What is a contextual tab?
A contextual tab allows you to provide the user with UI controls within a certain context, for example, when some object in a document is selected. Contextual tabs with a similar context are organized in a contextual tab group so you can have more than one tab in a group. For instance, when the user selects an object in a document, one or more contextual tabs appear so that the user can work with that object by using controls in the contextual tabs. When the object is no more selected, the contextual tab group disappears. Contextual tabs can be of different colors, with each color associated with a particular context. For example, in Microsoft Word 2007, when a table is selected, a Table Tools contextual tab group appears. The group contains two contextual tabs, Design and Layout. The group tab and the tabs are labeled with a yellow color (see Figure 1).
