Disable selecting text in a TextBox

Question

I have a textbox with the following (important) properties:

this.license.Multiline = true;
this.license.ReadOnly = true;
this.license.ScrollBars = System.Windows.Forms.ScrollBars.Vertical;
this.license.ShortcutsEnabled = false;

It looks like this:

Textbox with highlighted text in it

How can I disable the user to highlight text in this textbox (I do not want to disable the textbox completely)?

@BigM `this.license.ScrollBars = System.Windows.Forms.ScrollBars.Vertical;` - must be winforms — tukaef, Nov 06 '12 at 18:09

score 13 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 06 '12 at 18:13

13

Attach to the SelectionChanged event, and inside the event set e.Handled = true; and the SelectionLength = 0; and that will stop the selection from occuring. This is similar to what it takes to keep a key press from happening.

answered Nov 06 '12 at 18:13

Mike Perrenoud

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9

I couldn't find such event for the WinForms TextBox control. – checho Jan 07 '14 at 12:15
3

@checho In case you're interested, I ran into the same issue as you but resolved it by using the WinForms RichTextBox control, which thankfully does have the `SelectionChanged` event. – Calcolat Sep 10 '15 at 07:05
2

Doing this with a TextBox results in an recursive loop and StackOverflowException. Changing the selection inside the SelectionChanged callback is a bad idea! – floydheld Jan 16 '19 at 10:37
@floydheld You can unregister the hander right before the SelectionAll and again register it right after to prevent the StackOverflowException. – Lukáš Koten Oct 13 '20 at 16:47

Reza Aghaei · Answer 2 · 2018-10-15T13:24:30.203

To disable selection highlight in a TextBox, you can override WndProc and handle WM_SETFOCUS message and replace it with a WM_KILLFOCUS. Please be aware that it doesn't make the TextBox control read-only and if you need to make it read-only, you should also set ReadOnly property to true. If you set ReadOnly to true, you can set and its BackColor to White or any other suitable color which you want.

In below code, I added a SelectionHighlightEnabled property to MyTextBox to make enabling or disabling the selection highlight easy:

SelectionHighlightEnabled: Gets or sets a value indicating selection highlight is enabled or not. The value is true by default to act like a normal TextBox. If you set it to false then the selection highlight will not be rendered.

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
public class MyTextBox : TextBox
{
    public MyTextBox()
    {
        SelectionHighlightEnabled = true;
    }
    const int WM_SETFOCUS = 0x0007;
    const int WM_KILLFOCUS = 0x0008;
    [DefaultValue(true)]
    public bool SelectionHighlightEnabled { get; set; }
    protected override void WndProc(ref Message m)
    {
        if (m.Msg == WM_SETFOCUS && !SelectionHighlightEnabled)
            m.Msg = WM_KILLFOCUS;

        base.WndProc(ref m);
    }
}

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 06 '12 at 18:13

5

If you put the text into a label and then but the label into a System.Widnows.Forms.Panel control that has AutoScroll turned on you can display the text w/o it being selectable.

answered Nov 06 '12 at 18:13

JG in SD

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A MUCH MUCH better solution. No hacks to make a text box work. – tdemay Jul 15 '16 at 20:39
@pitersmx https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1204804/word-wrap-for-a-label-in-windows-forms – JG in SD Jul 20 '18 at 15:38

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered May 02 '19 at 10:47

I came across of this thread for my same issue I faced. Somehow I resolved it as below,

if (sender != null)
                {
                    e.Handled = true;
                    if((sender as TextBox).SelectionLength != 0)
                        (sender as TextBox).SelectionLength = 0;
                }

Verifying if the length changed other than 0, then only set it to 0, resolves the recursive loop.

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Dec 04 '18 at 07:16

1

Since the standard TextBox doesn't have the SelectionChanged event, here's what I came up with.

private void TextBox1_MouseMove(object sender, MouseEventArgs e)
{
    TextBox1.SelectionLength = 0;
}

answered Dec 04 '18 at 07:16

clamchoda

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Also for a better solution, you can add events to clamchoda [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/53607577/9819238) like: `MouseLeave` and `KeyPress` MouseLeave for deselecting when the mouse is no longer in the textbox area and KeyPress is for deselecting when the user press the Shift + Key Up/Down for selection. – Death GOD 7 Dec 22 '21 at 13:15

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Sep 21 '17 at 14:50

0

You can use a disabled RichTextBox and reset the color to black afterwards.

RichTextBox rtb = new RichTextBox();
rtb.IsEnabled = false;
rtb.Text = "something";
rtb.SelectAll();
rtb.SelectionColor = Color.Black;
rtb.SelectedText = String.Empty;

edited Sep 21 '17 at 14:50

Onominous

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answered Aug 26 '16 at 15:41

sean.net

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score 0 · Answer 7 · edited Sep 11 '17 at 12:09

If you are using XAML / WPF you should use a TextBlock instead of a TextBox.

ONLY IF YOU USE A TEXTBOX AS A DISPLAY AND NOT FOR INPUT - as TextBlock makes it seem as if the text is "engraved" onto the form itself, and not within a textbox. To get a Border around the TextBlock (if you wish), you can either do it :

In XAML such as :

<Border BorderThickness="1" BorderBrush="Gray">
    <TextBlock Background="White" Text="Your Own TextBlock"/>
</Border>

Or dynamically in C# Code:

//Create a Border object
Border border = new Border();
border.BorderThickness = new Thickness(1);
border.BorderBrush = Brushes.Black;

//Create the TextBlock object           
TextBlock tb = new TextBlock();
tb.Background = Brushes.White;
tb.Text = "Your Own TextBlock";

//Make the text block a child to the border
border.Child = tb;

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 20 '20 at 11:09

Very Easy Solution

Find a Label and into the textbox go to mousedown event and set focus to the label

This is in VB and can be easily converted into C#

Private Sub RichTextBox1_MouseDown(sender As Object, e As MouseEventArgs) Handles RichTextBox1.MouseDown
        Label1.Focus()
    End Sub

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered May 28 '22 at 09:54

0

I know this is an old question, but the correct and simple answer is :

SelectionOpacity = 0;

this works for both TextBox and RichTextBox in WPF.

answered May 28 '22 at 09:54

Maria

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score -1 · Answer 10 · edited Nov 07 '13 at 17:23

-1

In WinForms, the correct method is to assign the event MouseMove and set the SelectionLength to 0.

I´ve tried here and works perfectly.

edited Nov 07 '13 at 17:23

elixenide

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answered Nov 07 '13 at 16:48

Eduardo Fernandes

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This is not a right solution. You can still select the text with a couple of clicking effort. – Baz Guvenkaya Sep 01 '14 at 08:17
To fix the additional "clicking problem" that Baz said, just see my comment in this [post](https://stackoverflow.com/a/53607577/9819238). – Death GOD 7 Dec 22 '21 at 13:22

score -1 · Answer 11 · edited Nov 23 '15 at 10:01

-1

private void textBox5_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    this.textBox5.SelectionStart = this.textBox5.Text.Length;
}

edited Nov 23 '15 at 10:01

Bart

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answered Nov 23 '15 at 09:41

Dávid Farkas

1

Disable selecting text in a TextBox

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