1. JavaFX Tutorial
2. JavaFX Overview
3. Your First JavaFX Application
4. JavaFX Stage
5. JavaFX Scene
6. JavaFX Node
7. JavaFX Properties
8. JavaFX FXML
9. JavaFX CSS Styling
10. JavaFX ImageView
11. JavaFX Text
12. JavaFX Fonts
13. JavaFX Hyperlink
14. JavaFX Label
15. JavaFX Button
16. JavaFX MenuButton
17. JavaFX SplitMenuButton
18. JavaFX ToggleButton
19. JavaFX RadioButton
20. JavaFX CheckBox
21. JavaFX ChoiceBox
22. JavaFX ComboBox
23. JavaFX ListView
24. JavaFX DatePicker
25. JavaFX ColorPicker
26. JavaFX TextField
27. JavaFX PasswordField
28. JavaFX Slider
29. JavaFX TextArea
30. JavaFX ToolBar
31. JavaFX Tooltip
32. JavaFX ProgressBar
33. JavaFX FileChooser
34. JavaFX DirectoryChooser
35. JavaFX Accordion
36. JavaFX TitledPane
37. JavaFX SplitPane
38. JavaFX TabPane
39. JavaFX ScrollPane
40. JavaFX Group
41. JavaFX Region
42. JavaFX Pane
43. JavaFX HBox
44. JavaFX VBox
45. JavaFX Separator
46. JavaFX FlowPane
47. JavaFX TilePane
48. JavaFX GridPane
49. JavaFX MenuBar
50. JavaFX ContexMenu
51. JavaFX WebView
52. JavaFX PieChart
53. JavaFX TableView
54. JavaFX TreeView
55. JavaFX TreeTableView
56. JavaFX HTMLEditor
57. JavaFX Pagination
58. JavaFX BarChart
59. JavaFX StackedBarChart
60. JavaFX ScatterChart
61. JavaFX LineChart
62. JavaFX AreaChart
63. JavaFX StackedAreaChart
64. JavaFX Color
65. JavaFX 2D
66. JavaFX Effects
67. JavaFX 3D
68. JavaFX Transformation
69. JavaFX Animation
70. JavaFX Media - JavaFX Video and Audio Support
71. JavaFX Canvas
72. JavaFX Drag and Drop
73. JavaFX Concurrency

• Full JavaFX TabPane Example
• Create a TabPane
• Add Tabs to TabPane
• Get Selected Tab

The JavaFX TabPane is a container control which can contain multiple tabs (sections) internally, which can be displayed by clicking on the tab with the title on top of the TabPane. Only one tab is displayed at a time. It is like paper folders where one of the folders is open. The JavaFX TabPane control is implemented by the javafx.scene.control.TabPane class. Here is a screenshot of a JavaFX TabPane:

In this screenshot the middle tab has focus, meaning the title of the middle tab has been clicked.

Full JavaFX TabPane Example

Here is a full JavaFX TabPane code example:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.TabPane;
import javafx.scene.control.Tab;
import javafx.scene.control.Label;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class TabPaneExample extends Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    public void start(Stage primaryStage) {

        TabPane tabPane = new TabPane();

        Tab tab1 = new Tab("Planes", new Label("Show all planes available"));
        Tab tab2 = new Tab("Cars"  , new Label("Show all cars available"));
        Tab tab3 = new Tab("Boats" , new Label("Show all boats available"));

        tabPane.getTabs().add(tab1);
        tabPane.getTabs().add(tab2);
        tabPane.getTabs().add(tab3);

        VBox vBox = new VBox(tabPane);
        Scene scene = new Scene(vBox);

        primaryStage.setScene(scene);
        primaryStage.setTitle("JavaFX App");

        primaryStage.show();
    }
}

Create a TabPane

In order to use a JavaFX TabPane You must first create an instance of the TabPane class. Here is an example of creating an instance of the JavaFX TabPane class:

TabPane tabPane = new TabPane();

Add Tabs to TabPane

To display any content, you must add one or more tabs to the JavaFX TabPane. A tab is represented by the javafx.scene.control.Tab class. Here is an example of adding 3 tabs to a JavaFX TabPane:

TabPane tabPane = new TabPane();

Tab tab1 = new Tab("Planes", new Label("Show all planes available"));
Tab tab2 = new Tab("Cars"  , new Label("Show all cars available"));
Tab tab3 = new Tab("Boats" , new Label("Show all boats available"));

tabPane.getTabs().add(tab1);
tabPane.getTabs().add(tab2);
tabPane.getTabs().add(tab3);

The Tab constructor used in the above example takes two parameters. The first parameter is the title to display at the top of the tab, in the "handle" where you click to show the tab. The second parameter is the root JavaFX control containing the content to display inside the body part of the tab. In the example above a simple JavaFX Label is used, but in a real application it would be more normal to use a container control which can contain other nested controls inside it. For instance, a JavaFX VBox, JavaFX HBox, JavaFX Flowpane, JavaFX TilePane or JavaFX GridPane.

Get Selected Tab

You can obtain the Tab that is currently selected (visible) in a JavaFX TabPane via the TabPane getSelectionModel().getSelectedItem() method calls. Here is an example of obtaining the currently selected Tab from a JavaFX TabPane:

Tab selectedTab = tabPane.getSelectionModel().getSelectedItem();