Question

I have a Winforms dialog that contains among other controls a TextBox that allows a single line of input. I would like to allow the user to be able to press Ctrl-Backspace to delete an entire word. This is not the default behaviour with the out-of-the-box TextBox; I get a rectangle character, rather than having the word deleted.

I have confirmed the ShortcutsEnabled property is set to True.

I did find that I can use a RichTextBox rather than a TextBox to get the behaviour I want. The problem with this is that the apperance of the RichTextBox (border in particular) is different from that of the TextBox, and I don’t need or want the ability to mark up text.

So my question is how to best handle this situation? Is there some property on the TextBox that I am missing? Or is it best to use the RichTextBox, update the appearance so it is consistent, and disable markup of the text?

I am relatively happy to write the code to handle the KeyDown and KeyPress events explicity if there is no better way, but thought it was worth checking first.

Answer 1

/* Update 2: Please look at https://positivetinker.com/adding-ctrl-a-and-ctrl-backspace-support-to-the-winforms-textbox-control as it fixes all issues with my simple solution */

/* Update 1: Please look also at Damir’s answer below, it’s probably a better solution 🙂 */

I would simulate Ctrl+Backspace by sending Ctrl+Shift+Left and Backspace to the TextBox. The effect is virtually the same, and there is no need to manually process control’s text. You can achieve it using this code:

class TextBoxEx : TextBox
{
    protected override bool ProcessCmdKey(ref Message msg, Keys keyData)
    {
        if (keyData == (Keys.Control | Keys.Back))
        {
            SendKeys.SendWait("^+{LEFT}{BACKSPACE}");
            return true;
        }
        return base.ProcessCmdKey(ref msg, keyData);
    }
}

You can also modify the app.config file to force the SendKey class to use newer method of sending keys:

<configuration>
  <appSettings>
    <add key="SendKeys" value="SendInput" />
  </appSettings>
</configuration>