Textbox giving me a headache

[Ruffnekk]

I've posted a question in another forum earlier about a custom textbox control. I figured this forum is read more often and in the meantime I found some more details on the problem, so here I go:

I have created a custom control, inherited from the textbox control. My textbox pulses it's custom gradient background image whenever it has the focus to indicate which textbox has the focus (source code available for whoever wants to use it). It works very neat and looks great, except for one detail which gives me a headache!

The position of the blinking cursor in the textbox control doesn't position correctly with the typed text. It's either to far to the right or left, depending on the font size used. I've found what the cause is but can't correct it.

I use a graphics object to draw the text in the textbox, otherwise the text falls behind the image. I use the same font, size and position for the text (verified). When I don't draw the background image, the original text can be seen flickering through and I recognized it's font as being FixedSys. I've used many many debug.print's but the font always returns correctly, never FixedSys.

What's happening here? I'm lost.

Regards, Ruffnekk
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Is it my imagination or do buffalo wings taste just like chicken?

 

[chrissie1]

why don't you draw you image on the background image?

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

I just like this --> [Wiggle] [Wiggle]

 

[Ruffnekk]

Because then I can't get it to pulsate.

I just did another test: I put my textbox on a form, and directly below it a standard textbox. Same font, sizes, everything.

When I (at runtime) change the text of both textboxes, this is what I get: (| being the cursor)

John Willemse |
John Willemse|

As you can see, the space between where the cursor is and where it should be can almost hold a capital W. When the text gets longer, the space gets larger:

John Willemse is mad |
John Willemse is mad|

It has to do with the underlying (real) text of the textbox, which somehow doesn't display in the correct font anymore, but instead uses a monospace font which is longer by measurement.

Also, I found that a string drawn with g.DrawString is actually a different width in pixels than the exact same string in a label or textbox. (you can try this by putting a label on a form, and drawing the exact text below it on the form using g.DrawString, they will not be the same width)

Regards, Ruffnekk
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Is it my imagination or do buffalo wings taste just like chicken?

 

[SHelton]

It may be the difference between typographic and default font spacing.

When you use g.DrawString, try using the overloaded method that takes a StringFormat and use the following:

Dim sf as New StringFormat(StringFormat.GenericTypographic)

It might not work, but it's worth a try.

 

[Ruffnekk]

Thanks for the suggestion. I already tried that, also tried setting various StringFormatFlags, but it doesn't do the trick. The only way I can get it to work is to set the font to Microsoft Sans Serif, 11 points, which seems to match the font used by the system to display the invisible real text of the textbox... Beats me...

Regards, Ruffnekk
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Is it my imagination or do buffalo wings taste just like chicken?