Introduction
This Rich Text Editor-style control comes from a reference of the "Body Editor" in
"New Message" dialog of Outlook Express.
As we know, although a RichTextBox control is already provided within .NET
Framework by Microsoft to display rich text for users,
it still lacks in some real Rich Editing works which are extremely desirable.
As a consequence, this control is right for the real editing work.
Inside HTMLTextBox
As a subclass of UserControl, HTMLTextBox mainly consists of two parts:
one ToolBar and one WebBrowser control.
How to enable the WebBrowser to be editable?
The WebBrowser will enter "Edit Mode" after performing the following code.
webBrowserBody.Document.ExecCommand("EditMode", false, null);
How to overstrike your font
Perform the following code to enable the BOLD font on the selected characters.
webBrowserBody.Document.ExecCommand("Bold", false, null);
All the operations in this control are executed by invoking the function
ExecCommand of WebBrowser.Document. For detailed info about ExecCommand,
please refer to Microsoft MSDN.
PS: As announced by Microsoft in Command Identifiers,
some of the Commands are mentioned to be no more applicable, however, they still work well.
Please do not rely it 100 percent, just give a shot!
About Optional Fonts
foreach (FontFamily family in FontFamily.Families)
{
toolStripComboBoxName.Items.Add(family.Name);
}
All the optional fonts in this control are retrieved by means of the code above.
About Font Size
In HTML page, seven types of font size are applicable (from 1 to 7). And the
relationship between the HTML font size and the common font size is summarized
in the following table:
| HTML Font Size | Common Font Size |
| 1 | 8 |
| 2 | 10 |
| 3 | 12 |
| 4 | 14 |
| 5 | 18 |
| 6 | 24 |
| 7 | 36 |
To avoid confusion, the Common Font Size will display for users instead of
the HTML Font Size.
How to use HTMLTextBox
As a UserControl, HTMLTextBox is very convenient for your use. And I do not
override or expose too many properties or methods.
By far, it just has two public properties": Text and Images. If you want
more, you are free to add them by yourself for any purpose.
Text: to set or get more meaningful text, it is overridden.
- get: return the entire HTML content including <html> and <body> etc.
- set: set any text value and display them in this control, meanwhile, the "/r/n" will be automatically translated into <br>.
Images: to get the unique directories of all the attached images
NOTE: the COM object "Microsoft HTML Object Library" will be referenced by HTMLTextBox.
About Sample
Email Sender Example
Before running Sample, the following code needs to be changed accordingly.
In lines 23 - 26 in MailSender.cs
string host = "192.168.22.12";
int port = 25;
string userid = "jay.liu";
string password = "1111";
Loathsome BUG
The image inserted into the edit body cannot be resized, and no exception
will be thrown. For now, I have no idea about the reason or solution.
History
First Version (1/22/2007).
