Question

I have implemented arbitrary links in my rtb using the CodeProject found here. The links are not truly links but instead data that is looked up when clicked and returned expanded information on the item clicked.

This all works great. The problem is when I try to save the data off to a database using the RichTextBox1.Rtf method the links are lost. I end up with the value of the text but there is no link data saved off in the Rtf. Is there no Rtf code for hyperlinks? Is there no way around this issue?

I am considering adjusting my approach to something more in line with this issue but I don’t want to change everything around if I can find a way to save my custom hyperlinks.

Any suggestions would be great!

—————UPDATE—————-

Before submitting I did a bit more digging and dug up this blog article which discusses that RTB do not save hyperlinks so I guess I am SOL. The only way around this is by saving off the text in hidden textbox and save that version to the db but that way gets clunky. I think I will go with the second option I found and I thought I would post this anyway since data in StackOverflow seems slim on this topic. Now I know why.

Answer 1

To summarize, Rich Text Boxes do not save hyperlinks in the .Rtf field (nor text). The value of the display is saved but not the actual link. Seems like a poor limitation to RTB’s IMHO.

There are ways around this case, create custom links like this fellow did or re-evaluate your data on load searching for the keywords (the route I took since the data will never get too large to cause freezing).

The code I used to perform this is as follows and called on load:

            foreach (ListViewItem keyword in Keywords.Items)
            {
                System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex oKeyword = new System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(@"\b" + keyword.Text + @"\b");

                foreach (System.Text.RegularExpressions.Match match in oKeyword.Matches(rtb.Text))
                {
                    int index = match.Index;
                    int length = match.Length;

                    rtb.Select(index, length);
                    //This next bit is made available through the use of http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/9196/Links-with-arbitrary-text-in-a-RichTextBox
                    rtb.InsertLink(match.Value);  
                }
            }