RichTextBox with background highlighting in VB.NET

• Download demo project - 134 Kb

Introduction

We needed a control with background highlighting capabilities, so after looking everywhere, I ended up writing one. I found many people on the UseNet Groups and discussion threads asking for such a control and no one every answered. Well, here's an answer. It's kind of a kludge, but seems to work OK. It has NOT been through our QA cycle yet so use it at your own risk but I think it's pretty solid.

Apparently, there is an RTF tag called \highlight#. The RichTextBox control understands how to display the \highlight# tag, but the control does not provide any means of setting the tag. The reason I call my solution a kludge, is because the only way I could make it work is to scrape the raw RTF out of the control, manually parse it, strip out any existing \highlight# tags, rebuild the RTF color table, and manually insert the \highlight# tag myself. It seems to work ... but I'm not comfortable I know enough about RTF document structures to have thought of every scenario and every possible internal layout which can exist inside an RTF document. Bottom line, there may be RTF Documents which defeat my approach.

The RichTextBoxHS control is a subclass of the standard .NET RichTextBox. I've done several such controls which subclass one of the standard .NET controls and I always have a big problem getting the Visual Studio .NET Toolbox to recognize them. Bottom line ....

It takes "Funky" steps to recreate the RichTextBoxHS control

These steps (however funky) are required to recreate this control. I still haven’t deduced why, but unless you use Visual Studio’s tools to initially create the UserControl, the control never gets added to the ToolBox! So, for success, follow these steps:

• Open Visual Studio
• Open what ever VB project into which you want to add a RichTextBoxHS control
• From the MainMenu, select Project+AddUserControl
  Templates: User Control
  Name: RichTextBoxHS
• The UserControl design surface will open
• Close the UserControl Design surface
• Open the UserControl Code Editor surface
• Replace “ALL” code in the UserControl Editor with below code (or download here)
• Build the solution

Rather than repeating, step by step, how this approach works, I heavily commented the below code.

Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Text
Public Class RichTextBoxHS
    Inherits Windows.Forms.RichTextBox

#Region " Windows Form Designer generated code "
    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.New()
        'This call is required by the Windows Form Designer.

        InitializeComponent()
        'Add any initialization after the InitializeComponent() call

    End Sub

    'Form overrides dispose to clean up the component list.

    Protected Overloads Overrides Sub Dispose(ByVal disposing As Boolean)
        If disposing Then
            If Not (components Is Nothing) Then
                components.Dispose()
            End If
        End If
        MyBase.Dispose(disposing)
    End Sub

    'Required by the Windows Form Designer

    Private components As System.ComponentModel.IContainer
    'NOTE: The following procedure is required by the Windows Form Designer

    'It can be modified using the Windows Form Designer.  

    'Do not modify it using the code editor.

    <System.Diagnostics.DebuggerStepThrough()> Private Sub InitializeComponent()
        components = New System.ComponentModel.Container()
    End Sub

#End Region


    Public WriteOnly Property SelectionBackColor() As Color
        Set(ByVal Value As Color)
            'First, test SelectedText property NOT SelectedRTF property because

            '...SelectedRTF will never be nothing, it will always have at least

            '...the current default Font table

            If Me.SelectedText Is Nothing Then Exit Property
            Dim sb As New StringBuilder()           'use StringBuilder for speed 

                                                    'and cleanliness

            Dim SelText As String = Me.SelectedRtf  'move to local string for speed

            Dim strTemp As String                   'used twice for ease of calculating 

                                                    'internal coordinates

            Dim FontTableEnds As Integer            'end character of the rtf font table

            Dim ColorTableBegins As Integer         'beginning of the rtf color table

            Dim ColorTableEnds As Integer           'end of the rtf color table

            Dim StartLooking As Integer             'used to walk a string appending chunks

            Dim HighlightBlockStart As Integer      'used to find "\highlight#" block for 

                                                    'stripping

            Dim HighlightBlockEnd As Integer        'used to find "\highlight#" block for 

                                                    'stripping

            Dim cycl As Integer                     'used in For/Next loops

            Dim NewColorIndex As Integer = 0        'new color table index for incoming color


            'find the end of the font table

            FontTableEnds = InStr(1, SelText, "}}")
            'add the header and font table to the string accumulator

            sb.Append(Mid(SelText, 1, FontTableEnds + 1))

            'find the color table start

            ColorTableBegins = InStr(FontTableEnds, SelText, "{\colortbl")
            If ColorTableBegins = 0 Then 'no color table exists 

                'add a color table header

                sb.Append("{\colortbl ;")
                'no color table so for later use make the ColorTableEnd the same 

                ' as FontTableEnds

                ColorTableEnds = FontTableEnds
                'default our new color table index to 1 since it will be the only one

                'remember Color table index 0 is reserved 

                NewColorIndex = 1
            Else 'a color table already exists

                'find the end of the color table

                ColorTableEnds = InStr(ColorTableBegins, SelText, "}")
                'backup one character so as to exclude the brace

                ColorTableEnds -= 1
                'need to count the quantity of semi;colons which will

                '... determine what color table index number our new color will be

                strTemp = Mid(SelText, FontTableEnds + 2, 
                              (ColorTableEnds - FontTableEnds) - 1)
                For cycl = 1 To strTemp.Length
                    If Mid(strTemp, cycl, 1) = ";" Then NewColorIndex += 1
                Next
                'append the color table without end brace

                sb.Append(strTemp)
            End If

            'append the color table entry for the highlight color

            sb.Append("\red" & Trim(Value.R.ToString))
            sb.Append("\green" & Trim(Value.G.ToString))
            sb.Append("\blue" & Trim(Value.B.ToString))
            'append the table entry terminator semi;colon


            sb.Append(";")
            'append the color table terminating brace

            sb.Append("}")
            'append the new highlight tag

            sb.Append("\highlight" & Trim(NewColorIndex.ToString))
            'Drop into a single string for easier manipulation

            strTemp = Mid(SelText, ColorTableEnds + 2, 
                          (SelText.Length - ColorTableEnds) - 1)

            'begin at first character

            StartLooking = 1
            'append everything remaining, but strip all remaining highlight tags

            Do
                'find a "\highlight" block

                HighlightBlockStart = InStr(StartLooking, strTemp, "\highlight")
                'if no more "\highlight" block found

                If HighlightBlockStart = 0 Then
                    'append everything remaining

                    sb.Append(Mid(strTemp, StartLooking, 
                                  strTemp.Length - StartLooking))
                    'we're done appending

                    Exit Do
                End If
                'calculate the end of the word "highlight"

                HighlightBlockEnd = HighlightBlockStart + 9
                'accomodate color tables with over 9 colors and thus multi-digit 

                'color indexes Plus, watch for (and discard) ONE space if it 

                'immediately follows the last digit

                Do
                    'keep stepping past end

                    HighlightBlockEnd += 1
                    'watch for (and discard) ONE space if it immediately follows the

                    ' last digit

                    If Mid(strTemp, HighlightBlockEnd + 1, 1) = " " Then
                        HighlightBlockEnd += 1
                        Exit Do
                    End If
                    'looking for the first non-numeric character

                Loop While InStr(1, "0123456789", Mid(strTemp, HighlightBlockEnd + 1, 1))
                'append this block

                sb.Append(Mid(strTemp, StartLooking, (HighlightBlockStart - StartLooking)))
                'move the start forward past the last "\highlight#" block

                StartLooking = HighlightBlockEnd + 1
            Loop

            Me.SelectedRtf = sb.ToString
        End Set
    End Property


    Public Sub FindHighlight(ByVal SearchText As String, ByVal HighlightColor As Color, _
                             ByVal MatchCase As Boolean, ByVal WholeWords As Boolean)
        Me.SuspendLayout()
        Dim StartLooking As Integer = 0
        Dim FoundAt As Integer
        Dim SearchLength As Integer
        Dim RTBfinds As RichTextBoxFinds
        If SearchText Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
        Select Case True
            Case MatchCase And WholeWords
                RTBfinds = RichTextBoxFinds.MatchCase Or RichTextBoxFinds.WholeWord
            Case MatchCase
                RTBfinds = RichTextBoxFinds.MatchCase
            Case WholeWords
                RTBfinds = RichTextBoxFinds.WholeWord
            Case Else
                RTBfinds = RichTextBoxFinds.None
        End Select
        SearchLength = SearchText.Length
        Do
            FoundAt = Me.Find(SearchText, StartLooking, RTBfinds)
            If FoundAt > -1 Then Me.SelectionBackColor = HighlightColor
            StartLooking = StartLooking + SearchLength
        Loop While FoundAt > -1
        Me.ResumeLayout()
    End Sub

    Public Sub BackColorSetWhole(ByVal BackColorDefault As Color)
        Me.SelectAll()
        Me.SelectionBackColor = BackColorDefault
    End Sub

End Class

BUGS ....

If anyone finds bugs, or discovers an RTF Document which defeats my approach, please let me know. I will try to fix any problems.

Enjoy,

Frederick Volking
Senior Architect
Hunter Stone, Inc
http:HunterStone.Com