I meant something like this:
+-------- tab control border ---------------+
| |
| +-----dialog border------+ |
| | | |
| | [control] | |
| | | |
| +------------------------+ |
| |
+-------------------------------------------+
so you place the tab outline outside the dialog, and the controls on the tab, but inside the dialog outline.
now you can hide a whole bunch of controls at a time using did -f from your menu, but the tab control isn't visible, only the controls on it are, so it looks as if you did -v/did -h all controls on 1 tab.