Validation with hidden TabPanels in the ASP.NET Ajax Control Toolkit TabContainer

This one is a bit of a never ending story, unfortunately. After having found out how to hide tabs, I added validation logic to my TabContainer, only to find another bug:

When hiding a TabPanel by setting the Enabled property to false, any validation controls on that panel are still enabled. This is not what I expected, as with other types of panels, the Enabled property usually cascades down. Of course this results in validation errors displayed for hidden tabs.

I am now using the following (clumsy) work around to disable tabs:

 

    public static void DisableTab(TabPanel panel)

    {

        panel.Enabled = false;

 

        //work around TabPanel bug and disable the validation controls

        DisableValidationControls(panel);

    }

 

    private static void DisableValidationControls(Control c)

    {

        foreach (Control child in c.Controls)

        {

            if (child is BaseValidator)

                ((BaseValidator)child).Enabled = false;

            else

                DisableValidationControls(child);

        }

    }

Lets hope that the quality of the control toolkit gets improved soon.