How to put a cell in overstrike mode in WinForms GridControl?

Overstrike the textbox cell

Enabling overstrike means to replace the existing characters with a new character as you type in a cell. The idea of doing this is to select one character when a key is pressed, and ignoring the backspace key.

Solution

This can be achieved by using the TextBox.SelectionLength property of the GridTextBoxCellRenderer in the CurrentCellKeyPress event. The Backspace key can optionally be translated to the Left Arrow key in the CurrentCellKeyDown event when you want the Backspace to move to the left without deleting characters.

//Hooking the Events in the Form_Load.
this.gridControl1.CurrentCellKeyPress += gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyPress;
this.gridControl1.CurrentCellKeyDown += gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyDown;

void gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyPress(object sender, KeyPressEventArgs e)
{
    GridTextBoxCellRenderer cr = this.gridControl1.CurrentCell.Renderer as GridTextBoxCellRenderer;
    if (e.KeyChar != Convert.ToChar(Keys.Back) && cr.TextBox.SelectionLength == 0)
    {
        //Programatically selecting One char.
        cr.TextBox.SelectionLength = 1;
    }
}

void gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyDown(object sender, KeyEventArgs e)
{
    if (e.KeyCode == Keys.Back)
    {
        //Translating the Backspace key to the left arrow key.
        SendKeys.Send("{LEFT}");
        e.Handled = true;
    }
}

'Hooking the Events in the Form_Load.
AddHandler Me.gridControl1.CurrentCellKeyPress, AddressOf gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyPress
AddHandler Me.gridControl1.CurrentCellKeyDown, AddressOf gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyDown

Private Sub gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyPress(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As KeyPressEventArgs)
    Dim cr As GridTextBoxCellRenderer = TryCast(Me.gridControl1.CurrentCell.Renderer, GridTextBoxCellRenderer)
    If e.KeyChar <> Convert.ToChar(Keys.Back) AndAlso cr.TextBox.SelectionLength = 0 Then
        'Programatically selecting One char.
        cr.TextBox.SelectionLength = 1
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub gridControl1_CurrentCellKeyDown(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As KeyEventArgs)
    If e.KeyCode = Keys.Back Then
        'Translating the Backspace key to a left arrow key
        SendKeys.Send("{LEFT}")
        e.Handled = True
    End If
End Sub

Samples:

C#: OverStrikeTextBoxCell-CS.zip

VB: OverStrikeTextBoxCell-VB.zip

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed learning about how to put a cell in overstrike mode in WinForms GridControl.

You can refer to our WinForms GridControl feature tour page to know about its other groundbreaking feature representations and WinForms GridControl documentation, and how to quickly get started for configuration specifications.

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How to put a cell in overstrike mode in WinForms GridControl?

Overstrike the textbox cell

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