Tabbed Widgets

Tabbed Widgets

Tabbed widgets provide multiple switchable content areas within a single widget, ideal for communication channels, logs, or categorized information.

A tabbed widget is one object with built-in channels you write to with echoTo(). This is different from a grouped widget, which combines several independent widgets into a shared tab bar by dragging. A tabbed widget can itself be dropped into a group as one member.

Creating a Tabbed Widget

local comm = mdw.TabbedWidget:new({
  name = "Comm",
  title = "Communications",
  tabs = {"All", "Room", "Global", "Tells", "Party"},
  allTab = "All",        -- Optional: receives copies of all messages
  activeTab = "All",     -- Optional: initially active tab
  dock = "right",
  height = 300,
})

Constructor Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
name	string	required	Unique identifier for the widget
title	string	name	Display title shown in title bar
tabs	table	required	Array of tab names
allTab	string	nil	Tab that receives copies of all messages
activeTab	string	first tab	Initially active tab
dock	string	nil	"left", "right", or nil for floating
x	number	100	Initial X position (floating only)
y	number	100	Initial Y position (floating only)
height	number	200	Widget height in pixels
visible	boolean	true	Whether widget starts visible
row	number	auto	Row index in dock (auto-assigned if nil)
rowPosition	number	0	Position within a row for side-by-side placement
subRow	number	0	Sub-row within a column for vertical sub-stacking
overflow	string	"wrap"	Text overflow mode: "wrap", "ellipsis", or "hidden" (applies to all tabs)
fill	boolean	false	Whether widget fills remaining dock column height (normally automatic)
fontAdjust	number	0	Font size offset from the global content font size
onClose	function	nil	Callback when widget is hidden
onTabChange	function	nil	Callback when tab is switched

Callbacks

local comm = mdw.TabbedWidget:new({
  name = "Comm",
  tabs = {"All", "Room", "Chat"},
  allTab = "All",
  dock = "right",
  onTabChange = function(self, tabName)
    echo("Switched to tab: " .. tabName .. "\n")
  end,
  onClose = function(self)
    echo("Comm widget was hidden\n")
  end,
})

Display Methods

-- Echo to the currently active tab
comm:echo("Plain text\n")
comm:cecho("<red>Colored text\n")
comm:decho("<255,128,0>RGB text\n")
comm:hecho("#FF8000Hex text\n")
comm:clear()

-- Echo to a specific tab (also copies to "all" tab if configured)
comm:echoTo("Room", "Someone says: Hello!\n")
comm:cechoTo("Global", "<cyan>[Global] Message\n")
comm:dechoTo("Tells", "<255,200,100>Tell from Bob\n")
comm:hechoTo("Party", "#00FF00Party chat\n")

-- Clear specific or all tabs
comm:clearTab("Room")
comm:clearAll()

Tab Management

-- Switch tabs
comm:selectTab("Tells")

-- Get current tab info
local currentTab = comm:getActiveTab()     -- Returns tab name
local tabIndex = comm:getTabIndex("Room")  -- Returns numeric index

-- Get direct access to a tab's MiniConsole
local console = comm:getTab("Global")
console:echo("Direct console access\n")

-- Reorder tabs programmatically (1-based indices)
comm:reorderTab(3, 1)                      -- Move tab 3 to position 1
local order = comm:getTabOrder()           -- Returns {"All", "Room", ...}

Tabs can also be reordered by dragging them horizontally in the tab bar.

Other Methods

Tabbed widgets support all the same docking, visibility, appearance, and size methods as regular widgets:

comm:dock("left")
comm:undock()
comm:show()
comm:hide()
comm:setTitle("New Title")
comm:setFont("Consolas", 12)  -- Sets font for all tabs
comm:setFontAdjust(2)         -- Per-widget font size offset
comm:setContentStyleSheet([[background-color: rgb(20,20,30);]])
comm:resize(nil, 400)
comm:reflow()                 -- Replay buffered text at current width
comm:destroy()

See Widget Methods for full details on these shared methods.

Tabbed Widget Class Methods

-- Get a tabbed widget by name (returns nil for regular widgets)
local comm = mdw.TabbedWidget.get("Comm")

-- Get list of tabbed widget names only
local names = mdw.TabbedWidget.list()

The "All" Tab Feature

When you specify an allTab, any message sent via echoTo(), cechoTo(), etc. is automatically duplicated to the "all" tab (unless you're already echoing to the all tab):

local comm = mdw.TabbedWidget:new({
  name = "Chat",
  tabs = {"All", "Say", "Tell", "OOC"},
  allTab = "All",
  dock = "right",
})

-- This message appears in both "Say" and "All" tabs
comm:cechoTo("Say", "<white>You say: Hello!\n")

-- This message only appears in "All" tab (no duplication)
comm:cechoTo("All", "<gray>--- Session started ---\n")