While my Easy Tabs work perfectly in SharePoint 2007 with OOTB Web Parts, I often hear complaints from users that their don’t work with third party Web Parts. Why is that?

The Easy Tabs rely on each Web Part following a standard pattern (see a simplified diagram on this page, “behind the scene” tab). This gives the Easy Tabs a straightforward way to scan a Web Part zone and identify for each Web Part:
– the title (will be converted into a tab)
– the content (will be displayed or hidden depending on the selected tab)

When the Easy Tabs come across a Web Part that doesn’t follow the standard structure, they don’t know how to deal with it.

How can we move forward on this issue? Tweaking my script will only help for a specific third party application. Here is my proposal:
– if your third party Web Parts work with the Easy Tabs,  use the comments section to let everybody know.
– if they don’t work, you could let the vendor know that their Web Parts don’t adhere to the standard structure. It may be an easy step for the vendor to fix it.