VB.NET Maskedbox Control - Final Release

Sample Image - MaskedBox_Control.jpg

Introduction

VB.NET does not have a masked texbox and it's very important for user input. So I have made it myself because the components I have found is not good enough for me.

Details

The "#" character in the mask is used for digit only
The "&" character accepts letter or digit
Supported mask symbols are "-", ".", ",", "/", "\", ":"

Using Component

The use of this component is very simple. You have to select the toolbox panel, right click in the windows forms section and select customize toolbox.

Select .NET framework components, then click browse and select maskedbox.dll in the download path. The maskedbox component will appear at the end of windows forms panel. Now select the component and drop it on a form.

Then set the mask property with any combination of valid characters

Ex. ##.###.####-###.###/###

History

Initial - I fixed a bug where the space key is not recognized. This version inherits a textbox component to publish all features of the textbox plus maskedbox
20-jan-2003 Fixes - Function keys now are not handled by control. They cause an invalid character in between the text. The function SetText has been created. Programatically changing the text value in control din't change the masked text, so I created this function where the parameter is a string to fill the text (with no mask). If the text is "", then the text and mask is cleared with a empty mask.
21-jan-2003 - The Final Release!!! I hope! Accept all characters and function keys. The delete key is working now !

Comments

Any comments ? Email me at pdvtech@terra.com.br. Visit my business site at www.pdvtech.com.br.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt please contact the author via the discussion board below.

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About the Author

RicardoPDV

Web Developer

Brazil

Member

Im a 33 years old and work developing applications since 14 years old

COBOL, my first language (i love)
BASIC, i born know

Visual Basic Rock's

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Great Help - Thanks

mbusfield

26 Nov '06 - 4:14

Suggested enhancements

VBProEd

31 Dec '05 - 8:45

Thanks for the simplistic code that was easy to read and modify for my purposes. There are several masked edit controls in this forum that honestly don't work or were poorly tested. I thought I would share the enhancements to my version for the stated valid reasons. My scope for these changes was around date formatting/editing.

1. If a user selects the entire field for delete (to re-type), the control should clear out the entire field. Once the user starts typing, the mask automatically fills in and the user can start typing the new date. Here is my code addition:

Protected Overrides Sub OnKeyDown(ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.KeyEventArgs)

        Dim tmpset = Me.SelectionStart

 

        On Error Resume Next

     Select Case e.KeyCode

            Case Keys.Delete

                If Len(Me.SelectedText) = Len(Me.Text) Then

                    Me.Text = String.Empty

                    Exit Select

                End If                

                Me.Text = ""

                For a = tmpset To aMask.Length - 1

                    Select Case aMskMask.GetValue(a + 1)

                        Case ".", "-", "\", "/", ","

                            aMask.SetValue(aMask.GetValue(a + 2), a)

                            a = a + 1

                        Case Else

                            aMask.SetValue(aMask.GetValue(a + 1), a)

                    End Select

                Next

 

                aMask.SetValue(CType("_", Char), aMask.Length - 1)

 

                e.Handled = True

 

                Me.Text = ""

                For a = 0 To aMask.Length - 1

                    Me.Text += aMask.GetValue(a)

                Next

                Me.SelectionStart = tmpset

 

        End Select

 End Sub

2. With SQL Server, DateTime values with leading zeroes are stored as m/d/yyyy, mm/d/yyyy and m/dd/yyyy (no leading zeroes). This creates havoc in a control when attempting to edit the "as stored" value since most data entry is done heads down without concern of field delimiters. I added the following events to handle re-formatting the date when first entering then leaving the control. These events also handle any input field defined with a mask of ##/##/#### and the user does not enter the Century date value.

Note: You should always set the "MaxLength" property on MaskedBox to either 8 or 10 (for dates) so that the user can automatically move to the next control.

Protected Overrides Sub OnEnter(ByVal e As System.EventArgs)

     MyBase.Text = Me.FormatData(Me.Text())

End Sub

 

Protected Overrides Sub OnLeave(ByVal e As System.EventArgs)

     MyBase.Text = Me.FormatData(Me.Text())

End Sub

 

Protected Function FormatData(ByVal sText As String) As String

 

        If sText Is Nothing Or sText Is String.Empty Then

            Exit Function

        Else

            sText = sText.Replace("_", "")

 

            If Len(Me.Mask) < 10 Then

                Try

                    Dim MyDate As DateTime = CType(sText, Date)

                    Return MyDate.ToString("MM/dd/yy")

 

                Catch

 

                    Return sText

 

                End Try

            Else

                Try

                    Dim MyDate As DateTime = CType(sText, Date)

                    Return MyDate.ToString("MM/dd/yyyy")

 

                Catch

 

                    Return sText

 

                End Try

            End If

 

        End If

 

    End Function

3. For those folks using SQL Server with controls bound to datasets that don't want to show the "as stored" date value from SQL Server, add the following handler and subroutine for all date field reformatting in your form.

Note: User-Defined Date/Time Formats (Format Function) - Unlike previous versions of Visual Basic, the Format function characters are case-sensitive. "MM" is not the same as "mm".



AddHandler txtMyDateField1.DataBindings("Text").Format, AddressOf Format

AddHandler txtMyDateField2.DataBindings("Text").Format, AddressOf Format

 

Public Sub Format(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As Windows.Forms.ConvertEventArgs)

    'This subroutine converts any SQL Server timedate to mm/dd/yy format

    If Not IsDBNull(e.Value) Then

        Dim MyDate As DateTime = CType(e.Value, Date)

        e.Value = MyDate.ToString("MM/dd/yy")

    End If

End Sub

Enjoy!

Re: Suggested enhancements

RicardoPDV

3 Jan '06 - 1:45

miguelfantastic

27 May '05 - 13:03

Problem in Using this Control

1 Oct '04 - 4:21

9 Jun '04 - 5:54

1 Oct '04 - 4:32

28 Mar '07 - 12:54

Absolutely Clueless....

TheKanuck

27 May '04 - 3:02

Re: Absolutely Clueless....

Xpto001

29 Oct '04 - 18:24

Poor Control Load

MrGTI

23 Sep '03 - 4:30

Re: Poor Control Load

1 Oct '04 - 4:13

14 Aug '03 - 3:34

1 Oct '04 - 4:14

30 Apr '03 - 4:18

Re: Option strict please

1 Oct '04 - 4:14

22 Apr '03 - 7:13

1 Oct '04 - 4:19

20 Jan '03 - 3:18

20 Jan '03 - 5:50

General News Suggestion Question Bug Answer Joke Rant Admin

A very useful maskedbox control using vb.net

Type	Article
Licence
First Posted	17 Jan 2003
Views	142,907
Bookmarked	29 times

.NET1.0Win2KWinXPC#
VBDevIntermediate

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