds to the name of the Prism Region that will be loaded in the tab.


public class MainViewModel
{
  public ObservableCollection<TabItem> TabItems { get; set; }
  
  public MainViewModel()
  {
    TabItems = new ObservableCollection<TabItem>();
    TabItems.Add(new TabItem { Header = "Tab 1", RegionName = "Tab1Region" });
    TabItems.Add(new TabItem { Header = "Tab 2", RegionName = "Tab2Region" });
  }
}

public class TabItem
{
  public string Header { get; set; }
  public string RegionName { get; set; }
}


We'll bind the TabControl's ItemsSource property to this collection in the XAML markup.



Step 4: Register the regions in your Prism Bootstrapper

In your Prism Bootstrapper, register the regions that will be loaded in the tabs. We'll use a ContentControlRegionAdapter class to adapt the ContentControl to a Prism Region.

protected override void ConfigureRegionAdapterMappings(RegionAdapterMappings mappings)
{
  base.ConfigureRegionAdapterMappings(mappings);
  mappings.RegisterMapping(typeof(ContentControl), Container.Resolve<ContentControlRegionAdapter>());
}

The ConfigureRegionAdapterMappings method is called when the Prism application is initialized. Here, we're registering a new mapping for the ContentControl type, using an instance of our custom ContentControlRegionAdapter.

Step 5: Create a custom RegionAdapter for the ContentControl

Finally, we need to create our custom ContentControlRegionAdapter class. 

public class ContentControlRegionAdapter : RegionAdapterBase<ContentControl>
{
  public ContentControlRegionAdapter(IRegionBehaviorFactory regionBehaviorFactory) : base(regionBehaviorFactory)
  {
  }

  protected override void Adapt(IRegion region, ContentControl regionTarget)
  {
    region.Views.CollectionChanged += (s, e) =>
    {
      if (e.Action == NotifyCollectionChangedAction.Add)
      {
        foreach (object view in e.NewItems)
        {
          regionTarget.Content = view;
        }
      }
    };
  }

  protected override IRegion CreateRegion()
  {
    return new SingleActiveRegion();
  }
}

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