Rich Text Box Formatting

[journeyman]

Hi All,

To date, I have not found a satisfactory solution for this question, so I apologise if it's been asked before.

I would like to format text in a rich text box. Easy right? Not so fast. I don't want to use the popup menu. It's clumsy and erratic.

Instead I would like to put my own bold, italic, underline - and all the other good things on buttons above my rich text box - easy right...not so fast.

You can highlight selected text, but the second you click out from the RTB, you lose the selection. So... My thinking is that you have to record the location of your selection, but that seems not to be easy either.

Has anybody an example of how I might do this, or can offer any good ideas?

I'm afraid that using alternative active x controls is not possible, or buying controls where such a facility is included in not an option to me... Hence why I'm looking for a native solution available to standard access.

Cheers

[isladogs]

Why do you say the rich text toolbar is clumsy & erratic?

Also, it is not at all clear to me what you are asking.

Is it a utility like my Rich Text Editor which is available free?



Or perhaps you want something more complex like this form which can create both rich text and HTML for use in Access?



The second screenshot also comes from the same article but is part of a commercial app for schools
I created it many years ago but remember it being very complex to create at the time
The toolbar buttons are for use when creating HTML
For the rich text, I'm using the built in rich text toolbar

[journeyman]

Thank you Colin.

These seems like great resources. I am familiar with Rich text, but don't know much about HTML editing.

I'm not building a commercial application. I'm building a too that allows me to write documents utilising Access to aid in text storing and manipulation.

In any case, your HTML version seems to contain the features that I want - that is, format buttons and selections that can be applied to the text field.

I like the right click popup menu in the rich text box, but I'd rather prefer to be able to use buttons. except with RTB, the focus is shifted from the RTB and the selection is lost.

I've tried recording the location of the cursor, but it's exceptionally difficult, so that's why i'm interested in a solution that adequately permits text formatting without losing focus.

Cheers

[isladogs]

Rich text is a cut down version of HTML. There are some common features.

[journeyman]

Yep, I get that.

But my question is how can I approach the study of making an editor such that I have a rich text field (or html, or whatever feild) and house buttons atop said field, such that I can click them without losing focus, and edit the text content (make bold, colored, styled, etc).

Now I'm not looking for someone to provide a full scale application - I'm just a poor basic access dev - but an example would be very helpful.

Cheers

[CJ_London]

except with RTB, the focus is shifted from the RTB and the selection is lost.

you can get that information and store it in a global variable or tempvar in one of the control's events (perhaps the lost focus event)

look for the properties selStart, selLength and selText.

your button to make bold might be something like

myRTC=replace(myRTC,glbSelText,"<Strong>" & glbSelText & "</Strong>")

Then no need to return to the control - user just click back when required.

You will find it is not quite as simple as that - you will need to control scrolling for example and if the selText is repeated, then all instances will be affected, so you need to think about how that might work as well

[isladogs]

I'm slightly confused by your comments about the rich text toolbar.
Did you try the free rich text editor from my article?
Using the form, select a word in one of the records e.g. by double clicking. The toolbar appears but the selected word retains focus. Alter its appearance using the toolbar. Rinse and repeat.

Sorry but I can't supply the other more complex form as its part of a commercial app.

[journeyman]

Thanks again for responses.

Any rich text tool bar sits outside the rich textbox control. If you click a button, the focus goes to that button and away from the RTB control. Meaning that anything you selected becomes unselected.

I reviewed the free rich text editor - and yes, I agree you can right click and raise the popup with your right click functionality. You can also, click the access toolbar, which seem to permit font changes without losing focus. But I absolutely do not want to display the access toolbar (or VBE at all).

CJ_London suggested that you store the variable information - which I have tried. e.g. the cursor location, then the cursor length. Unfortunately this creates many more problems - counting for the html tags, determine their opening and closing, determine if the selection was inside the appropriate tag, determine where you selected text backwards or forwards.... and so on and so forth.

In any case, the problem with using RTB seems far more of a waste of time that previously thought. Perhaps you made it work - and I respect your desire to retain your IP - but that doesn't answer my previous question. How do I do it?

I don't want your IP. what I want is to learn how and understand how to do these things, which seems a far more satisfying.

I appreciate your responses, and I continue to form alternative ideas as a consequence, so thank you again.

Cheers

[isladogs]

As previously explained the form used in my commercial app has a rich text textbox control on the left and HTML on the right displayed in a web browser control

For the rich text control, I use the built in rich text toolbar. It works fine and I never saw any reason to find an alternative. In any case, I've never tried to disable that toolbar and it may not be possible to do so

The 30 buttons in a row on the form toolbar are used to format the contents of the HTML in the web browser control.
For example, clicking the Bold button whilst a text selection is highlighted runs this code

Me.WBrowser.Object.Document.execCommand "Bold", False, Null

The Hyperlink button does this:

Me.WBrowser.Object.Document.execCommand "CreateLink", True

Other buttons are used to cut/copy/paste, undo/redo, add numbered or bulleted lists, italic/underline/strikethrough text, superscript/subscript, change text or background colour/ highlight text, left/centre/right align or justify, indent/outdent; add line, image, table, rectangle etc, etc...

In other words, they provide almost all the features found in HTML web pages though I'm using this feature to create rich text and HTML help pages displayed in an Access form.

This is a randomly selected example of HTML generated using this approach - there are over 400 such help pages with images, links etc



Each of those pages can also be printed:



You may be able to display your rich text in a web browser control and do something similar but I never tried as the built in toolbar works fine for me

Anyway, hope that's sufficient to get you started

[journeyman]

Thank you for your examples.

Your tool looks fantastic and I'm sure your work is worthy of high praise! I'm sure most devs can only dream of putting something like it together.

Update: I will say that I using an ActiveX Microsoft web browser linked to a text box, I was able to edit the text, and even apply the bold, italics, underline formatting. However, it seems not to permit Enter key press. This seems a bit odd. Is there a method to allow for enter keypress when typing text and inserting new lines? Even better is there a means to edit the Standard Web browser control?

Little steps of frustration...



Cheers

[isladogs]

I did warn you from the start that creating this form was a lot of work.

The answer to the new line question is shown at the top of the larger screenshot in post #2.
As far as I remember I am using a standard web browser control (not ActiveX) but I'd have to check as its almost 15 years since I made it and I haven't used it in a long time.
The new Edge browser control wouldn't work for this as .Object code isn't allowed

[journeyman]

The answer to the new line question is shown at the top of the larger screenshot in post #2.

From your general description and graphics, I think you must have done some amazing work.

I want to be able to emulate that, but, I don't want to buy it. I want to make it for myself. Now I'm not trying to rip you off. I'm sure your work is worth every penny.

* The ActiveX Webbrower control allows instant and immediate text change - I can type into it - but you can't type CTRL-Enter and express a new line. It doesn't work!
* The ActiveX Webbrower control does no such thing. I can't type the letters 'ABC' let alone CTRL-Enter. It simply won't type a word. Perhaps I'm not connecting it right. in any case, it doesn't work the way you are describing it.

However, based on one of your responses, I can apply "Bold" via a external button, and that works. It's awesome, except that I can't type anything into a standard control, and I can't CTRL Enter into an Active X control.

Surely somebody has an example of how its done - that I shouldn't have to pay $400 for.

Cheers

[isladogs]

Your two bullet points both reference the ActiveX browser but contradict each other. Should one of those points be for the standard browser control?

It definitely works for me though I haven't used it for many years and would need to check whether I'm using the standard web browser or an ActiveX component.

Whilst I wish you luck creating this, I will again warn you that it will be a lot of work. It took me many hours over several weeks.
I did this in order to generate full HTML so I could also include images, videos and hyperlinks for the help articles.
Each article has two versions. A basic rich text item and an HTML version with additional, info, images etc.
For the rich text versions, I just use the built in popup toolbar.

I'm still not convinced that doing all of this for formatting rich text is worth the huge effort involved.

There may be other examples online but I don't recall finding anything similar at the time I created this.
You may be able to find the code required for each button by searching the MS site.. However, I deduced most, if not all of them, myself.

You made it clear that you don't want to purchase my version and that is absolutely fine. In fact, far better to do it yourself.
In any case, its embedded as a small component of a huge app for schools and is not currently available for sale as a separate component.

Perhaps it should be...but I suspect it would take quite a lot of time to make it work as a standalone item.

Good luck

[isladogs]

I've just had another look at the form.
I am using an ActiveX web browser control in which I type directly
When I create a new record, this information appears by default:



Clicking Create Default HTML then gives me the basic header and body text sections:


Anything entered (in either the rich text or HTML windows) is saved to a table in plain text format with all HTML codes
Clicking the View Source Code button makes a hidden textbox visible showing the saved code



Here's an example with more text added including a bulleted list and an embedded image



Anyway, whilst I can't share that form, I do have another rich text editor that I have shared in the past. Its attached below
However it does still use the rich text toolbar. See if that helps you

[journeyman]

Thanks for your help.

I found an example from Stephen Lebans, then studied and reverse engineered it to understand what made it tick.

I'll be honest, there is no possible way I understand a lot of it, but I took the functional code then stripped out any irrelevant coding that just complicated matters. and made it work.

I learned out that the Webrowser control event KeyPreview had to be set to Yes, (this was perhaps the single point of failure that was never clear anywhere) .

Then I rebuilt my own from scratch.

I now have a functional webbrowser control that I can edit. Granted, the HTML code is not pretty, but baby step right.

Anyway, you've provided some insight into the complexity of doing it, so thank you again.

Cheers