Displaying Multi-Line Text

by - StPendl Apr 19, 2010

Every now and then one needs to display text of multiple lines, which the user should not be able to change. Using one STATICTEXT control for each line is cumbersome, but the STATICTEXT control is a multi-line control with automatic text wrapping, which most control. Many programmers are not aware of. that a static control has automatic text line wrapping.

The following are some ways to display multiple lines of text.

Using a Static Text Control

This allows the user to read the text, but he can not cannot select and copy anything. the contents. The text is broken into separate lines by adding a carriage-return character when a new line is desired. The carriage-return character is character 13 and is specified with the CHR$() statement as CHR$(13).

 ' turn main window off 
 nomainwin 
 
 ' specify text to display 
 Message$ = "The world is turning"; CHR$(13); _ 
 "till "until it gets stuck"; CHR$(13); _ 
 "in the mud of the population." 
 
 ' set up the GUI 
 statictext #m.txt, Message$, 10, 10, 200, 100 
 
 ' open the window 
 open "Multi-Line Message Demo" for window as #m 
 
 ' trap closing the window, this line is mandatory 
 #m "trapclose [quit]" 
 
 ' wait for user action 
 wait 
 
 [quit] 
 ' close the window and terminate 
 close #m 
 end 

Using a Text Box with Scroll-Bar

This allows the user to read the text and he can select and copy anything. You can display a whole plain text file in a small space.

 ' turn main window off 
 nomainwin 
 
 ' specify text to display 
 filedialog "Open a Plain Text File ...", "*.txt;*.bas", FileName$ 
 
 ' no file selected then terminate 
 if FileName$ = "" then end 
 
 ' read the text 
 open FileName$ for input as #f 
 Message$ = input$(#f, lof(#f)) 
 close #f 
 
 ' set up the GUI 
 textbox #m.txt, 10, 10, 200, 100 
 
 ' add a scroll bar for vertical scrolling and make the control read-only 
 ' remove automatic horizontal scrolling 
 stylebits #m.txt, _WS_VSCROLL or _ES_READONLY, _ES_AUTOHSCROLL, 0, 0 
 
 ' open the window 
 open "Multi-Line Message Demo" for window as #m 
 
 ' trap closing the window, this line is mandatory 
 #m "trapclose [quit]" 
 
 ' fill the text box 
 #m.txt Message$ 
 
 ' wait for user action 
 wait 
 
 [quit] 
 ' close the window and terminate 
 close #m 
 end