A Scrollable MessageBox in C#

Question

I use Addin in VS2008, C#, and I need show messages (error messages and others).

I don\'t know the length of messages, and therefore I want use Scrollable MessageBox.

Answer 1

Take this one: FlexibleMessageBox – A flexible replacement for the .NET MessageBox

It is a tested class which seamlessly replaces all your usages of MessageBox.Show and lets you get more features in a single class file you can easily add to your project.

Answer 2

I just implemented a simple form with a scrollable multiline TextBox, when I needed something similar to show long status reports or exceptions caught by the application. You can alter borders, etc. to make it look more like a label, if you wish. Then just new one up and call its ShowDialog method, or wrap its instantiation in some static member similar to MessageBox. Far as I know, the .NET team hasn't built in anything more flexible than MessageBox.

EDIT FROM COMMENT:

The code to make a window with a textbox that can be shown using a static method is fairly simple. While I generally don't like overt requests for code, I'll oblige this time:

public class SimpleReportViewer : Form
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="SimpleReportViewer"/> class.
    /// </summary>
    //You can remove this constructor if you don't want to use the IDE forms designer to tweak its layout.
    public SimpleReportViewer()
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        if(!DesignMode) throw new InvalidOperationException("Default constructor is for designer use only. Use static methods instead.");
    }

    private SimpleReportViewer(string reportText)
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        txtReportContents.Text = reportText;
    }

    private SimpleReportViewer(string reportText, string reportTitle)
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        txtReportContents.Text = reportText;
        Text = "Report Viewer: {0}".FormatWith(reportTitle);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Shows a SimpleReportViewer with the specified text and title.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reportText">The report text.</param>
    /// <param name="reportTitle">The report title.</param>
    public static void Show(string reportText, string reportTitle)
    {
        new SimpleReportViewer(reportText, reportTitle).Show();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Shows a SimpleReportViewer with the specified text, title, and parent form.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reportText">The report text.</param>
    /// <param name="reportTitle">The report title.</param>
    /// <param name="owner">The owner.</param>
    public static void Show(string reportText, string reportTitle, Form owner)
    {
        new SimpleReportViewer(reportText, reportTitle).Show(owner);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Shows a SimpleReportViewer with the specified text, title, and parent form as a modal dialog that prevents focus transfer.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reportText">The report text.</param>
    /// <param name="reportTitle">The report title.</param>
    /// <param name="owner">The owner.</param>
    public static void ShowDialog(string reportText, string reportTitle, Form owner)
    {
        new SimpleReportViewer(reportText, reportTitle).ShowDialog(owner);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Shows a SimpleReportViewer with the specified text and the default window title.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reportText">The report text.</param>
    public static void Show(string reportText)
    {
        new SimpleReportViewer(reportText).Show();
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Shows a SimpleReportViewer with the specified text, the default window title, and the specified parent form.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="reportText">The report text.</param>
    /// <param name="owner">The owner.</param>
    public static void Show(string reportText, Form owner)
    {
        new SimpleReportViewer(reportText).Show(owner);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Required designer variable.
    /// </summary>
    private System.ComponentModel.IContainer components = null;

    /// <summary>
    /// Clean up any resources being used.
    /// </summary>
    /// <param name="disposing">true if managed resources should be disposed; otherwise, false.</param>
    protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        if (disposing && (components != null))
        {
            components.Dispose();
        }
        base.Dispose(disposing);
    }

    #region Windows Form Designer generated code

    /// <summary>
    /// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
    /// the contents of this method with the code editor.
    /// </summary>
    private void InitializeComponent()
    {
        System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(SimpleReportViewer));
        this.txtReportContents = new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox();
        this.SuspendLayout();
        // 
        // txtReportContents
        // 
        this.txtReportContents.Anchor = ((System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles)((((System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Top | System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Bottom)
                                                                               | System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Left)
                                                                              | System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Right)));
        this.txtReportContents.Location = new System.Drawing.Point(13, 13);
        this.txtReportContents.Multiline = true;
        this.txtReportContents.Name = "txtReportContents";
        this.txtReportContents.ReadOnly = true;
        this.txtReportContents.ScrollBars = System.Windows.Forms.ScrollBars.Both;
        this.txtReportContents.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(383, 227);
        this.txtReportContents.TabIndex = 0;
        // 
        // SimpleReportViewer
        // 
        this.AutoScaleDimensions = new System.Drawing.SizeF(6F, 13F);
        this.AutoScaleMode = System.Windows.Forms.AutoScaleMode.Font;
        this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(408, 252);
        this.Controls.Add(this.txtReportContents);
        this.Icon = Properties.Resources.some_icon;
        this.Name = "SimpleReportViewer";
        this.SizeGripStyle = System.Windows.Forms.SizeGripStyle.Show;
        this.Text = "Report Viewer";
        this.ResumeLayout(false);
        this.PerformLayout();

    }

    #endregion

    private TextBox txtReportContents;
}

Usage:

var message = GetSomeRidiculouslyLongMessage();
//assumes it's called from inside another Form
SimpleReportViewer.ShowDialog(message, "My Message", this);

This particular implementation also supports displaying as an ordinary, non-dialog window using overloads of the Show() method.

Answer 3

I was looking for a scrollable messagebox for WPF - and then I found MaterialMessageBox, which is an (in my opinion) nice looking alternative to FlexibleMessageBox for WPF. You can download it from GitHub here: https://github.com/denpalrius/Material-Message-Box or install it as a nuget package inside Visual Studio (https://www.nuget.org/packages/MaterialMessageBox/).

The only problem I found was that you can't use it from outside the main thread, so my solution to that was to invoke the main thread and show the message from there: mainWindow.Dispatcher.Invoke(() => MaterialMessageBox.Show("message text"));