I am in the process of converting a large module into the DNN6 form patterns, including making use of dnnTabs and dnnPanels. I like that the dnnTabs automatically remembers the previously selected tab when you return to that page, but I have a case where based on different circumstances I need to programatically select a tab to be selected. Is there an easy way to do this?

I solved this problem, so I thought I should come back and post my solution for anyone else trying to do the same thing.

The selected tab is actually stored in a cookie, so all you have to do is create a new cookie with the same name and then set your desired new value. I used Firebug to find the name of the cookie being created (in my case it was "dnnTabs-emsEditRegistrant" with emsEditRegistrant being the css selector class I used to create the tabs to begin with). I have code coming from one page that targets the page with the tabs, and also passes a value in the query string called TabFocus that tells me to override the default focus and set a new one. My code looks like:

if (Request.QueryString["TabFocus"] != null)
{
  HttpCookie myCookie = new HttpCookie("dnnTabs-emsEditRegistrant");
  myCookie.HttpOnly = false;
  switch (Request.QueryString["TabFocus"])
  {
    case "Hotel":
      myCookie.Value = "2";
      break;

    case "Invoice":
      myCookie.Value = "5";
      break;

    case "CardsOnFile":
      myCookie.Value = "8";
      break;
   }
  Response.Cookies.Add(myCookie);
}

So basically on my Page_Load() method I check the query string if I need to focus a specific tab, and if so create a new cookie with the same name as the existing one I am replacing (you can't edit a cookie, all you can do is overwrite it with a new cookie of the same name). It is very important to set the HttpOnly property on the cookie to False, otherwise the client script will not be able to read the cookie and you will be stuck on the first tab forever. The numbering for the tabs is a zero-based count.

In my real production code I have replaced the magic numbers for the tabs with a Enum so that they will mean something to future developers, but the code above gives the basic idea.

This solution worked well for me when using dnnTabs inside a modal popup window.

Thanks,
Ries