Wpf – Multiline for WPF TextBox

multilinetextboxwpf

I am developing an app for sending some feedback.

Basically I'm trying to make a TextBox for comments, but I'm used to the WinForms MultiLine=true. I've set MinLines to 3, which is getting there, but preferably I'd like it if the user is able to type wherever in this block – like press enter and do dot points sort of thing. For example:

- Item 1        blah
- Item 2                blahlb lahbvl   d

But at the moment the text all stays on one line.

- Item 1         blah - Item 2                      blahb blahb blah

These comments will then help fill the body of an email which is sent. It may be pointless if I can't easily keep the same formatting when putting this string into the email body string (so that it looks like it does when sent as it does when typed).

Can I achieve what I'm after or do I have to leave it as all text on one line?

Best Answer

Enable TextWrapping="Wrap" and AcceptsReturn="True" on your TextBox.

You might also wish to enable AcceptsTab and SpellCheck.IsEnabled too.

Related Solutions

.net – Making a WinForms TextBox behave like your browser’s address bar

First of all, thanks for answers! 9 total answers. Thank you.

Bad news: all of the answers had some quirks or didn't work quite right (or at all). I've added a comment to each of your posts.

Good news: I've found a way to make it work. This solution is pretty straightforward and seems to work in all the scenarios (mousing down, selecting text, tabbing focus, etc.)

bool alreadyFocused;

...

textBox1.GotFocus += textBox1_GotFocus;
textBox1.MouseUp += textBox1_MouseUp;
textBox1.Leave += textBox1_Leave;

...

void textBox1_Leave(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    alreadyFocused = false;
}


void textBox1_GotFocus(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    // Select all text only if the mouse isn't down.
    // This makes tabbing to the textbox give focus.
    if (MouseButtons == MouseButtons.None)
    {
        this.textBox1.SelectAll();
        alreadyFocused = true;
    }
}

void textBox1_MouseUp(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    // Web browsers like Google Chrome select the text on mouse up.
    // They only do it if the textbox isn't already focused,
    // and if the user hasn't selected all text.
    if (!alreadyFocused && this.textBox1.SelectionLength == 0)
    {
        alreadyFocused = true;
        this.textBox1.SelectAll();
    }
}

As far as I can tell, this causes a textbox to behave exactly like a web browser's address bar.

Hopefully this helps the next guy who tries to solve this deceptively simple problem.

Thanks again, guys, for all your answers that helped lead me towards the correct path.

Javascript – Creating multiline strings in JavaScript

Update:

ECMAScript 6 (ES6) introduces a new type of literal, namely template literals. They have many features, variable interpolation among others, but most importantly for this question, they can be multiline.

A template literal is delimited by backticks:

var html = `
  <div>
    <span>Some HTML here</span>
  </div>
`;

(Note: I'm not advocating to use HTML in strings)

Browser support is OK, but you can use transpilers to be more compatible.

Original ES5 answer:

Javascript doesn't have a here-document syntax. You can escape the literal newline, however, which comes close:

"foo \
bar"