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C# Window From Autoselects Text

I have not dealt with WinForms for a long time.
Now I'm stuck with something trivial but cannot figure it out.
I have a Winform and when a Timer Tick happens I want to show a message in a new form message box:
frmMessage frmM = new frmMessage();
frmM.txtMessage.Text = ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Message"];
frmM.Show();
It works but the text in the textbox shows as selected(with a blue background).
I tried
txtMessage.SelectionLength = 0;
Did not help.
Also tried to set focus to a different control, did not help either.
for now, as a workaround, I will use a Label.

This is a consequence of the way TextBox Class is implemented. If a selection is not specifically set, all text will be selected when the control gets focus.
From TextBox.OnGotFocus:
Protected override void OnGotFocus(EventArgs e) {
base.OnGotFocus(e);
If (!selectionSet) {
// We get one shot at selecting when we first get focus. If we don't
// do it, we still want to act Like the selection was set.
selectionSet = true;
// If the user didn't provide a selection, force one in.
If (SelectionLength == 0 && Control.MouseButtons == MouseButtons.None) {
SelectAll();
}
}
Additionally due to the way the SelectionLength Property is implemented, setting that property to zero does not set the selectionSet` flag as it is already zero.
Instead, set the TextBox.SelectionStart Property immediately after setting the text as this will set that flag.
txtMessage.SelectionStart = 0;
However, your work-a-round of using a Label to display a message is much more appropriate than using an input control.

This is not the best answer but it works. You can try this
frmMessage frmM = new frmMessage();
frmM.txtMessage.Text = "";
frmM.txtMessage.AppendText(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["Message"]);
frmM.Show();

Customizing default inputs?

I wonder if it's possible to customize my C# application (winforms) to get a better design, I made a PSD (photoshop document) so I can generate png jpeg... pictures if I need them.
Example of a form like the one I want :

Indeed as it was pointed out in the comments, it is easy to use WPF (indows Presentation Foundation) to achieve that result, but if you really need that it must be made in windows forms I can help you with that...
ControlBox and Border
It seens that your form does not have a control box (minimize, maximize and close buttons)
to achieve that you can set
form.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None
I'm not sure if that galaxy behind your form is part of the application so i'll be considering that it is not
To achieve that irregular shape of the form we have to do a workaround here
Irregular Shape of the Form
we are going to set a Color to TransparentKey, so everything in the form in that specific color will be transparent, like it does not exists (if you click in that part it will go into de desktop or whatever application you have behind in your form)
So let's use a specific color which we will probably dont use in the form
form.TransparencyKey = Color.FromArgb(111, 111, 111); //You can do it by the editor
So in order to make that white part we are going to use an Panel and a PictureBox outsite of the Panel trying to copy the shape of your image
Stylized Inputs
To make it easier and reusable I'm going to make a userControl in this one
the usercontrol will have
a Panel called HighLightPanel, its dock property will be set to Fill
a Panel called BackColorPanel, it will be inside the HighLightPanel
a PictureBox called InputPicture, its dock property will be set to Left, it will be inside BackColorPanel and its acessor will be public
a TextBox called TextBox, its dock property wil be set to fill, it will be inside BackColorPanel, the BorderStyle Property set to None, you should set the size and font you most desize in this one, I'm going to use Segoe UI; 15,75pt and its acessor will be public
Now we have to make some properties in our UserControl to make it work without work in other controls
First in the SizeChanged event of the HighLightPanel we will make the BackColorPanel be exacly two points smaller in every direction and its position to 1;1 so we can see the HighLightPanel
private void HighlightPanel_SizeChanged(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
this.BackColorPanel.Size = new Size(
HighlightPanel.Width - 2,
HighlightPanel.Height - 2);
}
Now we will create two propertys to handle the Highlight Color
public Color HighlightBorderColor { get; set; }
public Color NonHighlightBorderColor { get; set; }
And in the Enter and Leave Property of our TextBox we are going to change the HighlightPanel
private void TextBox_Enter(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HighlightPanel.BackColor = HighlightBorderColor;
}
private void TextBox_Leave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
HighlightPanel.BackColor = NonHighlightBorderColor;
}
So now every time the user enter the Input it will appear that the Input has an Border in the specified Color
Now to enhance its usability to developers we will make some wrappers in its controls to be easier change property of child controls in the editor
public Image InputImage
{
get { return InputPicture.Image; }
set { InputPicture.Image = value; }
}
public PictureBoxSizeMode InputImageLayout
{
get { return InputPicture.SizeMode; }
set { InputPicture.SizeMode = value; }
}
public char PasswordCharacter
{
get { return TextBox.PasswordChar; }
set { TextBox.PasswordChar = value; }
}
public bool ShowInputImage
{
get { return InputPicture.Visible; }
set { InputPicture.Visible = value; }
}
In the InputImage set the picture you want for the User and the Key
Insert the two controls in the position you like
Position of the Form
if you want your form to be moveable without the border you will have to use this snippet, it is more easy in WPF
#region MoveForm
Point LastPoint;
bool ShouldMove;
private void form_MouseDown(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
LastPoint = e.Location;
ShouldMove = true;
this.TransparencyKey = Color.FromArgb(111, 111, 111);
}
private void form_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
ShouldMove = false;
}
private void form_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
if (ShouldMove)
{
this.Location = new Point(
this.Location.X - LastPoint.X + e.X,
this.Location.Y - LastPoint.Y + e.Y);
}
}
#endregion

If you need a lot of special graphics effects learning WPF will indeed be a sound investement.
If all you want is that login screen, it is trivial in Winforms and doesn't take any horrible hacks as you've been told..
this.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None;
this.BackColor = System.Drawing.Color.LavenderBlush;
this.TransparencyKey = System.Drawing.Color.LavenderBlush;
this.ControlBox = false;
this.MaximizeBox = false;
this.MinimizeBox = false;
this.Text= "";
These seven lines are all it takes for a form to be transparent. I copied them from the Designer code; you can simply set the 7 Properties in the property grid.
Now add a panel, dock it to the bottom and give it the right color; add a picturebox and your other controls and you are set.
To create the two input groups you also need just a few regular controls and only a few simple lines of code:
You place one Panel, BorderStyle = FixedSingle; and add a Label and a TextBox to it. The Label has AutoSize = False; and both ImageAlign and TextAlign are set to MiddleLeft. You assign an image to the Label's Image and prefix the Text with enough blanks to not overlap. Obviously you should define a PasswordChar for the 2nd TextBox. Now all you need is to script the Enter and Leave events to change the BackColor of the respective Panels between, say SystemColors.Control and SystemColors.MenuHighlight. Size the Labels to almost fill the Panels and you are done. Less code than the WPF version, I'd bet.
If you need such input an controls again and again, simply create Usercontrols for each type you need!
Here is an example of the limits you will hit: Wouldn't it be nice to add a dropshadow effect to the image? It is doable in Winforms. But it would involve painting that effect; this would take at least 15 or 20 lines of involved code instead of simply turning the effect on with (estimated) 1-3 simple lines.
Do you need any nice hover effects? Not easy, to say the least..
These limits will be all over the place, so it really depends on how fancy your requirements will get.
Maybe you should use this example as a starter to compare the two techniques and to warm you up to WPF?

Why is text in TextBox highlighted (selected) when form is displayed?

I have a form containing a TextBox in C# which I set to a string as follows:
textBox.Text = str;
When the form is displayed, why does the text in the texbox appear highlighted/selected?

The text box has a TabIndex of 0 and TabStop set to true. This means that the control will be given focus when the form is displayed.
You can either give another control the 0 TabIndex (if there is one) and give the text box a different tab index (>0), or set TabStop to false for the text box to stop this from happening.

The default behavior of a TextBox in Windows Forms is to highlight all of the text if it gets focused for the first time by tabbing into it, but not if it is clicked into. We can see this in Reflector by looking at the TextBox's OnGotFocus() override:
protected override void OnGotFocus(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnGotFocus(e);
if (!this.selectionSet)
{
this.selectionSet = true;
if ((this.SelectionLength == 0) && (Control.MouseButtons == MouseButtons.None))
{
base.SelectAll();
}
}
}
It's that if statement that is causing the behavior that we don't like. Furthermore, to add insult to injury, the Text property's setter blindly resets that selectionSet variable whenever the text is re-assigned:
public override string Text
{
get
{
return base.Text;
}
set
{
base.Text = value;
this.selectionSet = false;
}
}
So if you have a TextBox and tab into it, all the text will be selected. If you click into it, the highlight is removed, and if you re-tab into it, your caret position (and selection length of zero) is preserved. But if we programmatically set new Text, and tab into the TextBox again, then all of the text will be selected again.
If you are like me and find this behavior annoying and inconsistent, then there are two ways around this problem.
The first, and probably the easiest, is to simply trigger the setting of selectionSet by calling DeselectAll() on form Load() and whenever the Text changes:
protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)
{
base.OnLoad(e);
this.textBox2.SelectionStart = this.textBox2.Text.Length;
this.textBox2.DeselectAll();
}
(DeselectAll() just sets SelectionLength to zero. It's actually SelectionStart that flips the TextBox's selectionSet variable. In the above case, the call to DeselectAll() is not necessary since we are setting the start to the end of the text. But if we set it to any other position, like the start of the text, then calling it is a good idea.)
The more permanent way is to create our own TextBox with the desired behavior through inheritance:
public class NonSelectingTextBox : TextBox
{
// Base class has a selectionSet property, but its private.
// We need to shadow with our own variable. If true, this means
// "don't mess with the selection, the user did it."
private bool selectionSet;
protected override void OnGotFocus(EventArgs e)
{
bool needToDeselect = false;
// We don't want to avoid calling the base implementation
// completely. We mirror the logic that we are trying to avoid;
// if the base implementation will select all of the text, we
// set a boolean.
if (!this.selectionSet)
{
this.selectionSet = true;
if ((this.SelectionLength == 0) &&
(Control.MouseButtons == MouseButtons.None))
{
needToDeselect = true;
}
}
// Call the base implementation
base.OnGotFocus(e);
// Did we notice that the text was selected automatically? Let's
// de-select it and put the caret at the end.
if (needToDeselect)
{
this.SelectionStart = this.Text.Length;
this.DeselectAll();
}
}
public override string Text
{
get
{
return base.Text;
}
set
{
base.Text = value;
// Update our copy of the variable since the
// base implementation will have flipped its back.
this.selectionSet = false;
}
}
}
You maybe tempted to just not call base.OnGotFocus(), but then we would lose useful functionality in the base Control class. And you might be tempted to not mess with the selectionSet nonsense at all and simply deselect the text every time in OnGotFocus(), but then we would lose the user's highlight if they tabbed out of the field and back.
Ugly? You betcha. But it is what it is.

The answers to this question helped me a lot with a similar problem, but the simple answer is only hinted at with a lot of other complex suggestions. Just set SelectionStart to 0 after setting your Text. Problem solved!
Example:
yourtextbox.Text = "asdf";
yourtextbox.SelectionStart = 0;

You can also choose the tab order for your form's controls by opening:
View->Tab Order
Note that this option is only available in "View" if you have the Form design view open.
Selecting "Tab Order" opens a view of the Form which allows you to choose the desired tab order by clicking on the controls.

To unhighlight a text field, with VS 2013, try init with:
myTextBox.GotFocus += new System.EventHandler(this.myTextBox_GotFocus);
And add the method:
public void myTextBox_GotFocus(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
myTextBox.SelectionLength=0;
}

I haven't tested this on C# but I ran into the same issue using a C++ WIN32 dialog box. Is seems like you can change the behavior by returning FALSE from OnInitDialog() or WM_INITDIALOG. Hope this helps.

Here is what worked for me
public void SetNotes(string notes)
{
notesTextBox.Text = notes;
notesTextBox.Select();
notesTextBox.SelectionLength = 0;
notesTextBox.SelectionStart = notes.Length;//place cursor at end of text
}

Can I display links in a ListView's detail mode?

I'm displaying a set of search results in a ListView. The first column holds the search term, and the second shows the number of matches.
There are tens of thousands of rows, so the ListView is in virtual mode.
I'd like to change this so that the second column shows the matches as hyperlinks, in the same way as a LinkLabel shows links; when the user clicks on the link, I'd like to receive an event that will let me open up the match elsewhere in our application.
Is this possible, and if so, how?
EDIT: I don't think I've been sufficiently clear - I want multiple hyperlinks in a single column, just as it is possible to have multiple hyperlinks in a single LinkLabel.

You can easily fake it. Ensure that the list view items you add have UseItemStyleForSubItems = false so that you can set the sub-item's ForeColor to blue. Implement the MouseMove event so you can underline the "link" and change the cursor. For example:
ListViewItem.ListViewSubItem mSelected;
private void listView1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e) {
var info = listView1.HitTest(e.Location);
if (info.SubItem == mSelected) return;
if (mSelected != null) mSelected.Font = listView1.Font;
mSelected = null;
listView1.Cursor = Cursors.Default;
if (info.SubItem != null && info.Item.SubItems[1] == info.SubItem) {
info.SubItem.Font = new Font(info.SubItem.Font, FontStyle.Underline);
listView1.Cursor = Cursors.Hand;
mSelected = info.SubItem;
}
}
Note that this snippet checks if the 2nd column is hovered, tweak as needed.

Use ObjectListView -- an open source wrapper around a standard ListView. It supports links directly:
This recipe documents the (very simple) process and how you can customise it.

The other answers here are great, but if you don't want to have to hack some code together, look at the DataGridView control which has support for LinkLabel equivalent columns.
Using this control, you get all the functionality of the details view in a ListView, but with more customisation per row.

You can by inheriting the ListView control override the method OnDrawSubItem.
Here is a VERY simple example of how you might do:
public class MyListView : ListView
{
private Brush m_brush;
private Pen m_pen;
public MyListView()
{
this.OwnerDraw = true;
m_brush = new SolidBrush(Color.Blue);
m_pen = new Pen(m_brush)
}
protected override void OnDrawColumnHeader(DrawListViewColumnHeaderEventArgs e)
{
e.DrawDefault = true;
}
protected override void OnDrawSubItem(DrawListViewSubItemEventArgs e)
{
if (e.ColumnIndex != 1) {
e.DrawDefault = true;
return;
}
// Draw the item's background.
e.DrawBackground();
var textSize = e.Graphics.MeasureString(e.SubItem.Text, e.SubItem.Font);
var textY = e.Bounds.Y + ((e.Bounds.Height - textSize.Height) / 2);
int textX = e.SubItem.Bounds.Location.X;
var lineY = textY + textSize.Height;
// Do the drawing of the underlined text.
e.Graphics.DrawString(e.SubItem.Text, e.SubItem.Font, m_brush, textX, textY);
e.Graphics.DrawLine(m_pen, textX, lineY, textX + textSize.Width, lineY);
}
}

You can set HotTracking to true so that when the user hovers mouse over the item it appears as link.

How to change the font color of a disabled TextBox?

Does anyone know which property sets the text color for disabled control?
I have to display some text in a disabled TextBox and I want to set its color to black.

NOTE: see Cheetah's answer below as it identifies a prerequisite to get this solution to work. Setting the BackColor of the TextBox.
I think what you really want to do is enable the TextBox and set the ReadOnly property to true.
It's a bit tricky to change the color of the text in a disabled TextBox. I think you'd probably have to subclass and override the OnPaint event.
ReadOnly though should give you the same result as !Enabled and allow you to maintain control of the color and formatting of the TextBox. I think it will also still support selecting and copying text from the TextBox which is not possible with a disabled TextBox.
Another simple alternative is to use a Label instead of a TextBox.

Additionally, in order for ForeColor to be obeyed on a TextBox marked ReadOnly, you must explicitly set the BackColor. If you want to have it still use the default BackColor, you have to make the set explicit, as the designer is too smart for its own good here. It is sufficient to set the BackColor to its current value. I do this in the Load event for the form, like so:
private void FormFoo_Load(...) {
txtFoo.BackColor = txtFoo.BackColor;
}

I've just found a great way of doing that. In my example I'm using a RichTextBox but it should work with any Control:
public class DisabledRichTextBox : System.Windows.Forms.RichTextBox
{
// See: http://wiki.winehq.org/List_Of_Windows_Messages
private const int WM_SETFOCUS = 0x07;
private const int WM_ENABLE = 0x0A;
private const int WM_SETCURSOR = 0x20;
protected override void WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m)
{
if (!(m.Msg == WM_SETFOCUS || m.Msg == WM_ENABLE || m.Msg == WM_SETCURSOR))
base.WndProc(ref m);
}
}
You can safely set Enabled = true and ReadOnly = false, and it will act like a label, preventing focus, user input, cursor change, without being actually disabled.
See if it works for you.
Greetings

hi
set the readonly attribute to true from the code side or run time not from the design time
txtFingerPrints.BackColor = System.Drawing.SystemColors.Info;
txtFingerPrints.ReadOnly = true;

You can try this.
Override the OnPaint event of the TextBox.
protected override void OnPaint(PaintEventArgs e)
{
SolidBrush drawBrush = new SolidBrush(ForeColor); //Use the ForeColor property
// Draw string to screen.
e.Graphics.DrawString(Text, Font, drawBrush, 0f,0f); //Use the Font property
}
set the ControlStyles to "UserPaint"
public MyTextBox()//constructor
{
// This call is required by the Windows.Forms Form Designer.
this.SetStyle(ControlStyles.UserPaint,true);
InitializeComponent();
// TODO: Add any initialization after the InitForm call
}
Refrence
Or you can try this hack
In Enter event set the focus
int index=this.Controls.IndexOf(this.textBox1);
this.Controls[index-1].Focus();
So your control will not focussed and behave like disabled.

If you want to display text that cannot be edited or selected you can simply use a label

In addition to the answer by #spoon16 and #Cheetah, I always set the tabstop property to False on the textbox to prevent the text from being selected by default.
Alternatively, you can also do something like this:
private void FormFoo_Load(...) {
txtFoo.Select(0, 0);
}
or
private void FormFoo_Load(...) {
txtFoo.SelectionLength = 0;
}

Just handle Enable changed and set it to the color you need
private void TextBoxName_EnabledChanged(System.Object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
((TextBox)sender).ForeColor = Color.Black;
}

Setting the 'Read Only' as 'True' is the easiest method.