WPF TextBox

Mahesh Chand

7y342.2k22100Article

WPF TextBoxTextBox control in WPF

22 Comments

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Smk Mersal6y ago
How to hide the textbox element(content) not textbox if the listbox(list collections) selection is changed?
Teja Kumar11y ago
Sir, actually my doubt is i need to pass text box data to button. When i click the button it wants to display the website, if the text box contain an URL.
- Mahesh Chand7y ago
  You can get TextBox content in a string and check the format and if its a URL, open it in a Web browser. Here is an article on Web browser control in WPF. https://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/rahul4_saxena/webbrowser-control-in-wpf/
Teja Kumar11y ago
Thank you sir.
Teja Kumar11y ago
Sir, how to get the text at runtime of the application.
- Mahesh Chand11y ago
  If you have a text box Name "textBox1", you can get text dynamically using this: string txt = textBox1.Text;
swati ail13y ago
How to assign button fontstyle through coding in wpf?
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  Button.FontStyle = FontStyle.XXX;
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  btn.FontFamily = new FontFamily("Arial");btn.FontSize = 16.0; btn.FontStyle = FontStyles.Italic;
Abhishek joshi14y ago
@Jeganathan Balachandar - As I mentioned in my previous comments, these properties are not supported by WPF textBox (but Silverlight TextBox support these). Refer - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10850629/how-to-change-the-highlighted-texts-foreground-color-for-a-wpf-textbox
Jeganathan Balachandar14y ago
Hi I need to change the selected text foreground, but i couldn;t find the SelectionForeGround and SelectionBakground properties in TextBox control. TextBox2.SelectionBackground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Blue); TextBox2.SelectionForeground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.White);
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  Look at SelectionBrush, SelectionStart and SelectionEnd properties.
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  <TextBox SelectionBrush="Red" SelectionOpacity="0.5" Foreground="Blue" CaretBrush="Blue"> This is some text. </TextBox>
Abhishek joshi14y ago
BTW the Edit comment functionality is not working, shows this error - "We have recently made changes to the site and resource you are looking for may have moved. Please try our search by typing your keyword in search at top and click Go. Again, sorry for inconvenience."
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  Took me a while to come back to these comments :). This is fixed now.
Abhishek joshi14y ago
Wao, I was not expecting such reply from founder of C# corner! Can you provide some link to support your claim? I hope MS would not change the documentation of previous versions.
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  I might have brought these properties back from Silverlight when writing Silverlight book. Here I see TextBox has the property http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.textbox.selectionbackground(v=vs.95).aspx
- Mahesh Chand12y ago
  TextBox.SelectionBackground PropertyGets or sets the brush that fills the background of the selected text. FROM MSDN:<TextBlock Margin="20,40,0,0" Text="Demonstrating styles for TextBox" /><TextBlock Margin="20,0,0,0" FontSize="11"> Select the following text to view the results of SelectionForeground and SelectionBackground properties. </TextBlock> <TextBox Text="Styles" Margin="20,5,0,0" HorizontalAlignment="Left" Width="200" Height="35" FontFamily="Arial" FontSize="15" Foreground="White" Background="Black" BorderBrush="White" SelectionForeground="Black"> <TextBox.SelectionBackground> <LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="0,1"> <GradientStop Color="Gray" Offset="0.0" /> <GradientStop Color="White" Offset="1.0" /> </LinearGradientBrush> </TextBox.SelectionBackground> </TextBox>
Mahesh Chand14y ago
This article was written couple of years ago and Microsoft keep changing its API in every new version :).
Abhishek joshi14y ago
Are you sure your article contains correct information? There is not property called SelectionForeground & SelectionBackground in WPF TextBox! Moreover your attached sample is incomplete, covering only one point of the article. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.textbox(v=vs.100).aspx SelectionForeground & SelectionBackground are the properties of silverlight textbox - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.controls.textbox.selectionforeground(v=vs.95).aspx
- Mahesh Chand7y ago
  Thanks Abhi. I'm reviewing this now and will fix in my next updated. Cheers!
Jared Barneck15y ago
This article is missing information on Mnemonics. <a href="http://www.rhyous.com/2011/02/15/wpf-label-textbox-and-mnemonics/">WPF Label, TextBox, and Mnemonics</a>

This article demonstrates how to create and use a TextBox control in WPF using XAML and C#.

Creating a TextBox

The TextBox element represents a WPF TextBox control in XAML.

<TextBox/>

The Width and Height attributes of the TextBox element represent the width and the height of a TextBox. The Text property of the TextBox element sets the content of a TextBox. The Name attribute represents the name of the control, which is a unique identifier of a control.

The code snippet in Listing 1 creates a TextBox control and sets the name, height, width, and content of a TextBox control.

<TextBox Name="TextBox1" Height="30" Width="200" |
Text="Hello! I am a TextBox.">
</TextBox>

Listing 1

The output looks like Figure 1.

Figure 1

As you can see from Figure 1, by default the TextBox is placed in the center of the page. We can place a TextBox control where we want by using the Margin, VerticalAlignment and HorizontalAlignment attributes that sets the margin, vertical alignment, and horizontal alignment of a control.

The code snippet in Listing 2 sets the position of the TextBox control in the left top corner of the page.

<TextBox Name="TextBox1" Height="30" Width="200"
Text="Hello! I am a TextBox."
Margin="10,10,0,0" VerticalAlignment="Top"
HorizontalAlignment="Left">
</TextBox>

Listing 2

Formatting a TextBox

The BorderBrush property of the TextBox sets a brush to draw the border of a TextBox. You may use any brush to fill the border. The code snippet in Listing 3 uses a linear gradient brush to draw the border with a combination of red and blue color.

<TextBox.BorderBrush>
<LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="1,1">
<GradientStop Color="Blue" Offset="0" />
<GradientStop Color="Red" Offset="1.0" />
</LinearGradientBrush>
</TextBox.BorderBrush>

Listing 3

The Background and Foreground properties of the TextBox set the background and foreground colors of a TextBox. You may use any brush to fill the border. The following code snippet uses linear gradient brushes to draw the background and foreground of a TextBox.

<TextBox.Background>
<LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="1,1">
<GradientStop Color="Blue" Offset="0.1" />
<GradientStop Color="Orange" Offset="0.25" />
<GradientStop Color="Green" Offset="0.75" />
<GradientStop Color="Red" Offset="1.0" />
</LinearGradientBrush>
</TextBox.Background>
<TextBox.Foreground>
<LinearGradientBrush StartPoint="0,0" EndPoint="1,1">
<GradientStop Color="Orange" Offset="0.25" />
<GradientStop Color="White" Offset="1.0" />
</LinearGradientBrush>
</TextBox.Foreground>

The new TextBox looks like Figure 2.

Figure 2

Setting Image as Background of a TextBox

To set an image as background of a TextBox, we can set an image as the Background of the TextBox. The code snippet in Listing 4 sets the background of a TextBox to an image.

<TextBox.Background>
<ImageBrush ImageSource="dock.jpg" />
</TextBox.Background>

Listing 4

The new output looks like Figure 3.

Figure 3

Creating a TextBox Dynamically

The code listed in Listing 5 creates a TextBox control programmatically. First, it creates a TextBox object and sets its width, height, contents, background and foreground and later the TextBox is added to the LayoutRoot.

private void CreateATextBox() | {
TextBox txtb = new TextBox();
txtb.Height = 50;
txtb.Width = 200;
txtb.Text = "Text Box content";
txtb.Background = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Orange);
txtb.Foreground = new SolidColorBrush(Colors.Black);
LayoutRoot.Children.Add(txtb);
}

Listing 5

Setting Fonts of TextBox Contents

The FontSize, FontFamily, FontWeight, FontStyle, and FontStretch properties are used to set the font size, family, weight, style and stretch to the text of a TextBox. The code snippet in Listing 6 sets the font properties of a TextBox.

FontSize="14" FontFamily="Verdana" FontWeight="Bold"

Listing 6

The new output looks like Figure 4.

Figure 4

The FontSource property allows loading custom fonts dynamically. The following code snippet sets the FontSource property.

Uri fontUri = new Uri("SomeFont.ttf", UriKind.Relative);
StreamResourceInfo MySRI = Application.GetResourceStream(fontUri);
TextBox1.FontSource = new FontSource(MySRI.Stream);

Non Editable TextBox

The IsReadOnly property of the TextBox sets the text box read only. By default, it is false.

IsReadOnly="True"

Restricting Text Size of a TextBox

The MaxLength property of the TextBox sets the number of characters allowed to input in a text box.

MaxLength="250"

Scrolling, Alignment, and Wrapping

The HorizontalScrollBarVisibility and VerticalScrollBarVisibility properties are used to set horizontal and vertical scroll bars of a TextBox, which is of type ScrollBarVisibility enumeration. The ScrollBarVisibility enumeration has four values – Disabled, Auto, Hidden, and Visible. The following code snippet sets the horizontal and vertical scroll bars visible in a TextBox.

HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Visible"
VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Auto"

The TextWrapping property sets the wrap of no-wrap text. The following code snippet sets the wrapping text option.

TextWrapping="Wrap"

The TextAlignment property sets the text alignment in a TextBox, which is of type TextAlignment enumeration. A text can be aligned left, center, or right.

TextAlignment="Right"

The AcceptReturn property sets if the return is accepted in a TextBox or not.

AcceptsReturn="True"

Listing 7 shows all these properties in a complete sample.

<TextBox Name="TextBox2" Margin="10,10,50,0
Width="300" Height="150"
HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Visible"
VerticalScrollBarVisibility="Visible"
TextWrapping="Wrap"
TextAlignment="Right"
MaxLength="500"
IsReadOnly="False"
AcceptsReturn="True" >
</TextBox>

Listing 7

Summary

In this article, I discussed how we can create and format a TextBox control in WPF and C#. After that we saw how to create a TextBox control dynamically. Then we saw how to set various properties of a TextBox such as making it non editable, restricting the size of text, and setting the foreground and background of the selected text.