How to show multiple icons on winforms tabcontrol tab page? - winforms

Question

I don't know if it is even possible, but maybe someone found a way to do this...
I have a tab control to which I allow the user to add tabs with a button click.
I want to show some icons on the tab so I added an ImageList, but I can show only one icon at a time, and I need to show at least 3 icons together.
I thought about having an image of 3 icons together, but the icons are shown after some actions the use do. For example: at first I show icon_1 and if the user clicks some where I add icon_2 etc...
Can someone come up with a way to do this ?
Thank you very much in advance...

Answer 1

No. It's not possible. Using the standard WinForms TabControl component you only can show one image at the same time.
The solution here, is using overlay icons. You have a base icon, and you add decorators. This is how Tortoise SVN, for example,
The following code builds an overlayed image in C#:
private static object mOverlayLock = new object();
public static Image GetOverlayedImage(Image baseImage, Image overlay)
{
Image im = null;
lock (mOverlayLock)
{
try
{
im = baseImage.Clone() as Image;
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(im);
g.DrawImage(overlay, 0, 0, im.Width, im.Height);
g.Dispose();
}
catch
{
// log your exception here
}
}
return im;
}
NOTE: The overlayed image must have the same size than the base image. It must have transparent color, and the decorator in the overlayed image must be placed in the right place, for example bottom-right or top-right.

Answer 2

I found this code:
private Bitmap CombineImages(params Image[] images)
{
int width = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < images.Length; i++)
width += images[i].Width + 3;
int height = 0;
for (int i = 0; i < images.Length; i++)
{
if (images[i].Height > height)
height = images[i].Height;
}
int nIndex = 0;
Bitmap fullImage = new Bitmap(width, height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(fullImage);
g.Clear(SystemColors.AppWorkspace);
foreach (Image img in images)
{
if (nIndex == 0)
{
g.DrawImage(img, new Point(0, 0));
nIndex++;
width = img.Width;
}
else
{
g.DrawImage(img, new Point(width, 0));
width += img.Width;
}
}
return fullImage;
//img3.Save(finalImage, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
//img3.Dispose();
//imageLocation.Image = Image.FromFile(finalImage);
}
from this link http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/502249/Combineplusseveralplusimagesplustoplusformplusaplu