How can I select all the text within a Windows Forms textbox?

Question

I want to select all the text that is with in text box.

I've tried this using the code below:

textBoxResults.SelectionStart = 0;
textBoxResults.SelectionLength = textBoxResults.Text.Length;

Source: I got this code from here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/hk09zy8f(v=vs.100).aspx but for some reason it doesn't seem to work - meaning, no text gets selected.

Kantian

(...)but it doesn't work.(...), what do you get in selectedText if you write var selectedText = textBoxResults.SelectedText;? Are you modifying the text property after the code above? – Sociability

No, this is after programmatically populating the textbox. I just want to quickly highlight everything so I don't have to scroll through a gazillion lines of text. – Kantian

How much text is in there? – Sociability

A lot; too much to quickly drag through. – Kantian

What doesn't work? Is the text only partially selected? Or not selected at all? You have to provide more details about your problem. – Sociability

Nothing at all happens. – Kantian

And the same exact comment could be made regarding this question of mine: #18034516 – Kantian

It was answered below by Ehsan Ullah, so he understood it, and it's working now - in addition to SelectAll(), I also had to call Focus() after that. IOW, it was selected (theoretically, at least), but how would I know that. Seems like a strange implementation to me, but, as I said, the question has been answered/solved. – Kantian

I had the same issue until I set the HideSelection property for textbox to false.... – Lederman

Answer 1

You can use the built in method for this purpose.

textBoxResults.SelectAll();
textBoxResults.Focus(); //you need to call this to show selection if it doesn't has focus

Geraldgeralda

That would seem sensible, but it doesn't work, either. I added textBoxResults.SelectAll(); – Kantian

i have tested it, it works eperfectly fine. Can you show how have you implemented it. it must be something else that is causing the issue. – Geraldgeralda

It's very simple: I programmatically populate the textbox, then I have a button with that code in it. I tried what I posted, which didn't work, and I tried the SelectAll(), which also doesn't work. – Kantian

got your problem, call textBoxResults.Focus() after selectall call – Geraldgeralda

@ClayShannon is your issue resolved? have you tried the updated code? – Geraldgeralda

Or set the HideSelection property to false. – Neomaneomah

Okay, with the added .Focus() it works, thanks. Strange that the official way to do it from msdn led me down the garden path. – Kantian

I always upvote every answer to one of my questions as soon as I see it - before I even read it. – Kantian

I typed the following code in the "Enter" event of a Textbox. When i click into the Textbox, text is not selected: Textbox1.SelectAll(); Textbox1.Focus(); – Dug

Answer 2

You can also try the following which might solve you problem:

textBoxResults.SelectAll();

This works well with multi-lined textbox.

Compellation

Answer 3

This method enables you to select all text within the control.

public void CopyAllMyText()
{
// Determine if any text is selected in the TextBox control. 
if(textBox1.SelectionLength == 0)
   // Select all text in the text box.
   textBox1.SelectAll();

// Copy the contents of the control to the Clipboard.
textBox1.Copy();
}

Check this link for more info. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.textboxbase.selectall.aspx

Punjabi

Why would I need to check for selectionlength? I want to select all with nothing selected prior to that. – Kantian

You can remove if condition. – Punjabi