SearchTextBox .NET
- An out-of-the-box search UI helper text box control
- Modern UI; comes pre-built with embedded objects for setting up custom actions
- Supports rendering Watermark text / banner
Supports setting up custom images for the embedded command objects
Supports Mouse hovering and other "visual cues" effects
Highly customizable UI
Overview
SearchTextBox .NET is a custom WinForms .NET control that works just like a standard .NET Text box control, and in addition provides several more capabilities out-of-the-box., viz.:
- Watermark rendering
- Embedded command objects that raise events to support executing custom commands, including text search, text clear, and plug-in your own additional custom commands, such as displaying a list of text search items list.
SearchTextBox .NET Control Features
1. Embedded command UI objects
The control contains three visual UI widgets embedded inside it, each widget acting as a command source for specific custom action, viz., Search Text, Clear Text and Browse for more custom actions.
These UI objects have default image pre-built and rendered for them, but you can set up your own image for each of these widgets by setting the appropriate Image property in the control.
2. Watermark text capability
The control is capable of rendering watermark / cue banner text.
It also exposes advanced properties such as:
- Set up a custom watermark text
- Set up special attributes such as whether to render the watermark even when the text control has current input focus, etc.
3. Custom events
The control raises a specific event for each of the UI widget when they are invoked by the user, which can be subscribed to and handled in the application code as need be.
For example, the drop-list requesting widget raises an event when the user clicks on it, and provides the location information of the action invocation so that the application code can attach a custom UI widget, say a context menu or a Tool-strip drop-down control, so as provide the users more custom actions to invoke.
4. Easy User-interface customization
The controls exposes several properties to customize its user-interface, including properties for setting up:
- Images for the embedded command objects
- Whether to enable the search and other command capabilities (and hence use only the watermark capabilities of the control)
- Customize the various UI aspects on the drop-list command object (if using the default/built-in drop-list chevron image):
- The desired Flip type for the drop-list chevron image
- The hot (mouse-over) and normal fill colors for the drop-list chevron command button image
- The hot (mouse-over) and normal border colors for the drop-list chevron command button image
5. Advanced text control features
Apart from the above described core features, the control also provides all of the advanced capabilities that our ExtendedTextBox .NET control provides, including being able to set border color, blinking features, etc.
