I would like to add placeholder text similar to what you see on HTML Inputs. I am using Net Advantage 2008 v1 in Visual Studio 2010, targeting 3.5. I can do this with standard Windows Controls with the following:
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load CueProvider.SetCueText(TextBox1, "blah") CueProvider.SetCueText(TextBox2, "blahblah") CueProvider.SetCueText(UltraTextEditor1, "InfraCool") 'Does not work CueProvider.SetCueText(UltraTextEditor2, "UltraCool") 'Does not work End Sub
This is in a separate class:
Imports System.Runtime.InteropServicesPublic Class CueProvider Private Const EM_SETCUEBANNER As Integer = &H1501 <DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet:=CharSet.Auto)> _ Private Shared Function SendMessage(ByVal hWnd As IntPtr, ByVal msg As Integer, ByVal wParam As Integer, <MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPWStr)> ByVal lParam As String) As Int32 End Function Public Shared Sub SetCueText(ByVal control As Control, ByVal text As String) SendMessage(control.Handle, EM_SETCUEBANNER, 0, text) End SubEnd Class
Textbox1 and TextBox2 are just standard Winforms textbox controls. UltraTexteditor1 and UltraTextEditor2 are Infragistics UltraTextEditors. The first two controls behave as expected, the Infragistics editors show no cue banner. I know there are other ways to override the class and set and remove the "placeholder" text, but I've already got a thousand of these in my app. Is there another property to use, or does this function appear in later releases?
Thank you for your time and attention to this.
I'm not sure what version of infragistics you are using, but the text editor has a property called NullText. You can set it to whatever text you want displayed and then simply change the NullTextAppearance.ForeColor to Gray so that it looks like a water mark.
Here is a sample code -
Me.utextbox.NullText = "###" Me.utextbox.NullTextAppearance.ForeColor = Color.Gray
As long as there is no text in the control, the text you set will be displayed. As soon as the user clicks on the text box, this text will disappear.
Thanks
Karthik Subramanian
Hi Adonia,
I don't think ReadOnly matters. In order to show the TextBox, the UltraTextEditor has to be in edit mode. It will enter edit mode when it gets focus, regardless of the ReadOnly state, because even when the control is ReadOnly, the user can still select text and that requires the control to go into edit mode to show a caret and selection. So if you set AlwaysInEditMode to true, the control will always be in edit mode and so the same API described here will work.
I suppose another way to achieve the same basic effect would be to use the control.Appearance.ImageBackground and supply an image with some text in it.
Hi,
I would like to use the Watermark feature in WinForm UltraTextEditor control.
With this method you described here, I managed to emulate it.
My question: Is there any other method to show a background text ?
How can I send the message when the control is ReadOnly? ( we have a case when we want to show the background text in ReadOnly mode too)
Is there any method to access the TextBox control itself in ReadOnly mode?
That does the trick. My particular use case doesn't need to monitor changing EditMode, so I will apply this. Thank you!
If it doesn't work on the Inbox Label control, then my guess is that Windows checks for certain window classes explicitly.
If that's the case, you might be able to get it to work. When the UltraTextEditor goes into edit mode, it displays a derived TextBox control over itself. So you could set AlwaysInEditMode to true so that the TextBox is always there and the pass in the window handle the TextBox to SendMessage. To get the TextBox, you can use ultraTextEditor1.Controls[0].
The down side is that, with the TextBox always displayed, you will lose a little bit of functionality, since the TextBox cannot show gradients and such. But that's probably not a big deal.