I think you could implement this kind of behavior by disabling the default TabControl selection management completely from both TabControls.
Then implement the reaction to buttons directly at the root of the document.
You could prevent TabControl and TabItems from receiving keyboard focus using Focusable property, and then hook to the keys you want to control the change of SelectedIndex

I've drafted the general idea on the following xamltoy ( not fully working yet, but you can see the idea)


Btw you can ignore all the weird local resources on TabItems, is just a hacky way I've implemented to move next and previous selected item.
Also added at the bottom some basic diagnostics fields while I'm working on it.

Update: Managed to make it work with Keys. Clicking on the items not working properly for now.

Thanks @Rmunoz for the suggestion, it is very similar to what I was going to suggest: defining the GamepadTriggers in the root of the document. One improvement I would consider is using a converter to change the tab index, for example:

Code: Select all

<noesis:GamepadTrigger Button="PageUp">
  <b:ChangePropertyAction TargetName="InnerTabControl" Property="SelectedIndex"
    Value="{Binding SelectedIndex, ElementName=InnerTabControl,
      Converter={StaticResource AddConverter}, ConverterParameter=-1}"/>
</noesis:GamepadTrigger>
<noesis:GamepadTrigger Button="PageDown">
  <b:ChangePropertyAction TargetName="InnerTabControl" Property="SelectedIndex"
    Value="{Binding SelectedIndex, ElementName=InnerTabControl,
      Converter={StaticResource AddConverter}, ConverterParameter=1}"/>
</noesis:GamepadTrigger>

Would this overwrite the default built-in behaviour of switching tabs with L1/R1 when focusing the TabControl? I'd like to avoid a case where the Child Tab Control can be controlled by both the triggers and the bumpers xD

As for the Converter - I see you are loading a StaticResource AddConverter. What does that resource actually represent? I've not used converters much hence my questions.

Would this overwrite the default built-in behaviour of switching tabs with L1/R1 when focusing the TabControl? I'd like to avoid a case where the Child Tab Control can be controlled by both the triggers and the bumpers xD

No, built-in behavior will still be there. To get rid of that behavior those keys (L1/R1 == Gamepad_PageLeft/Gamepad_PagRight) should be handled before reaching the TabControl, or extend the TabControl to override that behavior.

As for the Converter - I see you are loading a StaticResource AddConverter. What does that resource actually represent? I've not used converters much hence my questions.

Converters are used in bindings to transform values to the desired result. Those converters are classes that need to be created by programmers and registered, then you can define them as resources in any ResourceDictionary. In this example I was assuming there is an AddConverter that takes an integer (from the binding) and adds the value of the ConverterParameter. The idea was to add/remove one from the current SelectedIndex.

How would I disable the default behavior of L1/R1 for the child TabControl, while also ensuring that it continues working for the parent TabControl?