How to get cursor position in a textbox

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I am developing a notepad application using WPF. How can I get the current cursor position in a textbox and display it in the statusbar button.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Posted 4-Aug-11 23:43pm

ch@ndr@ mouli

Updated 4-Aug-11 23:48pm

Slacker007

v2

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Slacker007 5-Aug-11 5:48am

Edited for readability and formatting.

3 solutions

Solution 3

No, you're not developing "notepad" application. Notepad already exists and is so rudimentary that, yes, a development of some text editor still makes some sense.

You can solve this problem like that:

C#

internal void InquireCaretPosition(out Position line, out Position column) {
    line = 0; column = 0;
    int caret = this.CaretIndex;
    int iLine = this.GetLineIndexFromCharacterIndex(caret);
    if (iLine < 0) iLine = 0;
    line = iLine;
    int firstChar = this.GetCharacterIndexFromLineIndex(iLine);
    if (firstChar < 0) firstChar = 0;
    column = caret - firstChar;
} //InquireCaretPosition

This code should be written in class inheriting from TextBox.

Another problem: on what events to show the caret position in the status bar?

1) Overridden method OnSelectionChanged;
2) When your text box control instance is first shown;
3) If you have more then one text box controls; when you select/show one of them.

If I'm not much mistaken, it will cover all cases.

—SA

Posted 4-Aug-11 23:56pm

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov

Updated 5-Aug-11 0:00am

v4

Solution 1

Check the TextBox::CaretIndex property.

Posted 4-Aug-11 23:51pm

YvesDaoust

Comments

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 5-Aug-11 6:00am

Basically correct, so what? OP needs to show position in the status bar.
Please see my solution -- it is tested and works.
--SA

YvesDaoust 5-Aug-11 6:05am

@SAKryukov: anything against correct solutions ???

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UJimbo · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-04T23:56:00

Use SelectionStart. Returns an integer that represents the starting position on the textbox at that point.
Also, use the TextBoxSelectionChanged event. textBox1 in my example:

private void textBox1_SelectionChanged(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
   int s = textBox1.SelectionStart;

   // get the first status bar item
   System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.StatusBarItem item = (System.Windows.Controls.Primitives.StatusBarItem)this.statusBar1.Items[0];

   // get the content textblock of the status bar item
   item.Content = s.ToString();
}

I've only used one item in my status bar, but you can change the relevant item by changing the

this.statusBar1.Items[0];