How to change the background color of unused space tab in C# winforms?

Question

Ex

  |Tab1|Tab2|Tab3| {    }
  |                     |
  |                     |
  |                     |
  |                     |
  |____________________         


        

Answer 1

Try adding the following code to your DrawItem event handler. Don't forget to set the DrawMode to "OwnerdrawFixed".

You might have to tweak it a bit to cover some margins which aren't painted.

private void tabControl1_DrawItem(object sender, System.Windows.Forms.DrawItemEventArgs e)
{
      SolidBrush fillbrush= new SolidBrush(Color.Red);


  //draw rectangle behind the tabs
  Rectangle lasttabrect = tabControl1.GetTabRect(tabControl1.TabPages.Count - 1);
  Rectangle background = new Rectangle();
  background.Location = new Point(lasttabrect.Right, 0);

  //pad the rectangle to cover the 1 pixel line between the top of the tabpage and the start of the tabs
  background.Size = new Size(tabControl1.Right - background.Left, lasttabrect.Height+1);
  e.Graphics.FillRectangle(fillBrush, background);
}

'This answer is much better than prior one. But the tabCtrl is not defined. It has to be tabControl1 control.