CueProvider
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A lightweight class that lets you add cues to a TextBox.
Introduction
CueProvider is a tiny class that lets you set a cue banner (the grey prompt text that automatically disappears when you begin to type) in a TextBox control.
How to use CueProvider
CueProvider is easy to use, and has just two methods - one to set a TextBox's cue text, the other to clear it. To set the cue text, call SetCue(); to clear it, call ClearCue(). These calls are best placed in your form's OnLoad handler.
// Set cue text
CueProvider.SetCue (theTextBox, theCueText);
// Clear cue text
CueProvider.ClearCue (theTextBox);
How it works
CueProvider works by sending the TextBox the EM_SETCUEBANNER message. The message is sent using the SendMessage() Win32 API. More information on the EM_SETCUEBANNER message can be found on this MSDN page.
Conclusion
As you can see, there's nothing overly complicated in this class. I put CueBanner together in a few minutes, and wanted to share it with the CodeProject community in the hope it could help give our desktop apps a bit of UI "polish".
Revision history
- 24 Jul 2008
- 17 Jul 2008
Updated the "How to use" section.
Initial version.