Multiline Text Dialog Boxes in Mono Xwt

On 28 November 2013 by Simon With 0 Comments - technology

I’ve been experimenting with the Mono Xwt library recently. I kind of like the idea of being able to develop once and run on any machine (don’t ask about redistributing Mono libraries, I’ve yet to learn that lesson). I hit a bit of a “speed bump” when I tried to create a dialog box with a decent amount on text in it. Searching only drew complaints about how Xwt lacks a multi-line text display. So I did a little hacking/experimenting and managed to come up with this work-around.

Working code:

    public class TextDialog: Dialog
    {
        VBox layout;
        Button button;
        WidgetSpacing spacing = new WidgetSpacing(1, 1, 1, 1);
 
        public TextDialog(string title, string buttonText, string text)
        {
            Title = title;
            CloseRequested += OnButtonClicked;
            Padding = spacing;
 
            layout = new VBox();
            layout.Margin = spacing;
            RichTextView textView = new RichTextView();
            textView.LoadText(text, PlainTextFormat.Plain);
            textView.Sensitive = true;
            textView.ExpandHorizontal = true;
            textView.Margin = spacing;
            layout.PackStart(textView, true, true);
            button = new Button(buttonText);
            button.Clicked += OnButtonClicked;
            button.Margin = spacing;
            layout.PackEnd(button, false, false);
            layout.ExpandHorizontal = true;
 
            Content = layout;
            this.Show();
            textView.MinWidth = button.Size.Width * 5; // hack to make the text readable
        }
 
        protected void OnButtonClicked(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Application.Exit();
        }
    }

It’s not perfect, but it’s a way to get multi-line text displayed.

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: