ContextualTabs

Contextual Tabs in Access

In Office 2007 contextual tabs are used to show additional elements in context with the current object. See Contextual Tab “Design” and “Arrange” in “Form Design Tools” when opening a form in design mode.

Only Access allows creation of contextual tabs. You can create one or more tabs for forms and reports that can be shown and even activated while loading form or report.

Conditions are the contextual tab definition within Ribbon XML and that the Ribbon name defined as “Ribbon Name” within the form or report properties.

Ribbon XML sample:

<customUI xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2006/01/customui">
    <ribbon startFromScratch="false">
       <tabs>
         <tab id="MyTab1" label="MyTab1">
            <group id="MyGroup1" label="My Group1">
               <labelControl id="myLabel1" label="Sample:"/>
               <labelControl id="myLabel2" label="Demo"/>
            </group>
         </tab>
      </tabs>
    <contextualTabs>
      <tabSet idMso="TabSetFormReportExtensibility">
        <tab id="tabContextual" label="My Contextual Tab">
          <group id="MyContextualGroup" label="My Group in Contextual Tab">
            <labelControl id="myLabel1a" label="Sample:"/>
            <button id="btnDemo" size="large" label="Demo"/>
          </group>
        </tab>
      </tabSet>
    </contextualTabs>
   </ribbon>
</customUI>

In order to activate the contextual tab when showing the form/report the parameter “TabSetFormReportExtensibility” has to be set in the TabSet element.

<tabSet idMso="TabSetFormReportExtensibility">

You can find an example in sample DB: ContextualTabs.