Using tabcontrol as menus

I hope you understand that WPF application is very different from Web application. So, I assume your question is about UI designs and styles and the possibility to implement them using WPF.

On the page you referenced, there are two separate things: a main menu which behave pretty much like a regular main menu, and separately, below, a tab control, which behaves pretty much like a regular tab control. Note, there is no a sign of anything hybrid, no tab control uses as a menu.

Below, I really can see something less usual: a control under the title "Top Products". This is a selector of items named "Developer tools", "Desktop", "Cloud" and "Server". The selection simply controls the scrolling area below with animation, without scroll bars. I've seen something similar on Apple web site, more elegantly styled. This is not a menu, not a tab control and not any kind of hybrid of the two.

Below, you have something looking like a grid with equal cells, and below six expanded panels, one of the cells also have a set of expanded panels.

I still don't know which of these controls would you like to implement. Nearly everything is available in WPF standard set of controls and other UI elements. I think even custom controls are not needed.

Only the selector control under the title "Top Products" needs some thinking on its design. It could be just a horizontal one-row grid with text blocks in the cell, each text block processing mouse click events (I did not find any other way to change selection); on click, some properties (colors) of the text blocks should be changed to give a visual feedback of the selection, and the black pointing triangle could be a bitmap, jumping from one cell of the grid to another on selection. Something like that.

So, where is a tab control as menu? There is no such thing. A tab control is a tab control, a menu is a menu. Maybe, this is not too bad? Do you have a better idea?

—SA